Outback

A journey of a lifetime Pt1. Melrose to Yourambulla.

Mar 19, 2026

In my younger days, the thought of travelling to the opposite side of our precious globe would have never entered my head. Back in 2013, though, the unthinkable became reality and our whole family made that epic, near twenty-four-hour flight ‘down under’.

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Camping at Melrose. Pete setting up the night before and then enjoying a morning brew, along with Meg, before the day's travels.

The trip was essentially in three sections, arriving in Sydney for about a week, seeing the sights, then a week following the south eastern coastline, through Melbourne and up to Adelaide, where we spent a further couple of weeks with my Cousin Meg and her husband Pete.

This also gave us the opportunity whilst there to meet my Aunt, who’d moved to Australia in 1949 with her husband and who I’d not seen face to face since I was little more than a babe in arms back in the late 60s.

Anyway, as is my wont, I’m putting the cart before the horse a little here, beginning at the end as it were, or near it, during our stay in Adelaide. This particular journey was more like a great odyssey in time, visiting relics of this land’s ancient ancestors and the messages they left behind.

Some of the local residents, bolth plant and animal.

Our journey got off to a good start, camping under the stars on the first night in the middle of a field in the township of Melrose. Until then I never realised how wondrous the southern night sky is. I looked up into the clear night air, looking at these ‘glowing clouds’. For a brief moment I thought to myself ‘wow, where’s that light coming from, where’re the city lights?’ My brain finally clicked after a prompt from Meg, that I was actually looking at the Milky Way as they see it, as one can only see it in those truly dark skies so far away from man’s light pollution. I stood there for some moments, looking up in total awe. Sadly, for some reason, I never took a photo of it. Alas, it was one that got away (all was not totally lost, though, as we will see in part 2).

The following morning was once again fine and clear, the Australian winter gifting us folk from the north a pleasant summer’s day. Perfect conditions to head out towards a wondrous nearby natural geological feature called Alligator Gorge. We all piled in to Tonka, Meg and Pete’s robust Toyota 4x4, and set off from our base camp.

The Gorge is a magnificent sheer-sided ravine (fortunately free of said creatures). The water levels were unusually low for that time of year, not so good for locals, but it did afford us relatively straightforward walking passage through. Back to base briefly before breaking camp and heading off in convoy, Irene, our two boys and me in our RV rental following Meg and Pete’s lead.

1,2,3) Down in the gorge. 4) Another lovely gum tree. 5) Heading back up. 6) A little bee's bum. 7) Triffid.

The next leg took us to the small town of Quorn and it’s old railway station, part of the Pichi Richi Railway It’s always nice to see a peeserved steam railway.

Onward, then, to north-northeast toward Kanyaka Station, a long since abandoned cattle and sheep station.

There was a slightly eerie quiet to the ruins, in place of what would once have been a thriving community. Mother Nature had the last word, though, with a series of severe droughts proving to be the death-nell of the settlement.

The next destination of the day was the Yourambulla Cave and it’s wondrous, mysterious paintings created by the local Adnyamathanha people hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. It was a bit of a climb up from the road, but so worth it, once there. The cave gets it’s name from the two hills that can be viewed across the way opposite the entrance, of two companions travelling together in the Dreamtime.