Lonely Planet Central Australia: Adelaide to Darwin (Regional Guide)

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Lonely Planet has been researching Australia’s dusty backroads for 32 years. This new, meticulously researched guide to Australia’s center will enrich any travels in the region, whether short excursions from Darwin, Alice or Adelaide, or epic road trips all the way from the Great Australian Bight to the Top End.

Lonely Planet guides are written by experts who get to the heart of every destination they visit. This fully updated edition is packed with accurate, practical and honest advice,

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Adelaide, Australia

Adelaide, South Australia was recently granted Australia ‘s highest heritage honor with its inclusion on the National Heritage List. Named after Queen Adelaide, the consort of King William IV, this enchanting coastal city situated on the eastern side of Gulf St. Vincent was founded by the controversial Colonel William Light as a “planned capital” in 1836 for the only freely settled British province in Australia. A leader in world-first reforms, Adelaide was shaped by religious freedom, civil liberties and political progressivism.

Today, Adelaide is the seat of South Australia ’s government and the major commercial site of regional governmental and financial institutions. But before British settlement and “Light’s Vision,” as it was known, came along, Adelaide was mostly bushland, swamps and marshes. Its traditional owners and inhabitants were the now extinct Koruna aboriginal peoples whose already tiny population was decimated by an early 19th century smallpox epidemic. Adelaide was originally called “Tandanya” which translates as “place of the Red Kangaroo”.

Much of Adelaide ’s original vegetation has been cleared but preserved in such nearby sanctuaries as Belair National Park and Cleland Conservation Park . Adelaide is easily accessible by bicycle to native bushland hiking in the Mount Lofty Ranges . Adelaide has a Mediterranean climate with most rainfall in the winter months of June through August and little to no snowfall.

Light’s Vision — which was originally very unpopular with not only early settlers by South Australia’s first Governor — set out Adelaide in a grid, interspaced by large public squares and wide boulevards all entirely surrounded by parkland. The benefits of Light’s Vision immediately became apparent commercially and aesthetically. Adelaide had easily navigable, wide multi-lane roads from its very beginning, along with a beautiful green ring around the city center. Also from its original design, there are two sets of “ring roads” within Adelaide , the inner ring route bordering parklands and the outer route completely bypassing the inner city. Where mostly bushland had been before, now a number of creeks and rivers flow through the Adelaide region. As the free settling, early European colonists and other diverse cultures began to arrive in 1836, Adelaide blossomed into a vibrant, European-style mecca that nearly two centuries later has become known throughout the world as an epicurean, artistic playground with eclectic cuisines, magnificent wines and an unparalleled arts and culture scene.

Today as a state capital, Adelaide is home to a great number of cultural institutions. But in the 1970s, after more puritanical restrictions on cultural activities all over Australia were finally being lifted, Adelaide began emerging in its own right as a capital of the arts. In these years the world-renowned Adelaide Festival of the Arts and the Fringe Festival were established. Along with “Tasting Australia,” a biennial food and wine celebration, Adelaide can also boast that is home to the Adelaide Christmas Pageant, the world’s largest Christmas parade, attracting crowds of over 400,000 and televised to millions more.

For more information on Australia, visit http://www.adelaidemicroblog.com and http://www.sydneymicroblog.com.

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Perth & Western Australia (Regional Guide)

Savor the lush forests and vintage surf of the Margaret River region (and get the low-down on the good drops with our wine section), p123.

Spread your toes and sink your feet into white sand at Lucky Bay, another contender for ‘most beautiful beach in Australia,’ p151.

Drink in the lifestyle of Perth, the world’s most remote city of its size, then relearn the meaning of remote in awesome Kimberley, p222.

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Ayers Rock: Iconic Symbol of Australia

Ayers Rock, Australia, which is now officially known by its aboriginal name “Uluru”, is a gigantic rock that rise up out of the ground and towers over the surrounding land in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in the Land Down Under. It is of tremendous importance to Australia, both as an iconic national symbol, and as a place with deep cultural and spiritual significance to the local aboriginals.

Ayers Rock (Uluru) and the entire Kata Tjuta National Park is administered jointly by the local Anangu people and Parks Australia. The Anangu people cherish Uluru because in this harsh desert outback region, the stone serves as a source of water. It is also deeply evocative of their traditonal culture and mythology, in which it has always played a central role.

Ayers Rock is composed of layers of hardened sandstone. The reason it looks orange or reddish brown is because of the effects of oxidization on the sandstone. On the northwest and southeast sides of the massive rock, erosion has created narrow paths for water to travel down, so after storms these paths become filled with rain water and drain as water falls that reach the ground below. This became the source of much of the Anangu’s drinking water.

Uluru offers spectacular views of the inhospitable land surrounding it, and it’s fun to have a look around at the summit. It can, however, be dangerous to climb all the way to the summit because of the steepness of the climb, lack of proper trails, and incredibly strong winds that sometimes come. Every year somebody dies attempting to climb, or descend from, the summit. The local authorities discourage climbing, and unless you are an expert outdoorsman and climber you should consider a helicopter tour that can safely transport you so you can see the expansive views without risking your safety.

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From 1915, when the first opal was discovered, until the present; the tiny Outback town of Cooder Pedy has been famous for its high quality opals and has become a tourist destination. You will be utterly amazed at the amount of interesting things there are to do and see in and around this remote town with its population of under 4000. For a small town, it packs a big wallop.

The distances that this unique town is from major cities will stun you. Roughly halfway between Alice Springs and Adelaide, the term “in the middle of nowhere” is a term that could aptly be applied to Coober Pedy. Known as the opal capital of the world, Coober Pedy is the largest opal-mining town in Australia.

The Australian Outback is renowned for its unforgiving environment and searing temperatures. Cooder Pedy is no exception. With temperatures of over 100F most of the year, except in the winter when the temperature drops to the 90F range, many residents of this small town have adapted their lifestyle to accommodate those grueling mid-afternoon temperatures.

Underground homes are the norm, as opposed to the exception here. Abandoned mines have been converted to subterranean abodes that remain at a fairly constant temperature year round, negating the need for air-conditioning. Other homes have been purpose built in underground for about the same cost as a traditional above ground house. The underground world scenes in the movie “Mad Max – Beyond the Thunderdome” were filmed in one of the best known homes in Coober Pedy, Crocodile Harry’s Underground Nest.

The first church to be built underground in Coober Pedy was the little church of Saint Peter & Paul’s Catholic Church. Starting out as a non-denominational place of worship, this unique church became a reality through the sweat of the community. Other churches have since followed suit providing residents with a comfortable place to worship.

Some shops, art galleries, and hotels incorporated the underground lifestyle into their business. The Desert Cave Hotel, Comfort Inn Coober Pedy Experience Motel, Desert View Motel, Radeka’s Dugout Motel, and The Underground Motel all offer the opportunity of living underground, albeit only for the length of your visit. Radeka’s was originally an opal mine that was converted to a motel in the mid-1980s. If your taste runs to B&Bs, there are dugouts B&Bs as well.

You can stroll to the Temptation Café and have a bite to eat in one of only three underground cafes in the world. Once you leave the delightful café, you can go “noodling”, or searching for opals, in the public area. Who knows, you may find a decent opal to memorialize your visit to this amazing town…others have.