Uluru Road Trip: Central to South Explorer

On Sunday 9th Aug 2026, we fly from the Gold Coast to Sydney on Virgin flight VA 504 at 7.05am, and from Sydney to Uluru at 10:35am on Jetstar JQ660.

We join the APT tour Central to South Explorer. Tour number GOSA11. 9th - 19th August.

Sunday 9th August. Flight from Sydney to Uluru. JQ660. Dep Syd 10:35am. Eta AYQ 13:40. Booking no LIJUQY. Sails in the Desert.

Be met on arrival in Uluru and transfer to your hotel. Enjoy the afternoon at leisure before meeting your fellow travellers during a relaxed welcome dinner this evening.

Stay:
Two Nights, Uluru, Sails in the Desert

Daily: · Dinner

Mon 10th August. Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park

Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park
At sunrise, embark on a base tour of Uluru, hearing stories from the Dreamtime while you explore this icon. Afterwards, visit the Cultural Centre and wander through the exhibitions on show to learn more about Anangu culture and the park’s natural environment. This evening, enjoy a special Signature Experience.

Birds Around Uluru

Dawn and dusk at the waterholes are the show. Listen for the chiming, far-carrying song of the pied butcherbird — many people's pick for Australia's finest songster. Zebra finches move in tight, bouncing flocks with a call like a child's squeaky toy; where they gather, water is near. Spiny-cheeked and singing honeyeaters work the grevilleas, and galahs — pink and grey, raucous, tumbling out of the sky like larrikins — will be your constant companions from here to Melbourne. Idriess's mobs of screeching cockatoos are still there.

Zebra finches

Signature Experience – Sounds of Silence Dinner

Indulge in a Sounds of Silence dinner under the stars. Savour a glass of sparkling before helping yourself to a ‘bush tucker’ inspired buffet accompanied by the music of a didgeridoo. At the same time, immerse yourself in the spectacular Field of Light art installation.

Daily: · Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Tour of Uluru, the Cultural Centre. Sounds of Silence Dinner. Sails in the Desert.

Geology at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. A good place to start the whole story: Uluru and Kata Tjuta are eroded remnants of sediment laid down in a vast basin around 550 million years ago, then tilted almost vertical by later mountain-building. It's roughly the same era as the Ediacaran seas that later preserved Sprigg's fossils further south, so it sets the scene nicely.

Tue 11th August. Drive to Coober Pedy. Desert Cave Hotel

Cross into South Australia and arrive in the outback town of Coober Pedy. In order to avoid the heat, much of the town has been built underground, including your unique hotel. Its vast lunar-like landscapes have set the backdrop for many films, including Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Stay: Two Nights, Coober Pedy, Desert Cave Hotel

Daily: · Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Wed 12th August. Explore Coober Pedy. Umoona Opal Mine. Desert Cave Hotel

Today will be spent exploring Coober Pedy in greater depth. Most of the world’s opal comes from this tiny desert town, and you'll learn about how they are mined during a visit the Umoona Opal Mine. Explore the mine and get an insight into Indigenous and European settlement in the area. Return to your hotel for dinner this evening.

Geology at Coober Pedy. A geological detour from the Ediacaran story: opal here formed much later, in the Cretaceous, when silica-rich water percolated through sediments left by the inland sea that once covered central Australia. Worth knowing it's a completely different chapter to what you'll see in the Flinders — younger rocks, different process.

Daily: · Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Thurs 13th August. Drive Oodnadatta Track, Pub lunch at William Creek.

Oodnadatta Track, William Creek, Birdsville

Set off along the Oodnadatta Track and pass the Dingo Fence, a 5,614-kilometre fence built during the 1880s to keep dingoes and wild dogs out of lands where sheep and cattle grazed. Arrive in William Creek and enjoy a pub lunch before you board a scenic flight to Birdsville, where you'll spend the night at the iconic Birdsville Hotel.

Signature Experience – Travel the Oodnadatta Track

Embark on an unforgettable journey along the legendary Oodnadatta Track, where every turn reveals a new chapter of Australia's rich history and stunning landscapes. Traverse rugged terrain and ancient pathways, immersing yourself in the heart of the Outback's rugged beauty.

Geology at Oodnadatta Track, William Creek, Birdsville. You're crossing the edge of the Great Artesian Basin here — old inland-sea sediments again, this time functioning as a giant underground aquifer.

Birds from Coober Pedy to William Creek and the Oodnadatta Track

This is raptor country. The wedge-tailed eagle is unmissable: enormous, dark, diamond-tailed, usually standing on roadkill and lifting off insolently late. Nankeen kestrels hover beside the road like little rusty helicopters, and brown falcons sit sentinel on every second fence post. On the gibber itself, watch for two specialists found almost nowhere else: the gibberbird, a yellow-faced chat that runs rather than flies across the stones, and the cinnamon quail-thrush, which materialises out of ground that looks utterly lifeless. Orange chats and crimson chats flare like sparks in the saltbush after rain, and white-winged fairy-wrens — the males electric blue with white shoulders — tinkle along the bluebush. Emus will pace the car, and if you're lucky an Australian bustard will stalk haughtily through the mitchell grass.

Male White-winged fairywren

A glovebox tip: keep a running list, even a casual one. The Oodnadatta Track in a flood year can turn a non-birdwatcher into a birdwatcher in about three days, and the list becomes a lovely artefact of the trip — perhaps even a page in a future photobook.

Signature Experience – Scenic flight

Embark on a scenic flight to Birdsville. Witness the ever-changing landscape, where ancient river systems carve their way through the rugged terrain, and where the colours of the desert shift with the light of the setting sun.

Birds around Birdsville and the channel country

Boom seasons here produce the phenomena Idriess wrote about: budgerigar flocks in their thousands, wheeling like green smoke over the waterholes, and if the season is right, flock bronzewings — pigeons that mass in whirring thousands at dawn drinking spots near Birdsville. Black kites swarm over the town itself, especially around the bakery. In the coolibahs along the Diamantina look for brolgas — tall grey cranes that dance — and corellas in shrieking white clouds.

Brolga

Stay: Birdsville Hotel

Daily: · Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Fri 14th August. Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre. Arrive back into William Creek. Journey to Lake Eyre South. Walk on the dazzling salt flats. Hotel in Marree for dinner.

Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, Marree

This morning, enjoy an unforgettable Signature Experience at Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre. Arrive back into William Creek before journeying to Lake Eyre South. Here, you’ll walk on the dazzling salt flats subject to weather conditions. Explore the surrounding natural artesian mound springs, created from water deep within the Great Artesian Basin. Continue to your hotel in Marree for dinner.

Signature Experience – Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre Scenic Flight

Board an included scenic flight over Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre to gain a bird’s-eye view of this natural wonder. Keep an eye out for wildlife including the Lake Eyre dragon, as well as a variety of birdlife including corellas and wild emerald budgerigars. Soar over an incredible area where, prior to entering Lake Eyre, the Warburton Creek opens up to a plain that resembles a birdlife filled playground when the area has seen recent flooding. From here you will gain an appreciation of how it cuts an amazing track though the Simpson Desert all the way from Queensland.

Geology at Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, Marree. Australia's lowest point, and a genuinely young geological feature by comparison — a shallow, ephemeral salt basin still actively forming today.

Birds of Lake Eyre and the flood spectacle

In flood years the lake hosts breeding events that are genuinely world-famous. Australian pelicans arrive in their tens of thousands from as far as the coast — nobody fully understands how they know — and raise young on islands in the lake. Banded stilts, elegant white waders with a chestnut breast-band, breed almost nowhere else on Earth except flooded inland salt lakes; a mass breeding is a once-in-years event. Add red-necked avocets with their upturned bills, clouds of whiskered terns and gull-billed terns, and rafts of ducks, and your scenic flight may pass over more birds than you'll ever see in one place again. From the air, pelican colonies look like drifts of snow on the islands.

Red-necked avocet

Oodnadatta Track

Stay: Marree Hotel

Daily: · Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Sat 15th August. Explore Gammon Ranges National Park. Lunch at the Native Pine restaurant. Stay at Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary.

Gammon Ranges National Park, Arkaroola

Today, explore Gammon Ranges National Park, famed for its rugged ranges and deep gorges. Arrive later at Arkaroola in the heart of the Gammon Ranges National Park. Within the 610 square kilometre of wilderness sanctuary, discover rugged mountain ranges, impressive gorges, countless species of birds, and the endangered yellow-footed rock-wallaby. Arkaroola serves as a haven for wildlife enthusiasts, birdwatchers and bushwalkers. After time to explore, enjoy a two-course lunch at the Native Pine restaurant.

Geology at Gammon Ranges National Park, Arkaroola. This is where it gets properly old: the Mount Painter Inlier around Arkaroola exposes some of the oldest rocks in South Australia, over a billion years old — older than the Adelaide Geosyncline rocks that host the Ediacaran fossils further south. And of course this is Sprigg's own patch of ground.

Stay: Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary

Daily: · Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Sun 16th August. Drive to Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park. Brachina Gorge. Wilpena Pound Resort.

Arkaroola, to Wilpena Pound

This afternoon, arrive at Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park, a cultural, historical and geological wonder renowned for its spectacular 800-million-year-old landscapes. Follow in the footsteps of Douglas Mawson as you spend the afternoon in the geological site of Brachina Gorge.

The Ediacaran ran from about 635 to 539 million years ago, and the Cambrian from about 539 to 485 million years ago — so the boundary between them sits right around 539 million years (the officially pinned figure is 538.8).

Two details that will mean something on your trip: the Ediacaran is the only geological period named after an Australian place — the Ediacara Hills in the Flinders, where Sprigg found his fossils — and it's the first new period added to the geological timescale in over a century (ratified in 2004). Better still, the official global reference point for the base of the Ediacaran, the "golden spike," is physically located at Enorama Creek in Brachina Gorge. Since Brachina Gorge is on your itinerary, you'll be able to stand at the actual marker that defines the period for the whole planet. The gorge road is set up as a geological trail that drives you forward through time, from about 650 to 500 million years ago, so you cross from the Ediacaran into the Cambrian in the space of a few kilometres.

The boundary itself marks the Cambrian explosion — the moment Sprigg's soft, quilted creatures gave way to animals with shells, eyes and skeletons.

Keep an eye out for the endangered yellow-footed rock-wallaby as you explore the quartzite-ridged gorge, which was once used as a thoroughfare where bullock teams pulled their loads. Set among river red gums and native pines, Wilpena Pound Resort is the perfect base for exploring Wilpena Pound National Park.

Geology at Arkaroola, Wilpena Pound. Wilpena Pound is the classic Flinders Ranges image — a huge synclinal rock basin rimmed by Rawnsley Quartzite, part of the same folded sequence (the Adelaide Geosyncline) that preserves the Ediacaran fossils.

Stay: Two Nights, Wilpena Pound Resort

Daily: · Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Mon 17th August. Wilpena Pound, Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park. Optional flight. (We have booked) Wilpena Pound Resort.

Wilpena Pound, Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park

This morning is yours to explore at leisure. Perhaps take a scenic flight over Wilpena Pound to gain a true appreciation of this natural wonder. After lunch, embark on a guided walk to explore the incredible natural surrounds of Wilpena Pound. This evening, enjoy dinner back at your resort.

Geology at Wilpena Pound, Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park. This is where Brachina Gorge sits, so your geological trail day — driving through the exposed, tilted layers that record roughly 130 million years of that ancient sea.

Corridor Through Time: Rocks become progressively younger as you drive west, showing deep sea, glacial, and river sediment deposits from 650 to 500 million years ago.

Brachina Gorge

Brachina Gorge Geological Trail

Birds of the Flinders Ranges and south

At Wilpena listen for the Australian ringneck (the local race is the Port Lincoln parrot — black head, green body, yellow collar) and watch the red gum creeks for the red-capped robin, a tiny jewel of scarlet and black. Wedge-tails ride the thermals off the Pound walls. And if your drive to Melbourne takes the coastal route through the Coorong, you'll close a literary loop: this is the setting of Storm Boy by Colin Thiele — the same Barossa author I recommended — and its pelicans, along with fairy terns and migratory waders from Siberia, are still there.

Port Lincoln parrot

Red-capped robin

Daily: · Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Tue 18th August. Clare Valley. Lunch at the Watervale Hotel. Arrive in Adelaide. Farewell dinner at the Watervale Hotel. Stay at The Playford Hotel.

Clare Valley, Adelaide

Farewell Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park as you make your way through the wine-growing district of the Clare Valley. Here, enjoy lunch at the Watervale Hotel, showcasing the locally grown produce. Arrive in Adelaide and celebrate the end of your journey during a farewell dinner.

Signature Experience – Dine at the Watervale Hotel

Visit the highly acclaimed Watervale Hotel for a delightful meal featuring local produce from the hotel’s organic, bio-dynamic farm in the Clare Valley.

Daily: · Breakfast · Lunch · Dinner

Wed 19th August. Collect car from Apex Car Rentals at Adelaide Airport.