Our Aussie Adventures

We were happily reminded this morning that we are still resolutely ensconced within the tropics, the sun beating down strongly through a sky inhabited by just enough clouds to give it some depth.

It was to be another day of rest today, and unlike our previous day of respite, we didn’t even have any chores to set our hand to. Except that is, for the ubiquitous load of washing, but even that had been minimised to a single little consignment. We then set about wrangling our outdoor chairs into such a position as to best take advantage of the warming solar rays. With the dogs lying contentedly on their own camp beds, snorting only sporadically at a rare passer by here an there, Bec and I both dipped our hats to prevent stray sunbeams from scorching our retinas, as we angled our noses towards our books, the yet to be perused pages decreasing at an alarming rate.

While Alvin Keeps An Eye On Things,

Bec Reads,

And Marcus Takes Photos Of Himself.

Bethany Sleeps, 

Even our lunch was a restrained affair, although that was due to reasons of inevitability. Whilst in Alice Springs last week, we had ensured that we stocked our larder with a wide range of provisions to cater for our dinners. What we hadn’t quite countered on was that with the nearest general store being a whopping great 150KM away, back in the Alice, rations for a regular midday feed really ought to have been included on our otherwise comprehensive shopping list. This saw us dining on ham and cheese sandwiches, minus the outer sheathing of bread, of which we had none.

That then, was pretty much our day. Our evening fared a similar fate, as dinner was prepared and devoured, before we later took the dogs for a walk that turned out to be somewhat more of a marathon for them. Bethany spent the remainder of the night, to our profound consternation, panting and wheezing breathlessly, with nothing we did having any significant calming effect on her.

Having been a peculiarly enervating day of doing nothing, we retired early, each turning the closing leaves of our respective books before staring at the enchanted box of moving pictures until such time as the plug was pulled on the power for the evening.

That folks, is all she wrote for today.

Until next time, have fun, stay safe and don’t forget to write.

In a thorough juxtaposition to yesterdays relaxing arousal from slumber, today we were roused from our repose entirely too early to be chirpy, by the regimental sounding of the alarm. It didn’t help our moods that this early morning wake up call was dictated by our itinerary, which had us hitting the road again. To put a further nail in the coffin within which our good moods were interred, when we did drive out of the tranquil serenity of the caravan park, it was to turn the wrong way onto the highway. And by saying that, I don’t mean that I made a rare and momentous error in navigation, but that by having reached Wauchope (which I have now learned is pronounced something similar to War-cope) we had reached the zenith of our sojourn, and today, were pointing ‘The Beast’ in a southerly direction once more. From here on in, apart from a couple of minor deviations, each day we spend upon the trail of tar through the desert will actually be bringing us nearer to home rather than the much more exciting prospect of becoming further removed from thereabouts.

Saying Goodbye To Wauchope.

So with nothing else for it, we bid a fond farewell to Wauchope, put the sun on the wrong side of the truck and got underway as the narrow ribbon of road stretched endlessly ahead of us. In parts, the highway literally seemed to meld with the sun bleached blue of the sky, the road swimming in a shimmering heat haze that reflected a mirror of the azure. An optical illusion commiserate with that of a rainbow, it seemed you would drive right on into the sky, but we never did manage to make it close enough.

On The Road.

An hour or so after beginning our days trek, we decided to make a pit stop at the diminutive Barrow Creek. Like most other far flung outposts, there is little more here than a tattered old building proclaiming to be the local petrol station, hotel and everything else all rolled into one. There is also the chance to walk about the grounds of the still standing telegraph station. One of only four such stations left erect, along the telegraph line the once ran from Adelaide in the south, to Darwin in the north, in days long gone, before the advent of mobile telephones or even the old stalwart of the fixed line phone.

As The Sign Says.

At The Telegraph Station.

The hardiness of the building is evident, in that it is still standing to this day, having been almost continually occupied from its inception right through until the 1980’s, with little more than a new roof furnished in 1941 after the old one blew away in a raging desert storm. The now 74 year old roof looks as good as new.

I also took this opportunity to perform a little weight redistribution, pouring the contents of a jerry can down the throat of ‘The Beast’. That would provide us with the range to make it to the next diminutive little town along the trail, where I was hoping that fuel would cost less than the $2.00 a litre we had been offered at Wauchope.

It was a further hour on down the line that we pulled into Ti Tree, a rather substantial town compared to the road houses to which we have become accustomed to, with a range of services available and even enough streets that they needed naming. It also had cheap fuel much to our relief. Only $1.92 per litre for diesel! Topping off the tanks of ‘The Beast’ saw my hip pocket bleed to the tune of over $200.00, but that and the sole remaining tin of spare fuel in the back should now see us back to civilisation.

Moving off once more, we soon converged on the intersection of the Stuart Highway and the Plenty Highway, where we turned left and pointed the nose of the rig east. We ignored a couple of hitch hikers sitting in the shade of the sign that indicated that while it was about 500km to the Queensland border, our final destination for the day at Gemtree, was substantially closer, with only a further 70km to pass beneath the wheels before our arrival.

I did the mental calculations and figured we’d be there in only ¾ of an hour, but only a couple of hundred metres further along, the Plenty Highway turned into the not so Plenty Highway, as the road narrowed to a one lane strip of well worn bitumen, abutted on either side by rough and rocky shoulders of tyre compacted red dirt. With each and every oncoming vehicle, I needed to rapidly impede our forward progress to a pace which allowed for me to steer safely onto the rutted dirt. With a wave of the hand, our rig would pass the opposing vehicle, before the whole maneuver had to be reversed to get us back onto the blacktop and up to speed once more. For what appeared to be a minor road, it was certainly carrying a lot of traffic. Coupled with twists and turns, blind crests and wandering cattle, it was a harrowing drive that saw our average speed drop to well below that which I had envisioned. It was over an hour later that we turned off of the highway for a final time, navigating the final kilometre dirt track into the caravan park. I was exhausted by this stage, but we had made it.

Shutting ‘The Beast’ down, both Bec and I wandered into the reception, where the staff were most receptive of us once we informed them that we had made a booking. Being the high season in these parts, a powered site, or any for that matter is hard to come by without a booking. So imagine our utter dismay and disbelief when our booking could not be located. Our names were there in black and white for extra activities we have requested for Saturday, but our actual site booking was missing. Then a note was found, having us arriving tomorrow, rather than today. Thankfully, with a little arranging of things at their end, a site was located for us, although in an enduring mystery we never did quite discover whose muck up it really was. With our lodging arrangements sorted, our added undertakings confirmed and the park rules explained, including the explanation of all on-site power being provided by a generator which only runs between the hours of 6:30AM and 10:30PM, we were soon being guided towards our bush block like camping site by a bloke on a quad bike.

He pointed out our site, where we could connect to power and water, as well as the nearby ablutions block. A quick survey of our site found that it would be most suitable for our short stay here, and we rapidly arranged the tin can to take best advantage of the shade thrown by the surrounding foliage. With our campsite set up, we sat beneath the shade of the awning, a warm wind tickling our arms and legs, sipping on icy cold beverages, the serenity spoilt only by the constant grumbling drone of the nearby generator.

The rest of the afternoon and evening were spent relaxing, until just before 10:30PM when we began to debate the merits of switching the TV over to battery power in readiness for the nightly disruption to power. After a big day, it was quickly decided that it would be easier to just switch the idiot box off at the wall and have an early night. It was about 10:45PM that the hum of the generator ceased, and the silence was deafening. With no noise of which to speak of and a complete absence of lights, the blackness was complete and sleep came easily.

Until next time, have fun, stay safe and don’t forget to write.

No alarms, nowhere to be and nothing to do all added up to equal a very relaxing, if late start to the day this morning. If not for the gusting wind slamming noisily into the flank of the van, we may have even dozed later than the 10:00AM that we did.

It mattered little whether we had slept longer, as even once we did lethargically arise from our ample slumber, it was just to potter around lazily. We have designated today as a day of rest, a day whence we can catch up with a myriad of little jobs that need doing whilst the chance presents itself, a day when relaxation will hopefully reign supreme. For me, that meant sitting down in front of the computer to deftly narrate in rambling discourse the thus far missing chapters of our continuing adventures, even if I will still be unable to post my tales for some time to come. Bec in the mean time managed to feed an almost continuous stream of dirty clothes through our miniature, but hardworking washing machine, making good use of the water supply for which we fought so hard yesterday to secure. There was even a trip over to the outdoor camp laundry to wash my lucky maroon blanket, which is starting to smell more of canine than blanket. With the rugby league state of origin decider to be played this evening, I am stoically hoping that a launder will be of more good for it than bad, and that the luck hasn’t been washed from its nylon fibres. Go Queensland.

As I sat, almost finished with my dissertation of our most recent activities, Bec started on her final assignment, the washing of the dishes. It was not to be too long before we could enter phase two of the day, the long awaited for period of relaxation.

With our chores completed, and Becs finger bandaged after a small accident with a submerged knife that saw me having to complete the dish washing (although I’m still not convinced that she didn’t knick it on purpose to get out of washing the dishes), we dragged our camp chairs out of the shade and into the sun, to enjoy the warmth while we could. In fact, today has marked the first and possibly the last day of this trip, on which I have had to dig down to the deepest, darkest recesses of my closet to drag out one of the many pairs of shorts I brought along with me. While we perched ourselves on our comfortable pews in the sunshine, in a position that allowed us to survey the going ons of the park, watching as todays new arrivals turned up to play the all too familiar game of where shall we park, Alvin and Bethany curled up between us on their mats. While Alvin kept a careful eye on unfolding events, trivial as they were, Bethany was happy enough to fall into a deep sleep that was as close to comatose as could be.

Not A Bad Way To Spend The Day.

Whiling away the bulk of the day, the warm sun shining brightly down, as we contented ourselves, noses poked within our books, a more relaxing day we couldn’t have imagined. And it couldn’t have come at a better time, both of us a little worn out from the constant stream of activities that filled our days in Alice Springs, coupled with an exhausting drive just yesterday, not to mention the realisation that we have reached the half way point of our expedition, both in terms of duration and distance.

It wasn’t to be an entire waste of a day however, although it was 4:30PM by the time we ventured out from the confines of the caravan park, to undertake a second foray to the Devils Marbles. Since we have travelled in excess of 3000KM just to get to this point, we thought it puerile not to make the effort to have another look at them. Not only that, but yesterday we had failed to discover the locale of the most photographed of the orb like balls of rock and I was determined to have my photograph taken whilst standing beneath them.

Leaving the dogs behind today, we made the short jaunt down the track, still marveling at the boulder strewn landscape that surrounded us as we drove towards the main car park. Walking differing routes to those we took yesterday, we strove to unearth aspects and vistas we had not yet witnessed. We were rewarded by a completely new set of scenes upon which to feast our optic organs, accompanied by the ceaseless soundtrack of the camera shutters clicking away. Such was the scenery, I nearly impaled my neck on the sharp broken bough of a tree, while trying to get the perfect picture of Bec, instead of looking at where I was going. While I massaged the growing knot of a bruise, Bec failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation, and instead of rushing to my aid, found herself falling about laughing hysterically at my misfortune.

A Second Look At The Devils Marbles.

As the sun dipped beyond the distant horizon in yet another spectacular outback display of colours, we managed to find the two precariously balanced giant boulders that offer the archetypal image of the Devils Marbles. We can now add our own photographic interpretation to the no doubt millions of photos already floating around of these two most famous rocks.

The sun now only a memory for another day, we started back towards the caravan park, where there would only be a little time to prepare dinner before I sat myself down doggedly to watch the rugby game for which I have eagerly been awaiting. So much so, that it was the first entry added to our planning calendar in ink.

As it turned out, we dined during the early stages of the match, while Queensland happily ran away with the game in what could only be termed a walk over. A bright night it was indeed and I guess it takes a bit more than a tumble in a washing machine to wash any luck out of my blankie. Go Queensland.

Until next time, have fun, stay safe and don’t forget to write.

Another early morning wake up call was necessitated this morning by our ongoing travels today. We quickly packed up our belongings, stowing everything securely for transport and bidding a fond farewell to what has been our plot of dirt for the last week. With the tin can again re-mated to the hitch on ‘The Beast’ we heaved the dogs into their pews, while we clambered up into our own front row seats, all ready to make a swift departure, only to find our egress from the park blocked by a couple in a campervan, stopped in front of us, while they sloshed some fresh water into their water tanks.

We waited patiently for their refilling affair to conclude, then as per our plan, we hit the road, skirting the edges of Alice Springs and as Adam Brand would sing: “My mind was made and my bags were packed and that GPS was set for Tennant Creek” (Get On Down The Road, Adam Brand). We are in fact continuing on a northerly tack today, but not actually quite as far up as Tennant Creek. Rather, we will be stopping short at Wauchope, but since Wauchope doesn’t rate a mention in the database of towns held in the memory banks of ‘Shazza’, the Creek was the nearest locality I could pinpoint.

Leaving Alice Springs, we spent a good period looking up through the windscreen at clear blue skies, as we ascended the outlying ranges, before the road leveled out. It was then only a few more kilometres down the road that we passed a pair of innocuous enough looking, yet exciting signs. What are actually some of the rarest signs in Australia, they indicated the beginning of Australias only stretch of road with an unrestricted speed limit. Far from the zebra striping of rubber tyre tracks that I had expected, it seemed no different than any of the other averagely finished roads we have travelled along, bumps, undulations, pot holes and all.

Signs Of…

…The Times.

Despite Becs incessant urging, I locked hip, knee and ankle, resolutely keeping an even pressure on the long skinny pedal on the right, keeping ‘The Beast’ chugging along steadily at a few notches past the ton in the metric vernacular. Even this sedate pace saw us closing in on other traffic, at which I must admit I did nudge ‘The Beast’ up to the 130Km/h mark on the speedo, as we did the overtaking. Here I was thinking that a close eye on the rear view mirrors would be required to spot low flying sports cars passing us at warp speed, and yet it was actually us doing the bulk of the overtaking. The locals obviously don’t take this whole derestricted thing seriously!

Not far into the derestricted zone, I noticed a sign out of the corner of my eye, suggesting that we were about to cross the Tropic of Capricorn. With an almost tyre screeching application of brakes, we swung off the highway into the little roadside stop, where a monument was erected for our photographic pleasure. Having crossed this same imaginary line across the ground on both the east coast and the west coast on our around Australia odyssey, we though it fitting to now be crossing it in the centre as well. With pictographic evidence of our achievement in hand, we mounted up again and continued into the tropical north.

More Man Spreading? Sort Of.

A little over 4 hours after having left Alice Springs, we found ourselves approaching the Wauchope Hotel and Caravan Park. Situated on a siding not much bigger than that at the Tropic of Capricorn, this outback mixed business is where we will be spending the next couple of evenings. Hardly a town in the true sense of the word, it’s a single building which serves amply as a pub, petrol station (with diesel available at the prime cost of $2.00 a litre), hotel, bottle shop and reception for the non-descript gravel yard out the back which is the caravan park. With a few shipping containers converted into basic, but adequate cabins, there was also room to park a ½ a dozen vans, all connected to power. As we slid the van easily onto our site, we came to the realisation that while power was plentiful for each site, water was not so, evidenced by the haste in which the bloke on the site next to us rapidly connected his hose up to the sole water tap the moment he saw our own water hose extracted from the boot of the tin can.

With a little investigation by Bec, she located a second tap at the opposite end of the grounds, luckily within the confines of the only site left to offer a modicum of shade. Thankful that we hadn’t yet unhitched, we quickly redeployed to site number two. A much better choice I must admit, notwithstanding my grumbling about the embarrassment of blundering about the park, not to mention the briskly ticking over of the extra cost of diesel involved.

Regardless, cocooned as we became between trees, the shade was a welcome relief from the tropical heat as we set about unencumbering ‘The Beast’ from the van and laying out the various accouterments required to provide us with all of the luxuries to which we are accustomed, including spending a good deal of time carefully aligning the satellite dish to ensure that we have reception for tomorrow nights big rugby league state of origin game. Had an apposite picture not been obtained, we would have been in for a long and immediate return to Alice Springs!

Having settled in, thankfully with crystal clear television reception, we bundled back into ‘The Beast’ to travel the 10km further north, to where the entire reason behind our journey lay. We are only 100 odd kays from intersecting the path once travelled when we toured around Australia and had come this time to see the Devils Marbles. We had been agonizingly near them when we last toured, but had expunged them from our itinerary in favour of other destinations. Having since felt that we had missed out, now was our chance at redemption.

Only a short jaunt up the highway from Wauchope, we took the road as indicated into the park, to be almost instantaneously surrounded by hulking great orange boulders, strewn across the landscape, many seemingly impossibly and precariously perched atop each other. Timing it as we did, to coincide with sundown, the final rays of light gave rise to an ever changing kaleidoscope of colours reflecting from the rocks. We climbed and clambered over and about them, along with dozens of others who were all here for the same thing. Each rock we rounded opened up another unbelievable vista for the camera to record for all posterity.

OUR FIRST LOOK AT THE DEVILS MARBLES.

The drive back to the caravan park was just as beautiful, as the western horizon became the stage for the miraculous light show of dusk, the foreground of Mulga silhouetted against the deep purples of the fading light. A sight like never you would see in the city, and even difficult to comprehend out here as it takes place right before your very eyes.

Until next time, have fun, stay safe and don’t forget to write.

What, with it being our final day in ‘The Alice’ today, we decided to enjoy a leisurely lie in, followed by a heart stopping fry up of bacon and eggs for breakfast. What better way to start the day, even if we were starting it relatively late. We figured that it wouldn’t hamper us to any great degree, as we have only a little bit of last minute shopping planned for this morning, before starting the ominous task of stripping the annex from the flank of the van, ready for travel tomorrow.

Therefore, it was already past midday before we managed to scuttle out of the park, heading for town. We made a few stops at different stores, including the oft advertised ‘Desert Dwellers’. It might sound to the casual reader, a little odd that we have been visiting with possibly undue relish, places that we have seen advertised on TV. The reason is, even at home, we run our little satellite box to watch TV and the bulk of the advertising we see is from Northern Territory businesses. It has been a bit of a running joke, pointing out all the places we’ve become familiar with as a result of watching a little bit more TV than necessary That’s why it was almost in jest that we found ourselves at ‘Desert Dwellers’ where “the camping guru says, if we don’t have it, you don’t need it!” As it turned out, I must have needed another neoprene can cooler, because sure enough, they had it.

Our next halt was at the little craft store that had been closed yesterday. Thankfully today, we were warmly welcomed by the little old lady in charge of the collection of crafty works available for purchase. We walked away with an original watercolour painting of Uluru. While not essentially the Aboriginal work of art for which we have been searching, nevertheless, we both thought it would look good dangling on a wall back home. We now just need to decide exactly which wall that will be.

On the way out, as we walked through the car park, Bec spotted some bushels of the resplendent Stuarts Desert Pea. We wandered about, looking for a prime huddle of buds to photograph, finding a stunning stem in full bloom. As I finished taken a few close up pictures, in an effort to display them in all their grandeur, Bec began trying to separate the blooms from the bush on which they grew. I told her that it was common bush acumen to take only flowers as I quickly walked back towards ‘The Beast’ in embarrassment. Not Bec though, who followed a few steps behind me, saying: “Well take a photo of this then” as she proudly held up her ill gotten bunch of vivid red Desert Peas.

Found It. The Perfect Specimen.

Working On Getting The Perfect Shot.

Take Only Photos I Said.

It was back to the Todd Mall then, to have a last viewing of an artwork that we have both decided that we do like, but that is not only outside of our limited budget, but also too big for us to envision being able to hang at home. A traditional dot painting work, by an artist from the wilds of South Australia, it had us mesmerized. Even putting our budget aside, figuring out how to suitably display it is the principal factor in it remaining on the wall of the gallery.

We then had a quick blast around the supermarket, stocking up on tucker to last us for the next week. After we leave Alice Springs, we will be roughing it to some extent as we travel further north. For at least a week, we are not expecting to be within easy range of any sizable communes at which to replenish our supplies, so everything we are going to need, we need to buy today. We just had to do it quickly, as time had gotten away from us and despite our relaxed start to the day, we were quickly becoming harried in our endeavor to fit in everything that we needed to. I feared that there might be certain things that we might have to give miss to, such as my promised dip in the pool. How was I to know that the temperature would actually top 20^oC before we left here? It actually topped out at almost 22^oC, which was made even more the stimulating when we heard from friends at home in Melbourne, telling us just how cold and miserable the weather is that we were missing. Oh, the sheer delight of it all!

Back at the van, as Bec unpacked groceries, adroitly filling every available nook and cranny with our new purchases, I set about pulling the circus tent down that is our annex. The job was easier than I had expected, and we quickly went from having a canvas clad second room, to having nothing more than a patch of sun starved grass and dirt beside us.

It may have well been a reasonably quick task, although it still precluded me from donning my swim trunks as a consequence of the deficiency of time and a desire to use our last evening in Alice Springs to trek up the nearby ANZAC Hill Lookout to view the setting of the sun. Much to Becs chagrin, I was to stay dry.

With barely minutes to spare, our work done, the van mostly ready for travel tomorrow, the dogs feed, watered and walked, we mounted up in ‘The Beast’ and took off in haste, in an effort to beat the sun. By the time we reached the crest of ANZAC Hill, just on the outskirts of the Alice Springs township, the golden orb had already disappeared from view, sinking behind the silhouetted hills in the foreground, but the view was nonetheless spectacular, as the sky came to life in a vibrant hue of orange in one direction and a range of blues, violets and pinks in the opposite.

Dusk Over The Alice.

Before heading back to the van, we stopped in town for a final restaurant dinner, stopping at the also advertised on TV ‘Red Ochre Bar and Grill’. The food was delectable, but was far from a budget feed. Two bits of damper and a pat of butter was $9.00. In the same price bracket, we were served a small bowl of chunky fries, alongside another $9.00 bowl containing a few steamed greens. Regardless of the price, we left fully sated, having had the opportunity to taste test kangaroo, emu, camel and for Bec, the chicken. At least we can now tick off our list of things to do, eating both side of the Australian Coat of Arms.

Finally, it was time to head for home, where at last we could relax. I am certain that we will need the rest, for it will be a big day on the wallaby tomorrow. And just a reminder, we will be spending the bulk of the next week camped in out of the way places, where power is not even a certainty, so I can only imagine that access to phones and internet will be limited to non-existent, so I am sorry to say, much I am sure to the flagrant dismay of all, this may well be my last post for a few days. And on that note, adios, for now.

Until next time, have fun, stay safe and don’t forget to write.