Alice Springs June - July

After camping one night at "the rock" turnoff, some 200km back, and about a million mice, we set sail for "The Alice"
It was about this time that I stepped on my computer. This is why my blog is so far behind.
The weather is very much on the improve with near zero mornings but 20oC days
On the way into town we went straight to the truck museum, where, as we had been told, we could stay for at least a month for only the cost of our electricity use as long as we worked 10 hours a week eack
We had just finished makin enquiries and had turned to go to the bus and Maureen tripped and fell on a raised paver in the path. As she went down her head hit the bricks and her glasses cut through her eyebrow causing a nasty gash which required 5 stitches.

Since I last wrote, We had camera trouble, I stood on the laptop, breaking the screen, rending it useless and I had motivation problems, so this pretty much brought my blog writing to a standstill.
It wasn't until I bought a new computer and  received a severe phone castigation from Alan T. that I managed to pick up the thread.
On arrival at "The Alice" we went straight to The Road Transport Hall of Fame about 8 km south of town just off the highway where we understood that in exchange for 20 hours volunteer work per week and paying our own electricity, we could camp on the grounds.
This facility is really huge. It incorporates the Ghan Museum which details the history of the old train that used to run to Alice.
The truck section contains pretty much every truck ever made in one form or another
The original first road train in the world(an Australian invention)
A pavillion containing only Kenworths
A shed of Macks
Ford model "T"s
Heaps of rare vehicles and engines
plus 8 rooms of "walls of fame"
We had met John and Suzanne at Port Augusta  and they arrived the same time we did.
Teamed up with them to explore East and West Macdonnell Ranges.
We were in awe of the landscape all round the town.
visiting such places as Simpsons Gap, Standley Chasm, Herrmansberg, Palm Valley, Emily Gap, Jessie Gap is all I can think of just now
The town itself is about 30,000 people,very prosperous and has a high cost of living. It has most of the large stores and good facilities.
There is a big number of aborigines here and to us it may appear that they look pretty hopeless. The alcohol problem is bad as it is the cause of a lot of domestic violence. 4 litre wine casks are banned from sale and there are a lot of other regulations covering sale of alcohol.
Maureen is set up with clerical work and manning the front desk, while I have been making ladders for top bunks for sleeper car carriages which were converted into B&Bs
Since our arrival, we have been treated to visits from Noel and Beverly, Ian and Sue, Steph and Duff and Daryl and Coleen who stayed 3 days.
I would like to give rave reviews on the local bakery as their stuff looked sensational but at $4 each, there was no way I was going near their vanilla slices.
Can't download pix from camera to new computer yet . Think it's lacking software but I promise to try to remedy that Alan.

the Olgas



Millions of years ago The Olgas may have been shaped like Uluru but as the stone is much softer, it has broken into pieces and looks like a giant hand slung things everywhere.
I feel that they are  visually much more stunning than the rock and I undertook the 7.8km walk through them, much to my sorrow as it was for the most part a grueling trek, but I wouldn't have missed it.

Ayres Rock

Maureen was worried about the border quarantine inspection as we had lost so much fruit and vegetables going into S.A.  and we had been warned about how ruthless the inspectors were, so she was meticulous about having nothing that could be confiscated, however there was noone to inspect us when we went through the check point.
Arrived at a rest area 30 km short of "TheRock" on Tuesday afternoon where we hooked up with Don and Pat, Jean and tony plus Stan and Noela, whom we had met at Port Augusta together with John and Suzanne. Noel and Bev were parked about 100km back at Clinton Springs (where diesel was $2.20 a litre)  and joined us next day
We camped 30km short of the rock at a rest area where there is a hill which is a good vantage point to see it.

It had been raining all the way from Coober Pedy but eased in the afternoon and we were having happy hour when Don mentioned that it was raining in the national park. Maureen immediately wanted to see water on the rock so we set out post haste and sure enough there were streams cascading down it.

Have seen many pictures of the rock but there is no substitute for looking at it.
The huge monolith towers over you dominating and almost threatening. everyone agreed it was a bit eery.
Looked at the climb track and decided it was not for us so we drove round it.

Coober Pedy

It's a red letter day when we leave at 7.30am. but never the less thats what happened.

After an hour we stopped at Lake Hart as we could see the lake in the distance. Decided to walk down to the water. It was a magnificant expereience. We walked on the salt flats and saw a mountain of salt piled up from an old saltworks, Emu prints in the ground, reflections in the water and watched trains on the Adelaide - Darwin rail line.

Arrived in Coober Pedy mid afternoon and booked into a caravan park which pretty much resembled an ants nest. It certainly wasn't designed with vehicles like "Moonshine" in mind. The entrance was very narrow and I staked the wall of a tyre on a garden bordered with sleepers. The power point didn't work so the owner plugged us into the next  site. The bloke next door came back, found his lead unplugged  and wanted to punch me in the nose.

Changed the tyre next morning and got out of there.
Looked for a tyre in town and all I was offered was one for over $600!! So decided to take the risk without a spare until we get to Alice Springs.
  Noel and Bev whom we had met at Wauchope NSW and also at Port Augusta. were in a a public parking area and they told us about a cheap campsite on the edge of town so we followed him down there and got secure parking with power and water for 12 bucks a night.
The Breakaways is a long, low, broken range of low, weathered mountains of incredible colours 35kms from town, so we spent Saturday afternoon out there. Stopped at the "dogfence"on the way back. At about 6000km its the longest fence in the world and was built to keep dingoes from stock. It runs from Surfers Paradise to west of the Eyre Peninsula on the Nullarbor.
On Sunday we looked at 4 underground churches round town.
Monday it was a private home, a lookout, an underground hotel and a motel and tried our hand at "noodling" late in the afternoon.

Maureen at the salt pile



remains of the salt racks

Goods train from Darwin



Emu footprint



Pimba

Travelled north on the Stuart Highway just short of 200km we passed Lake Gairdner (which Malcolm Campbell had driven his bluebird on in an attempt at the world speed record) ,one of the lake eyre family to Pimba, which pretty much consists of a roadhouse with a campground attached There's toilets and paid showers so it's a fairly neat place.
took the bus to Woomera. Looked at all the rockets and other things that were developed there in static outside dispalys.
We visited the 2 museums in the township and spent about half a day there ( could have spent much longer as the exhibits were excellent and reminded us of things we knew growing up)
should have gone back to Pimba but pushed on to Roxby Downs and  opal mining town of Andamooka.
Unfortunately, it was too late when we got there and returned under cover of darkness. The other unfortunate thing about it was that the fuel economy was calculated at 1.6km/l !!

Port Augusta 2

After 2 weeks at the Port Augusta sports club camp ground it's time to move on.
After a fortnight of indecision we have finally firmly decided to go up to Darwin ( for now ) and then across to Queensland
Sorry to be leaving the French Hot Bread shop  as their produce was superb as was the pricing. As usual it is Asian owned (as are most of them) I guess it is the French influence in Viet Nam.

Port Pirie

Had the computer looked at whilst in Broken Hill and the "fixer"omitted to put the antivirus software back on so I ran into a fistfull of viruses, didn't I? Hence the reason for no posts for so long.
Headed up through Port Wakefield after Easter and then over to Wallaroo where we camped at the old wheat truck marshelling area just on the edge of town. Then to Moonta, staying at the Port Hughes boat ramp.
From there down to Minlaton  and onto Warooka, taking sidetrips to check out Innes national park and Corny point (well named)
Then back up through Ardrossen to Port Pirie.
Found the peninsula generally fairly uninteresting bar some of the history and the huge expances of cereal crops. Pirie on the other hand is a thriving, go-ahead city.
Watched a ship dock at the smelter wharf today. It had to negotiate the long channel off The Spencer Gulf and turn around with the aid of 2 tugs

Creeping up the Channel

Full Astern!

Pushing...

Turning...

Turning...

Lining up

Pushing....

Pushing.....

Docking

e parked at a local council gravel dump which is well situated, level, dry and quiet. However anyone looking for a parking spot should try asking the locals where "the bridge to nowhere" is and pick your spot anywhere over the other side of that.
Last night we tried "Barnacle Bill's" seafood restaurant which is something of a local icon. Seafood was great without being pricy and so was the salad bar.
Stayed an extra day to do a tour of the smelter. Unfortunately it was from the windows of a small bus and photos weren't allowed,but we got the general idea. the process is so complex and on a huge scale. It's the biggest smelter in the world. The smokestack is over 200 metres tall.
In the old days Port Pirie was a really dirty place but the smelter owners have cleaned up their act and now it's very clean.