Alice Springs 4th July
We put in three decent days driving to cover the 1470ks between Darwin and Alice Springs. We stayed at bush camps outside of Daly Waters and Tennants Creek due to the normal campsites being packed.
We had to laugh when we put Alice Springs in the sat nav and it told us to drive 1435k then turn left -no roundabouts or turns for 900 miles thats John o Groats to lands end with some to spare ! If you mis it its another 1000kms until the next one .
At Alice we pitched at the Gap Hotel. It is no more than a car park really but its on the edge of town and the edge of a good bar !
Alice Springs grew from the seed that was an overland telegraph station with a waterhole in the middle of nowhere as recently as 1930 Mining , cattle, world war troops and now tourism have kept the town alive in the intervening period.
We visited the recreated/preserved telegraph station and walked a number of the tracks around it including a trek into Alice and back .
In Alice we visited Bojangles which is a wild outback western themed joint and there were a few characters that would not have been out of place in Dodge city saloon way back when. Included in this was the hospitable pot smoking ,pint drinking renderer (well it was his smoko ) who gave us the lowdown on life and everything. He told us of the American spying base run by the CIA out at Pine Gap which controls all the spy satellites in the southern hemisphere and that around 800 americans were employed there and that it provided a slice of cash for the city. (this later checked out to be pretty accurate !)
The Gap hotel is named after the parting of the Macdonnell mountain range that happens here splitting it into east and west ranges.
I climbed up the mountains at the back of the campsite in the late afternoon to bring up my 35,000 step mark for the day.The views were great as I could see both mountain ranges as well as Alice and the plains on either side of the gap.
When we sat in the hotel having a wee sherry a local came and sat next to us . She was begging for money. She too had been partaking of a wee sherry earlier on in the day. She showed Kate an oil painting that she wanted to sell. Kate opened it and asked her if she had painted it . Yes she replied. Flicking the picture over Kate read the name of he painter and asked her if she was called Eric Smith – yes came the reply. I know this is graveside humour but it cracked us both up at the time .
We headed out to the East Macdonnell ranges and camped at Trephina Gorge . We walked round the John Hawes rock hole and a panorama walk that gave great views of the gorge itself.
In the evening we shared a fire with two families from Sydney who were at the end of their journey. They were a great bunch and whilst they shared our fire Pete shared some of his excellent home brewed porter and Buddy allowed us to read his book which was a journal of their previous tour of duty five years ago . I found the trip from a ten year olds perspective a great read. Especially a descriptive paragraph about how he felt the morning after he ate 7 slices of pizza !
These are two destinations nearby i don’t want to visit the first as you would be scared of the all seeing eye and rampant orcs the second location , well I just don’t !
Next day we undertook the Trephina Gorge ridge walk. This isa 20k round trip as we didn’t have two cars for the normal one way journey. We set off at 0830 and after a very steep ascent we were up on the ride enjoying the spectacular views of the East Macdonnels and beyond. The view from Turners lookout with a straight drop to the plain floor below was the highlight.
When we returned at 1330 Kate put her feet up in the sun and I went to get the firewood collecting duties out of the way. A very good pile of wood was at hand for what looked to be a chilly evening.
As the sun went down and the the open desert sky began to take its hold driving us down to 3 degrees we were slowly joined round the fire by fellow campers as they were drawn to the heat. It was like a meal-less alfresco dinner party with extremely interesting guests as it turned out..
There was Denis who was a diminutive like the french scrum halves of old . He now now lives on the French colonised island of New Caledonia in the pacific . He took us through the nickel mining based background on New Caledonia and its difficult political debate on independence .
He was a bright bubbly character with an accent thick as the best cafe french toast. He had undertaken a 40k hike the previous day .
His next expedition ( he had taken many including the harley davidson tour of route 66) was to travel the length and breadth of India on an Royal Enfield motorbike. This ex UK brand is now owned and manufactured in India .This he told us would be bought in India as it had the most basic mechanics and could be repaired locally anywhere in the country . He had a mantra of doing something interesting every day of his life now matter how small – which i thought was an excellent approach !
We then had Julie and Glen who were from Melbourne and were travelling round the red centre for three weeks or so. They had already traveled the Oodnadatta Track.
Paul our last fire guest was of indeterminate age i think around 65 , a striking bushy beard and thick unkempt hair with a ind of its own. He too had spent a night at the Gap View Hotel but unfortunately some neerdowell had filched his money and cards. Paul had enough food and diesel to last him until new cards arrived and was holing up where the outgoings were low .
His journey was to find somewhere remote and quiet to write his book. He had bumped into a Black Dog Motorcycle group (they fund raise for depression support) who had convinced him to write the story of his climb out of depression with the promise of publishing it due to the uniqueness of his life.
As we sat close to the fire as the cold bit our backs he told me a series of short stories from his adventurous life. He left home at 24 and spent a number of years travelling which included countries as far afield as Iran Iraq Afghanistan and even as a roustabout on the rigs in the north sea off the Aberdeen coast . He fell in love particularly with the Afghan people. He told a story of how in his younger days he had blond hair and a red beard. Apparently in Afghanistan in the 70s dying your beard red meant you were homosexual which led to a couple of interesting but unrequited requests !
He told tales of fishing off the Dampier peninsula in WA with “black fellas” and close encounters with passing whales.
He had been in America at the time of Trumps inauguration and had a picture of him on the womens march with a knitted pink pussy hat on his head which was the emblem of that march- a woman on the march had given him it as a momento. Its not often at a dinner party you are shown a picture of a man with his head in a woman’s pussy ?
After his travels he built up a successful business and had all the trappings like a big house in the exclusive St Kilda beach suburb. The next thing he knew he was standing in a soup kitchen line in WA. He had however still to complete his tax returns even though they were losses and in the process found out that 50 dollars a month were being taken from his account. Turns out that he had income protection that he didnt know about and this subsequently got him back on his feet again. He was successful enough to buy a 5 acres property outside Melbourne , however this was devastated by the black Saturday fires that roared through Kinglake where he stayed. The insurance from this helped deliver some pension for him. I can’t recall speaking to someone with such a financial rollercoaster of a life !
I really enjoyed his company and the stories of his life he has a wicked sense of humour , a roaring laugh and is comfortable with long silences mid conversation too .
He touched on the depression that had clearly disrupted his life and been a huge challenge for him. He had used many techniques to bring him out of depression including buddhism and now coaches others in an attempt to help their recovery. His next challenge (after writing a book !) is to walk part of the Camino de Santiago a religious route from France to Spain ( which incidentally starts at Denis’s home town of St jean pied de Port). He was recommended to do this after his Buddhist monk friend did it , met the love of life , jacked in being a monk and is happier than he has ever been !
The title of Pauls book is to be “Ladder from Nowhere “ and I will be purchasing as soon as its published .
We headed back to Alice Springs for the Lions third test .
We took the opportunity to take in the Alice Springs Agricultural show. It was a crazy mix of fun fair , horse riding , cattle auction, hen and duck competitions with some cakes and home grown produce thrown in.
The bubble gum on offer had a desert theme too !
You wouldn’t however believe the police presence for what sounds a very tame event. I counted 27 police officers. Apparantly it is a trouble hotspot with locals getting bevvied up and causing trouble. There were only 5 arrests and one house break in (stole cigarettes and whisky) which according to the local radio is the best year for a while !
At the rugby I was very nervous as I was expecting the “blacklash” like most commentators and pundits. We were lucky to have it on the big screen and to have 20 or so kiwis around us too !. The game of course was a nail biter that resulted in a drawn series and according to Steve Hansen the All Blacks coach “like kissing your sister – not a lot in it for anyone !”
What the game did do however was allow us to meet a wonderful kiwi family Rich , Dee Josh and Hannah who are touring the country in a similar direction as us. We hope to catch up with them en route.