Devils Marbles to Kulgara
Kulgara
Devils Marbles, Alice Springs, Kulgara 8.15 Departed camp. Spent time walking through the rock formations and taking photos before driving back to highway. 10.00 Barrow Creek. Stopped just south of the roadhouse for morning tea. 12.25 Both of us have been driving for the last two and half hours. Country is mostly open savannah with low trees and shrubs. Trees are sparser than yesterday and wattles have been blooming for he last one and half hours. 12.50 Just leaving Alice springs after stopping there for lunch. Wow it's a biggish modern town which we drove round just off the highway. Didn't really get to the main street but finished up in the market area. Lots of people in town as it was the festival of the Todd River boat race. Todd is usually dry and the race is an ironic comment about a river with no water. Teams build boat shapes with no keels which they stand in and carry as a team. The teams line up and race along the Todd to the finish line running holding the boat sides around them. We didn't wait for this as we intend to return the Alice in the near future to travel in the West MacDonnells and paint. The market area, though modern is a bit sleazy but we found quite a good bakery/café and a paper shop so lunch and coffee was quite good. Meg bought a Saturday Australian newspaper - the newspaper fix for a few weeks. Missed the exit road from Alice and finished up near airport. Tried again and soon were on the Stuart Highway heading south and noticed that the casurinas have started to appear again. 3.35 Now 130km south of Alice. Good rest stop with loo. We stopped by a river - the Finke?- on the left of road. We are 3km north of an airstrip. 3.40 Passed the turnoff on right for the meteorite craters. This has a camp ground and is the start (or end) of a loop west of Alice but has a warning that this part of the Giles Hwy is rough. It also takes the driver through the West MacDonnells. Meg had hoped to travel in 11 km to the site for our camp tonight. Terry, however, is avoiding all rough roads because of the split welds in the canopy of our truck trailer so we will leave this road for the next time. 3.45 Lots of mesa and other escarpment features now starting to be seen. Passed the 'Desert Oaks" rest area and camp ground on right it has a loo and looks good. Its 32km north of Erindundah. We pressed on to Erindundah roadhouse which is small and looks fairly new. Stopped for an ice cream and prices are high. They have camping and cabins there. We decided to continue onto the NT/SA border and get a cabin at Kulgera for the night. It's an old road house and cabins are $115 per night. Meg’s card would not work; the machine wouldn't register it. They suggested cash but Terry’s card did work. After much phoning to NAB emergency line, it turned out it was a problem with their machine which did not register quickly enough; possibly a bad line. We had been worried in case the account had been scammed. Meg had her card frozen after a trip to China & a number of scam transactions which the bank had picked up. Meg cooked in our truck kitchen just outside our cabin as a group was coming in and using the camp kitchen according to the staff so it wasn't available to us. Their ‘restaurant’ was open though! Hmmm. Did not see any bus or large numbers of people that night. At least their kettle worked!! This was an expensive and poorly serviced cabin. Again the TV didn't work as "mice had eaten through the cable". We heard the mice scurrying round after we went to bed. There is a small mouse plague in the outback in some areas due to the high rainfall in the last wet producing a lot of wild food.
Sat 20th August : 730Km
Devils Marbles to Kulgara
Kulgara
Devils Marbles, Alice Springs, Kulgara 8.15 Departed camp. Spent time walking through the rock formations and taking photos before driving back to highway. 10.00 Barrow Creek. Stopped just south of the roadhouse for morning tea. 12.25 Both of us have been driving for the last two and half hours. Country is mostly open savannah with low trees and shrubs. Trees are sparser than yesterday and wattles have been blooming for he last one and half hours. 12.50 Just leaving Alice springs after stopping there for lunch. Wow it's a biggish modern town which we drove round just off the highway. Didn't really get to the main street but finished up in the market area. Lots of people in town as it was the festival of the Todd River boat race. Todd is usually dry and the race is an ironic comment about a river with no water. Teams build boat shapes with no keels which they stand in and carry as a team. The teams line up and race along the Todd to the finish line running holding the boat sides around them. We didn't wait for this as we intend to return the Alice in the near future to travel in the West MacDonnells and paint. The market area, though modern is a bit sleazy but we found quite a good bakery/café and a paper shop so lunch and coffee was quite good. Meg bought a Saturday Australian newspaper - the newspaper fix for a few weeks. Missed the exit road from Alice and finished up near airport. Tried again and soon were on the Stuart Highway heading south and noticed that the casurinas have started to appear again. 3.35 Now 130km south of Alice. Good rest stop with loo. We stopped by a river - the Finke?- on the left of road. We are 3km north of an airstrip. 3.40 Passed the turnoff on right for the meteorite craters. This has a camp ground and is the start (or end) of a loop west of Alice but has a warning that this part of the Giles Hwy is rough. It also takes the driver through the West MacDonnells. Meg had hoped to travel in 11 km to the site for our camp tonight. Terry, however, is avoiding all rough roads because of the split welds in the canopy of our truck trailer so we will leave this road for the next time. 3.45 Lots of mesa and other escarpment features now starting to be seen. Passed the 'Desert Oaks" rest area and camp ground on right it has a loo and looks good. Its 32km north of Erindundah. We pressed on to Erindundah roadhouse which is small and looks fairly new. Stopped for an ice cream and prices are high. They have camping and cabins there. We decided to continue onto the NT/SA border and get a cabin at Kulgera for the night. It's an old road house and cabins are $115 per night. Meg’s card would not work; the machine wouldn't register it. They suggested cash but Terry’s card did work. After much phoning to NAB emergency line, it turned out it was a problem with their machine which did not register quickly enough; possibly a bad line. We had been worried in case the account had been scammed. Meg had her card frozen after a trip to China & a number of scam transactions which the bank had picked up. Meg cooked in our truck kitchen just outside our cabin as a group was coming in and using the camp kitchen according to the staff so it wasn't available to us. Their ‘restaurant’ was open though! Hmmm. Did not see any bus or large numbers of people that night. At least their kettle worked!! This was an expensive and poorly serviced cabin. Again the TV didn't work as "mice had eaten through the cable". We heard the mice scurrying round after we went to bed. There is a small mouse plague in the outback in some areas due to the high rainfall in the last wet producing a lot of wild food.
Sat 20th August : 730Km