0032 Alice Springs 21 / 22 July

Sunday 21^st July.

Nice to sleep in a comfortable bed and have a toilet and shower nearby !! Got up to be provided with a taco breakfast and delicious coffee by Randal – What an enjoyable change from creeping out of a warm sleeping bag into the cold of a camp site !!  After getting some washing organised, Janet and I took off to the local Sunday markets down in the centre of town. Population is about 30,000, so it is not exactly an enormous city, but the markets were surprisingly different from those in Queensland which all seem to be the same parade of face oils, home made soaps, signs and T shirts, and the standard range of Asian clothes and artifacts.   A lot more Aboriginal arts here, and lots of interesting food stalls.  We started with a Korean pie type thing, and wandered on down the mall.  A large dedicated didgeridoo shop that surprised me – Normally they are sold as a sideline in other touristy shops, so to see a shop that ONLY sold them was novel.  As could be guessed from the traffic signs in multiple languages that I mentioned yesterday, there is a surprisingly large number of tourists here, both local nomads and overseas ones – Or maybe it is just that because The Alice is so small, they are more obvious ?  Whatever, lots of shops and stands catered to the tourist with a  definite bias towards a Northern Territory flavour.  We also came across a German Hot Dog stand with beautiful German sausages – Couldn’t go past that stand empty handed either !!!  Yummmmm !

 

After another half hour of wandering the markets, we went back to Randal & Jo’s after picking up some supplies in the supermarket.  The upstairs bed in Troopie needed just some minor fettling to make it slide more easily when setting up and putting away.  Sharp edges and small lips meant a lot of awkward manoeuvring for me, but with Randal’s help and use of his tools, we soon had it all sorted.  It is small improvements like this that make things so much easier and more pleasant when on the road for long periods.

Randal needed firewood for his pot belly stove (it gets surprisingly cold it night here – 4-5 deg C in the mornings, although it warms up to about 24 deg in the day time.  So later we headed out in his old ute, chain aw in the back, to hunt for a suitable fallen tree. Not far from the house we found a perfect one – tree already fallen, the well aged iron wood tree (?? Certainly VERY hard wood !!) lying their just calling out to us.  Randal quickly started up the chainsaw and started sawing it up.  We then threw the logs into the back of the ute, and took off before anyone got too interested in our activity !!  Just before we got back on the road we found another good log, so quickly got that chopped up and thrown in the back, and set of home.  Once there, Randal sawed and chopped the wood into smaller pieces to fit in the stove, and we went in to relax with a beer !!

Sunday night is cinema night for Randal and Jo, so he cooked an early supper of both lamb and goat shanks, and they we SOOOOOO good. We then walked the 10 minutes to their local Arts Centre and we saw The Reluctant Fundamentalist – About a Pakistani in the USA over the 9/11 period. And what a powerful movie – Would strongly recommend watching it.   Then it was home to bed.

Monday 22^nd July.

After yet another leisurely morning and breakfast cooked by Randal (when on a long trip like this, a rest break is SO welcome !!), Janet and I took off to the School of the Air.  This is such an important part not only of Australia’s history, but also of its ongoing development as well as its future.  They do SUCH an incredible job of educating so many children who live in Australia’s many remote homesteads. Obviously the advent of the internet has made a MASSIVE difference to this because now the pupils can see both the teacher and each other while they are on line, instead of just talking on the radio.  And while the teachers make a couple of home visits to their children each year, about 3 or 4 times a year the kids also all come into Alice for a couple of weeks for sports, swimming, and other social activities, and also just to meet each other.   An amazing morning seeing how it is all done, and helping to support them.

We then went back to the house where Randal had cooked us some soup for lunch (I like this hotel !!), and then we took off to visit the Royal Flying Doctor Service Headquarters – Yet another vital cog in the wheel that keeps remote Australia turning. Once again, these people play such an important role in enabling people to live safely in remote areas of Australia.  We spent some time there watching videos of their work, and seeing some of the history with exhibits of the old radios etc.  Of course, we had seen the founder John Flynn’s grave on the way in to Alice a couple of days ago.   And this is something very dear to Janet’s heart since her (doctor) father started the very similar Angel of Mercy medical helicopter service down in country Victoria some years ago.   Excellent afternoon.

On the way back to the house we went up Anzac Hill – a small hill in the middle of town that loks out over Alice and gives some idea of the size and the layout.   Then it was shopping to buy supplis for our ongoing trip north tomorrow morning, and then home for supper.  Randal had cooked some superb steaks that were just so succulent, and we had a very pleasant last evening together over a bottle or two of red !!   Somewhere along the way I went and got my Banjo Paterson book of Australian outback poems out of the car (I carry it everywhere), and read two of my favourites – Mulga Bill’s Bicycle, and The Geebung Polo Club.    I do enjoy them so much – Maybe I need to learn them off by heart so I don’t need the book any more ? !!!

We then turned in for our last night in a comfy bed for a while !!

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