1998
Lionel the Landcruiser
and Tap-Tap go Walkabout

Day 5
Uluru - Alice Springs

Luxury! Nicely ensconced in a motel in Alice Springs, fed on Shell diesel (for me) and Barramundi, Camel, Emu, Crocodile and Kangaroo (Rob and Hild) and looking forward to a nice shower before bed. Well, I'll have to wait till tomorrow for my bath and there may be a problem 'cos we hear that the car wash in town in broken, but at least the humans will be clean tomorrow (between you and me it was getting noticeable in the car at times, enough said?).

So, we made it to Alice via Boggy Hole, which wasn't actually boggy at all but a very picturesque water hole on the Finke river - about the only water we've seen in 'river' beds all day! There has been water elsewhere mind you - we had a constant sprinkling all the time we were off-road, and the road into Alice looked like they had some real rain (but not enough to make the creeks wet - just the road). Bit of a shame 'cos it meant that we didn't stop any for longer than a quick photo shoot and some places looked really nice.

We got up before sunrise and were well on our way as it got light. Stopped at a roadhouse and asked if there were any weather or road problems and were at the turn-off to the 4WD bit at just gone 10. Funny thing was we had been told by the Aboriginal affairs people (when we got permits) that the last road we were on was now surfaced, but in fact it was still nicely corrugated gravel - with lots and lots of signs about how dodgy the surface was etc. I thought it was better than the road from Warburton to Docker River personally, but it was confusing after we had the other info.

Lionel crossing a dry river bed.

The track we finally got onto was written up as a pretty difficult one in the book we had, and we made it worse by doing it backwards so we had to work out which way to go rather than just follow the instructions. But it started off OK as we went along a pretty good track and crossed the first dry river bed before we even got into 4WD. To call them dry river beds is a bit wrong really, 'cos I think they only have water once a year at best and then for only a month or so, so they seem to be just pebbly tracks with fewer small trees. This first one spread about half a kilometre across with - I expect - lots of islands when it actually flowing. Anyway, like I said we never even bothered with 4WD until we had done about 10 km or so and got to the first sandy bit. It got a bit confusing for a while 'cos the tracks kept crossing and we didn't know if we were still on the right one, and then it looked too good as well for quite a long stretch before we finally found a couple of signposts that told us we were on the right one.

At this stage it got really quite fun. First we passed some old ruins of a cattle mustering station, then went through some nice bumpy bits and had a quick bite for lunch sheltered under the tarpaulin slung over the open back doors. This has been our invention just lately - the piece of plywood we have been lugging around as a base-plate for the high lift jack slots under the big wooden shelf on top of the tool box and makes a really good cooking table. We've had breakfast there for the last two mornings and today - as it was raining - we chucked the tarpaulin over the back doors as shelter and carried on as usual. Brilliant. Again, most of you will have no idea what we are talking about, but we have got some photos of this to show you what we mean.

Well, after this we got going properly through the Finke Gorge National Park. There was a notice at the gate with a warning to talk to the Ranger before doing the 4WD track - what Ranger, there were none to be seen, no station marked and no phone number, so we just drove gaily on. The track was lots of fun. First it crossed the river at a pebbly, gravelly bit (big bits of gravel) then it wound through the undergrowth and then crossed over a sandy bit (no probs as we used other peoples wheel tracks) and then up the bank again and so on. We took pictures of us in the 'river' and of the trees which were also in the river playing games about how much debris they could catch each time the river floods. We even saw another car (complete with boat on the roof and trailer behind) going the other way just to show how popular the track is.

Rob - pleased as Larry - when we found Boggy Hole.

The scenic 'Boggy Hole' in Finke River National Park.

Just when we were beginning to give up on the idea of water, Hild said that she saw some (Rob and I thought she was hallucinating), but then there was a sign saying we were at Boggy Hole! Hooray, made it. And a really nice spot it is too. There is a section of the river there which is a permanent water hole and has been used as a hunting spot by the aborigines for ages (until 4WD drivers came and started camping there I suppose). There are lots of birds - even a family of black swans which we thought were only found in WA. Shame it wasn't better weather or we would have stopped there for a while and even had a swim maybe.

A family of trees catching the less fortunate ones.

After that the track continued as before until we left the Finke and followed the Ellery creek. This wound through a gorge which got quite narrow in places so you can imagine the water gets pretty high and fast. there were still trees though - with their catch of other trees, branches etc. This bit is in an aboriginal reserve where photography isn't allowed so we didn't take any more photos there, but it is never the same in photos anyway and at least you may be spared long long evenings looking at our snaps!

After about 5 hours doing the 100 km or so we got back to the main road to Alice, and guess what, it was sealed even though on our map it was supposed to be a gravel road. Now I wonder, wasn't there a road earlier on that we were told was now sealed but wasn't? Hmmmm. Seems like someone got it wrong. Oh well, it was nice to get back to some smooth driving and the bit to Alice was a nice relaxation.

Alice Springs is not quite what we expected. It isn't really very big, but the town centre is pretty well developed with quite an extensive shopping precinct. I guess a major part of the business here is tourism so there are lots of restaurants and art galleries and souvenir shops, but there seems to be a lot of just general ordinary shops as well. We worked it out that Alice is the only own for such a large area that everyone in very big radius comes here to shop. So even though there aren't many people per square km, when there are so may square km there are still a lot of people!

We are in a pretty basic motel with an attached Backpackers hostel (youth hostel to the non-Australians amongst you). It is fine for us, 'cos we just need somewhere to stretch out for a day and wash things - clothes, bodies, suspension struts - the usual stuff. We will stay here a couple of nights so tomorrow we can explore a bit and see what there is to see here before off again up another thousand km of unsealed road to Halls Creek (probably named after another dry river!).

We'll get this sent tonight so I hope you check your e-mail and read it quickly - there might be some more soon......

Lionel