The Red Centre

Following our stay in Mt Isa we continued our way west passing through Camooweal crossing the NT border and stopping for the night at Barkley Homestead. At this night stop we met Denis and Joan who are also travelling around Oz and we may meet up with them further on up the track. Peter was also able to watch the football at the roadhouse while we were having dinner.

At Three Ways we then turned south going through Tennant Creek where we made a quick visit to Battery Hill - the history of mining in the district and continued to Wauchope (pronounced walkup) where we stayed the night in the grounds of the pub (it is the only building in town). We went to see the Devils Marbles (9km) and found there was a lovely campground - so will stay there on the return trip to Darwin. The pub was a wonderful oasis and the dip in the pool was just the thing against the temperature of about 37deg.

Enroute to Alice the next day we passed through Ti Tree where Peters father spent a couple of days during WW2 as we progressed you could see there was a storn brewing and then the rain came! Twice we had to pull off the road - two storms went over us. Then picture on the left is taken in the rear vision mirror and show the storm overtaking us. As we drove into Alice Springs we realised just how fierce the storms were - trees and power lines down everywhere. When we found our van park we were lucky we did not arrive earlier - trees down, awnings ripped off etc. People were making the best of it and having a few laughs and at least no one was hurt.

We decided to only stay the one night in Alice and continue to Ayers Rock and the Olgas (we would stay a few days on our return). So we set off for the Rock - many people think it is just down the road but it is a 1000km round trip and one that requires a lot of concentration - road trains, narrow roads, road works and cows cows cows. We decided on three days stay and we went to the only campground available (you have no choice unless you stay 70km away). This turned out to be very expensive and the worst facilities (filthy) we have had since starting our trip. Talking to people - all the complaints were the same. I decided to provide some feedback and they apologised and said it was due to busloads of schoolkids they had arrive - of course I could not help but continue the discussion with some advice about appropriate resources to meet requirements and the busloads would not be a surprise for them etc...They are a large resort and have the monopoly so doubt anything will change.

Enough with the grumbles - Ayers Rock, the most fantastic thing I have seen yet. Just brilliant, something really spiritual about it. Everyone must see it in their lifetime. It is hard to describe the sheer size and magnitude of it - you do not get sick of looking at it. The colours, the surface (to me looked like granite with red excema). I am not sure how people climb it (it was closed for the days we were there) - it would be so frightening. We were talking to a young english guy Nick, the night we were in Alice and he said he climbed it but he was so s... scared it was terrifying. We spent day at the rock and then went to the Olgas the next day. They also are magnificent - it is hard to imagine their age. What was differtent about the Olgas is they seem to be made of "glued"rocks and pebbles. The surface is scared from points where huge clumps seem to pop out.

On the way to the Rock we were also dumfounded to see Mt Connor in the distance (100ks before you get to the rock - it is 3 times the size of Ayers Rock and have decided that we will do it and Kings Canyon (would have been another 600km )on our next trip.

Just a general comment about the trip to the Rock is the diappointment about how people treat the place. The rangers try very hard to tidy up visitors still toss their rubbish around and don't give a stuff where it ends up. There were numerous times we did not take photos of gorges, caves, rock paintings etc because of the rubbish which would have been in the shot. Similarly there are defined paths people are asked not to stray from -means nothing to some. Finally Peter's patience was sorely tried on a number of ocassions when trying to frame the perfect photo only to have it interrupted by some ignorant prick (peters word) from the orient wandering in without any consideration of anyone but themselves.

We have been back in Alice for three days, staying at the same van park - G'Day Mate, it is a family owned pary and one we would recomend. Next we will head off up north for Darwin via Jabiru on the next part of the trip.