Day 65: Sunday in Alice Springs (05/08/12)

Although some of the locals have been predicting that the Alice’s coldest days are still to come, we have been experiencing the opposite. Today was a very mild day indeed.

It started off with free pancakes this morning at the caravan park. The kitchen area is right next door to us, so all we had to do for breakfast was pull out a plate, toddle over, receive a pancake, apply syrups or whatever and eat. Everybody had to wear name tags which got over introductions etc. A nice way to meet people. There were about 200 people present.

Joke’s back had not improved during the night and she found sitting down a pain – literally. But as the day progressed things started to ease up, aided by a gentle level walk. Hopefully the healing process will continue.

We watched a video sermon of Rev Steven tHart on LD 29 about the Lord’s Supper. He explained at length the different strands of understanding of the LS between Zwingli, Calvin, Luther and the Roman Catholics. It was surprising to hear that the Evangelicals on the whole have taken over the Zwingli view of the Lord’s Supper as a comfort meal. But it makes sense when explained.

Today was a day of rest. We didn’t even leave the caravan park. Joke’s back is the better for it, and so is the blog, because I finally got up to date.....

What? A blog from me with no maps in it? This needs to be fixed right away! SO here goes..This is the trip to date. Bit of a clutter with the drop pins, but you get the picture. "J" is Cooktown - furthest from home. "U" is Uluru - closer to our WA offspring than to home! Now to close the loop.....

Day 64: From Ormiston via Glen Helen back to the Alice (04/08/12)

Joke walking carefully to nurse her back

Ormiston Gorge in the morning

The Red Centre was doing its best for us, weatherwise. The morning dawned warmer than the previous two Alice Springs mornings. Even before the sun got to us, the air in the camp was quite warm and pleasant. We moved slowly as Joke’s back was troubling her considerably. We also had until 12pm to be away. So we cleaned up and then took the car about 12 km down the road to Glen Helen, another gap.

The cliffs of Glen Helen Gorge

Ghost gum standing triumphantly on top of the cliff

Glen Helen cliff and its reflection

This place is occupied by a resort, but we could still get to the gap, but not through it, as it had wall to wall permanent water. Water means birds, and there were many to be seen. Then from among the reeds there appeared a dingo, as if on cue. 

Dingo and birds. She's got her eye on the swimming bird, but is not prepared to go into the water to snatch it.

Only noticed on the photo: he's a she. Is the female of dingo dingess?

We thought at first it was after one of the ducklings, but it was content to pick fish out of the water. Whether these were just slow or dead we could not see, but the dingo did not seem to need much effort to snatch them out of the water. Some photography followed, as well as conversation with some Bairnsdale folks.

Reflections of the Glen Helen Gorge

Part of the cliff face. It is all just so impressive.

More reflections

Then we went back to pick up the caravan and drive off towards Alice Springs.

Mount Sonder, I believe.

Joke was on tenterhooks – an uncomfortable experience, but especially so when you are nursing a bad back strain. The hooks could not be removed until my phone could speak to the Alice Springs tower.

"Will you hurry it up? I have a phone call to make!"

But first we stopped at the Ochre Pits just a few kilometres up from the Ormiston Gorge. There we found that a creek had gouged out a wall of rock which consisted of many vertical layers of soft white red and yellow stone. These colours were and are used by the local aboriginal people in their rituals. What was mildly offensive about the site were the multitude of warnings not to touch or take. One placard even went as far as to say dob in anyone you see doing these things. When you look at the site, and imagine the next big flood rushing round that bend next year, in 10 years’ time, or 50, more of the face of the exposed cliff will be swept away than tourists could take in their handbags in a 100 years.... The creek bed downstream bore testimony to this gouging process. When you look at the land behind and around the site, you can imagine another 100000 tons of the stuff. Grrrrr! Talking to Russell Guy (see Day 61) has significantly lowered my immunity to political correctness. Not that I could stand much of it at the best of times.

Point 1. May be so. Extremely hard to verify. Point 2. OK the law's the law. Point 3. Invitation to dob

Whites, yellows and reds all together

Here the different layers are end-on.

When you look down the curving creek-bed you can see that major floods would gouge out enormous sections of the soft stone and clay.

Joke had wanted some samples to take back to school, but when she saw little spurts of steam emitting from my ears she dragged me away before I committed a $5000 offence. We continued on our way, and within 10 kms of the Ochre Pits had found deposits by the roadside similar to the Pits, all except the bright yellow.

As the mid-afternoon glow on the chains of bright red and orange mountains mellowed my mood, I espied the Alice Springs television masts about 30 kms away.

Mood-mellowing mountains

At the same time my phone bleeped and we saw THE RING! We rang Miriam and Adam who were on their way to the football and congratulated them. At the same time we found out that Robin and Josh had become engaged too, so that was a double whammy!

In the evening we Skyped with Adam and Miriam. The session was rather difficult because every couple of seconds the video would cut out to be replaced by an enormous hand with a ring on it. Must get on to Skype about that........ Renske was there too, quietly gloating about the football result. Anyhow, M & A were one happy couple, with their heads already full of plans for the next step. But that story will belong to another blog.

Day 63: Down the Western Macs to Ormiston Gorge (03/08/12)

The day dawned with less severe temperatures than yesterday. We were going to have an overnight stay in the Western Macdonnels and then come back to Alice Springs.

The road out of Alice west, the Larapinta Drive, revealed endless lines of mountains, right and left stretching out to the horizon. A really imposing and grand landscape.

Western Macdonnels (just a small selection..)

....And who are you staring at?...

The mountains furthest away were grander echoes of the hills closer by, which in turn were reflected by the hillocks and dykes and ridges occasionally running alongside the road. We turned right into the Namatjira Drive and drove a long distance before reaching the first turnoff into Ellery Creek. There was a Gap there which was down 3 kms of bone-jarring corrugations. As usual the result was worth the trouble. Here was a gap filled with a deep waterhole, filled with birds and plants. The cliffs were once again imposing.

Ellery Creek Gap

Yes, she had to pose. No, she doesn't like it! (But she makes a pretty picture, ay?)

These mysterious ferns were growing all over the cliff.

Looking down at the waterhole from above.

We moved on until we were about 130 kms out of Alice.

Glen Helen Gorge from a distance. We would have a proper look at it tomorrow.

Down a 8 kms side road we got to Ormiston Gorge park. They had solar hot showers and toilets, so that was a bonus. For a park fee of $20 we had a place for the night. The park is set out very nicely in a valley and a number of walks start from there, including the walk into the Gorge itself. We chose an over the top and back down the gorge walk similar to the one at Trephina. We started a bit late, so the sun did not make the cliffs quite as spectacular as at the Trephina Gorge. But Ormiston Gorge’s cliffs are 3 or 4 times higher and the effect altogether is quite grand. We had to scramble across a long stretch of rocks in the Gorge bottom and negotiate the permanent ponds, but the overall walk was well worth our while.

Ormiston Gorge. The contrast was almost too much between sunlit and shady bits.

We thought we would have to wade/swim through this pond to get back.

Our camp seen from the lookout

Joke on the lookout in her favourite hat.

Ghost gum catching the sun

The cliff face opposite was brilliant

The pool made going upstream difficult, but going back downstream was easy.

Joke was nursing a sore back, so we took it easy for the rest of the day.

Evening light plays over the mountains surrounding Ormiston Gorge

In the evening we went to bed to the accompaniment of a chorus of howls from nearby dingos. ”Azaaaaariaaaaah!!” they howled mournfully.

In a faraway place, happier sounds were heard as a transfer of carbon and metal took place. There the howls were of pure pleasure, both at the materials transferred and the reason for the transfer. Adam had proposed to Miriam........

Day 62: A day among the Eastern Macs (02/08/12)

We nearly did not survive our first night in Alice Springs. Sure, the caravan park was comfortable, the amenities were just great – it was a Big4 park after all, and the price, although making our wallets creak, was survivable. What we had not counted on, was the temperature. Not the daytime 23-24ºC, but the night-time -2.4ºC. We had put in the winter doona, but it was straining to keep us warm. Because of geography, Alice has a very late sunrise, so we just stayed put until there was a promise of warmth in the world outside. Our little heater doing overtime all the while.

It is at moments like these that I contemplate the shortcomings of the pop-top caravan. In very cold weather, its chief shortcoming is simple: a couple of square meters of vinyl in the pop-top bit which have no insulating properties whatsoever. Brrrr! But such is the nature of weather in the Alice that today the differential between minimum and maximum would be 26ºC! So there was a rapid warming happening once the sun stuck its nose above the surrounding mountains. You went to the showers with a coat on, and it was too warm to wear it when you came out.

We had booked in for a single night, but once again we changed our plans. Instead of going down the Larapinta/Namatjira Drives to the Western Macs, we decided to give ourselves a well-earned break, leave the caravan, and drive off to the Eastern Macs instead. So besaid so bedone, as the Dutch would say.

There were several easily reachable spots to visit in the Eastern Macs, all in exchange for a reasonably low number of kilometres: Emily and Jessie Gaps and the Trephina Gorge. Emily Gap came first, only a short distance out of town.

Our first Gap: Emily Gap

There were aboriginal wall paintings here in a shady spot.

"Dikkie toch! What are you doing up there? Come down at once!"

"I ca-can't! I fo-forgot I was scared of heights. Could you ring the fire brigade please?"

Emily Gap

It was our first encounter with the charms of the Macdonnels: the fact that the sugar-loaf shaped string of mountains was cut at various points by rivers draining the higher ground behind them. “Rivers” (or “creeks”) were for us in the dry season no more than sandy, gravelly flat courses, edged by river gums and crossed by more of the ubiquitous floodways. Once again we said to each other more than once: “wow, we’d like to see that when it is in flood!” The cuts are Gaps or Gorges, depending, I suppose on the size. Emily Gap was an amazing introduction to this kind of scenery. The rock strata dip and curve so dramatically, the colours are so vivid, especially against the deep blue sky as a background, and the white-trunked ghost gums give a third contrast.

Jessie Gap embroidered on the theme

Jessie Gap

and after that we pushed on to Trephina Gorge, highly recommended by our friends from Victoria whom we had met at the Devil’s Marbles. At Trephina Gorge we did a round trip – over the cliff and back through the gorge. Once again there was a new stunning vista at every turn. The walk took about 2 hours (because we dawdled) and when we got back we drove back into Alice well sated for the day.

Joke on the rocks at Trephina Gorge

Trephina Gorge from above

The bend at the end of the gorge.

Trephina Pound upstream from the gorge.

The floor of the gorge with just a trickle of rather smelly water in it.

"This is as close as I am going to the edge, whatever you say!"

The sides of the gorge from the river bed

Downstream the dry river bed looked very pretty with its frame of river gums and its backdrop of red mountains.

There was a tiny pond - just enough for a reflection

Day 61: From Taylor’s Creek to Alice Springs (01/08/12)

The first day of our third month had dawned. We had 300-odd kms to go to Alice Springs. We drove through Barrow Springs with its mountains which strongly reminded me of the South African Karroo.

Mountains at Barrow Springs

Original telegraph pole from the Overland Telegraph

Then we turned off on a whim to an aboriginal art gallery at Aileron about 180 kms into the trip. We were attracted by the enormous statue of an aboriginal on the hill behind the roadhouse.

Statue of Arrernte hunter on the hill. Next to the shed is a statue group of an aboriginal lady and child with a goanna.

The gallery was pleasant and roomy and well-presented. It was run by a chap called Russell who represented artists of the Arrernte people. He put anything they produced up for sale with a suggested price and all the money went back to the artists. There was an immediate sense of decency and rightness about this operation which Joke and I both noticed. Here was no evidence of exploitation which the roadhouse culture smacked of across Queensland and NT so far. Looking further we noticed Christian themes on a number of the paintings for sale, as well as historical photos of Lutheran pastors, white and black and other evidence which pointed to a Christian bias at this gallery. Sure enough, our conversation with Russell brought to light that he was in fact a missionary who did the gallery work as a self-help employment program on the side.

We chatted with him for quite a while, asking questions about what we had seen and experienced and he gave us a lot of interesting answers. Our not being greeted in Tennant Creek was part of a low self-esteem problem that many urban fringe aboriginals have. He described their non-western attitudes to work and time, and also spoke in a very sensible way about aboriginal “spirituality” which nowadays is held as being in opposition almost to the Christian message. He said that “his” people did not see the Dreamtime and other aspects of traditional aboriginal religion in the way it is seen in Canberra or in popular white culture. They understand evil and its place in their lives, and those who come to believe can clearly see the shortcomings of traditional aboriginal religion in dealing with that evil. Even those who are not Christians can acknowledge that.

He spoke passionately about one of the chief agents of evil in contemporary aboriginal life: alcohol. You could clearly see that this was an important topic to him, and that he was very vocal in his efforts to restrict the open slather on alcohol in the Territory. He spoke bitterly of the white vested interests in the alcohol industry and that white Territorians, and in fact white Australians in general were enslaved to alcohol themselves and could not envisage restrictions in availability of supply which would do so much good for the aboriginal communities.

We wandered off quite moved by this man and his passionate views. Recourse to the Internet showed that he was Russell Guy, an ex-disc jockey at 2JJ, quite well known in music circles who had wandered away from that life into the bush in the 80’s or 90’s. The Territory newspapers revealed more of his anti-alcohol stance, and the opposition to him of the Territorial political establishment. Quite an interesting bloke and well worth visiting if you are out this way. Aileron.

Highest spot on the Stuart Highway. Cairn to prove it. Dedicated to some public servant or other. Absolutely no indication of how high! So we took a silly photo. Logical.

In Joke’s mind’s eye, Alice Springs was a town on a dusty plain with a mountain range, the Macdonnels, in the background. In my mind’s eye, the town was sitting square in a gap in the Macdonnels. The reality was totally different. There was a profusion of ranges and mountains that greeted us as we got close to the Alice, and the outcrops close to the highway got ever more impressive as we got closer. Alice itself lay among mountains in much the same way as Mt Isa.

Todd Street Mall - late afternoon. Just a little bit seedy, we thought.

Todd River near the middle of town.

Sunset Alice from the Lookout

The Gap

We had a very interesting conversation on Skype that evening, the contents of which cannot be revealed as yet.