Day nine:  Hang out in Alice Springs.

 

This morning I woke up to see the sunrise again (I must stop making a habit of this) and to see Lou roll around with a hangover.  Ha ha.  She had had way too much fun on the pokies the night before at the campground Tavern and over-exerted herself on the booze.  She’d come out on top though and shouted me a couple of Vodka cokes. Bless.

 

We went for a quick drive into town to check it out.  It was pretty quiet so we found an internet shop to download the blog.  After that we went to Kmart to get some supplies and then Woolies for some food and that was pretty much seeing the town.

 

Lou sat down in the sun for a read and relax while I set about making a carbonara for lunch with a cognac in hand.  After eating I had a very busy day of waving to helicopters and cutting my nails.  Lou and I even managed to squeeze in one game of checkers and a bit of a read of the newspaper.  Busy, busy.

 

I was excited about the nighttime activities.  We were to meet up with Carols ex Ange who Lou hadn’t met and I hadn’t seen in over 3 years.  She had only been in Alice about 4 months and had been working almost 7 days a week, 18 hours a day and was keen to get out too.

As we were excited about our night out we headed into town early to have some drinks and dinner.  Lou spotted a saloon bar and we headed in.  What a pisser.  It was the kind of place that had ‘tourist’ written all over it and that’s exactly what we were.  The best part was that the place streams live to the internet 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  We set about texting everyone to see if they could see us.  Marty was the only one who actually saw us but it was still pretty funny.

 

After the saloon bar we went for Thai food and then off to the Todd Tavern to see Ange.

It was splendid to see her.  She’s a great chick.

Except for when she bought me a fairy bomb.  It was the most disgusting drink I’ve ever had.  Absynthe with some kind of liquorice tasting mixer. Of course I had to finish it but was feeling quite ill by the end of it.  So there was nothing left to do but head off to the casino! 

 

We were stopped out the front of the casino by the guard to check our I.D and he asked us if we had been drinking.  I thought to myself that if this man could not smell that fairy bomb on my breath then there must be something seriously wrong with him. So I answered yes.  He told us to stay calm when we were in the casino otherwise it would be a short night for us. 

It was a very small and quiet casino and in no time at all we were laughing above the maximum noise limit. Naughty.  We found a roulette table and decided to make our fortunes.  And that we did!  Ange started with $20 and ended up winning $220 and Lou and I had a shared $50 that ended up being $135.  The best was the last roll of the night when we put $50 each in $2.50 chips on black and it came in.  That tower of chips was hilariously high and I can’t believe we didn’t get thrown out over that.

 

Shortly afterwards (as all good casino nights go) we were surrounded by men in suits offering to buy us drinks.  Of course we said yes and then politely made small talk before the three of ran off into the night giggling hysterically.

 

Funniest bit #1: The big sign out the front of the Alice Springs hospital proudly stating that it will be smoke free as of July 1^st 2009.  What????

Funniest bit #2: Ange promising one of the suits she would go on a date with him soon.

Funniest bit #3: Thinking I’d seen Michael Jacksons children but they were only normal kids with fly nets over their faces.

Funniest bit I’d forgotten to write about yesterday: Lou turning the one finger raise hello while driving into a peace sign, or a small wave, or a big wave or a hail Hitler type wave.  She’s really going to some lengths to secure a wave.

 

Day ten:  Alice Springs to Tennant Creek via the Devils Marbles.  Start time 8:45am  Arrival time:  2:45pm  Odometer: 86058

 

It was Lous morning to drive and as our rules go – the driver chooses the music so I popped my head phones in.  I don’t think there’s ever a right time for Enigma.  You might as well throw Enya, Michael Bolton and some pan flutes in and just blow my ears off.

 

We headed out to the Stuart Highway where the road signs told us we could do 130km/h and we both laughed.

 

It’s exciting to be heading to warmer and warmer weather especially when you hear reports of hail and snow in Melbourne.  Ha ha.  Tennant Creek is reportedly 23 degrees.  Katherine is about 26 degrees and Broome is looking at about 31 degrees.  I can see my tan now.

 

We passed over the tropic of Capricorn line shortly after leaving Alice and then came to the Tanami Road.  Many of the local men at The Park Hotel had told me to take this road as a short cut to Broome.  They said my drive was too long and by taking this short cut I could relax a bit more instead of going all the way to Katherine and across to Broome.

Two words. 

Wolf Creek.

Actually lets make it more than two words.

There was no way I was taking my horror movie loving brain across an unpaved road to drive through Wolf Creek for a short cut. 

On we drove.

Our next stop after a quick fill up at Ti-tree was Wycliffe Well – the U.F.O centre of Australia.  The petrol station was painted black and silver with lots of alien heads stuck all over it and they’d put up alien like creatures around in the gardens.  Too much time on their hands I say.  I had a quick photo before Louisa and I hastily took off.  (Lou had managed to pay for someone else’s cheaper fuel at $33 instead of our price of $62.)  Hopefully they’ll blame the aliens.

Shortly after alien-ville we pulled in to have a look at the Devils marbles.  So called because if the devil had time I’m sure he’d be playing marbles.

They are actually amazing rocks to look at.  They look like they have different textures.  Some look like giraffes, some like sponges.  Uluru looked like it had a cross between eczema and acne.  We took a quick look around, made a quick sandwich that we shared with the flies and drove on.

 

Our next stop was Tennant Creek.  The suits at the casino had told us not to bother as it was a horrible town so we were both looking forward to checking it out.  We were also planning on meeting up with a lovely boy we’d also met at the casino Nick who had a dad that lived in Tennant Creek.  We drove to the Outback Caravan Park, a lovely little lush hideaway, and headed to the bbq to cook our dinner.  We had some great chats to the men around the bbq.  Everyone thinks it’s so hilarious that we are doing the road trip in six weeks.  One of the men at the bbq was doing exactly the same trip as us and taking eight months.  Ha ha.  They also remember the kombi if we pass them.  I’ve had a couple of people say “Yeah the yellow kombi, kinda hard to miss”

 

We met up with Nick at the memorial club and had some beers.  The great thing about the NT is that you can still smoke inside so Lou and I went home about 11pm with dry, red eyes.

 

 

Greatest song today: Whatever will be will be, Doris Day.

Funniest bit: Trying to beat Nick in a beer sculling contest and getting absolutely demolished.

Saddest bit: Not seeing one other kombi on the road since Melbourne. Not one!

 

 

Day eleven: Tennant Creek to Mataranka Springs.  Start time 6:00am.  Arrival time: 1:20pm     Odometer: 86633

 

Sunny and I decided to get an early start today so we snuck out of the caravan park at 6am with Louisa snuggled up sound asleep in the back.

I get pretty excited when my alarm goes off in the morning and I have a solo drive planned.  I jump out of bed, pull the pop top down, lock it into place, brush my teeth and take off.  I am already dressed as I just sleep in the clothes I’m going to wear.  This saves me a lot of cold naked time in the morning and unnecessary discomfort trying to get dressed in a cramped car in the pitch black.

 

The sunrise this morning was the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.  I’m going to try and explain it but just to let you know I once tried to explain my cousins wedding dress to someone as ‘white’ with ‘bits’ on the sleeve.

It’s all about the burnt orange colours really.  The beautiful, deep, rich orange line that goes on forever, streaked with striking red and patches of yellow.  I’ve never seen such stunning colours in all my life. It was hard to keep my eyes from looking at it and I had to remind myself a few times that I was behind the wheel of a car.  Driving by yourself at this time of morning and watching the sunrise makes you feel like you are the only person on the planet and I find it very peaceful and good for the soul.  Anyway, after about half an hour of those amazing colours the sky changes into some bodgy pink colours until that big ball of fire rises and makes night into day.  Poetry.

 

My plan was to get half way to Mataranka Springs before Louisa woke up.  I see it as a little challenge.  When sleeping beauty finally awoke at 8am I was about 50kms from Elliot – the halfway point.

Lou took over the driving at Elliot and we pioneered on to the historic Daly Waters pub that all the men around the bbq the night before had told us was a must.

 

On the way to the pub we saw a very large bull on the side of the road with a massive hump on its back.  It was just staring at us and we slowed down to a crawl to get a good look at it.  Hump included it was probably about the height of Louisa. He was a scary looking creature.

 

Anywho, the Daly Waters pub was a fantastic little oasis.  Lush and green with lots of ‘aussie type’ signs around and the obligatory Irish chick behind the bar.  How the Irish get to these small pubs and decide to start working, I will never know.  We were only going to stay for a coffee but decided on an early lunch of Barra bites and a Barra burger.  Barra being wild caught Barramundi.  The burger was the freshest, tastiest thing I’ve eaten all trip – except for the first five nights of Lou’s tuna pasta of course – and we dug into it with a NT draught.  After lunch Louisa bought a blue ‘wife beater’ singlet and I bought a similar one for my nephew Will.

 

The termite mounds out here are amazing – there’s literally millions of them along the highway.  The biggest one I saw was about the same size and width of Lou.  For a minute I actually thought it WAS her outside hiding in the bush before I came to my senses and realized that she was driving the car.

 

 

Louisa just told me she really feels part of the ‘road community’ and scarily enough I may have to agree.  You see the same cars and caravans, see a couple of the same people, wave to everyone, say “hello” to everyone, swap stories and generally be very, very friendly.  It’s horrendous.  People are even starting to wave as they overtake us.  Too much waving cannot be good for anyone.

 

We took off from the pub about 11:15am and headed towards the Mataranka hot springs listening to Fleetwood Mac.  I can’t wait to soak my tired little brain and body into 34degree mineral water and relax and extra notch.  Even my fingers need a relax from all this heavy typing.

 

We made a quick pit stop at the Pink Panther hotel (world famous) and had a look at the bird sanctuary.  Then Lou drove for one more hour (and past two very big road trains) before we rolled up to the Mataranka caravan and campsite.  We quickly changed into our bathers and headed 100m down the road to the Bitter Springs.  Heaven.  It was crystal clear, warm, lovely and made me very happy.

 

Greatest song today: It’s very hard for me to go past Black Box, Ride on time.  (The Fleetwood Mac album and the song ‘Don’t leave me this way’ come in a very close second)

Funniest bit: Lou coming perilously close to hitting a beautiful ibis looking bird while driving and yelling out “not again!”  (Poor thing’s still a bit fragile after the galah incident)

Saddest bit: Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

Best town name: Threeways

Best creek name: Attack creek