Tomoko having completed her early morning excursion of Kings Canyon, we drove the 270km to the Stuart Highway turnoff at Erldunda. Blessed with a wifi signal again, Tomoko checked her work emails & with not a lot on for the rest of the day, decided to press on the extra 200km to Alice Springs. Just a few kms out of town is the Temple Bar Caravan Park & that's where we arrived after a long drive. It's a very peaceful location on the banks of a dry riverbed & many birds gather in the trees of an afternoon. All powered sights were full & we were placed in the dust bowl of the car park. We decided to stay a week here & at about $18 a night the price was right for a safe place to stay. Arriving after us was a caravan we had been playing road tag with on the highway. Our new neighbours, Phil & Jeannette were a friendly couple & had a big brown lab by the name of Duncan. Duncan was a bit too boisterous for Shaka to interact with but Tomoko & I made up for it by lavishing him with attention.
We went into town for supplies our first night there. With many international tourists wandering the town we dubbed it 'Cairns in the desert'. There are many attractions in Alice - Desert Park, Royal Flying Doctor Service Museum & the Road Transport Hall of Fame just to name a few. Despite a plethora of activities to choose from I have to admit we did very little. When you have been on the road for a while sometimes it's nice just to chill out for a bit.
The one sightseeing highlight was a visit to the nearby West MacDonnell Ranges. Luckily for us the local RSPCA offers $10-a-day dog sitting & it's only a few kilometres up the road. We took him early in the morning. It was like a scene out of Alcatraz. The new guy in town walking through a corridor of cells, taunts coming thick & fast from inmates on both sides. The barking was so noisy I couldn't here what the carer was saying & despite being quite deaf, Shaka was noticeably nervous as we gently pushed him into his cell for the day. Duncan would be a fellow inmate but that was of little consolation.
It's often a long way between attractions out here & we had to drive 130km to reach Ormiston Gorge. We took a short walk up to Ghost Gum Lookout & down into the valley. It wasn't as majestic as Kings Canyon but an impressive sight nonetheless. We lunched by the waterhole & only a few brave youngsters were willing to tackle the bitterly cold waters. Next stop was the nearby Ochre Pits, effectively a 'paint set' in the form of multi-coloured layers of rock used by the traditional people for ceremonies and such. We briefly considered doing some face painting ourselves but with signs warning of a $5000 penalty, thought it may be difficult to talk our way out of a fine with our faces covered with ochre. From here we stopped at Simpsons Gap, a waterhole at the cleft of towering cliffs. Late in the day we picked up Shaka. He exited with some urgency & slept like a baby on return to the van.
It had been quite some time since we were plugged into 240v & after 14 days of unpowered camping the van battery went dead. We were due to leave that day anyway but decided to stay one more night in Alice at the nearby show ground to charge up. I expected it may take up to 72 hours to fully recharge the battery so there was a chance we would stay longer but in the morning it was fully charged and we were ready to go. Until next time...adios amigos.