After all the walking and scrambling over rocks at Kings Canyon, my legs were not too disappointed at the prospect of another driving day. We were headed for Alice Springs and had to choose between 125kms of dirt road or a huge diversion of hundreds of kms to avoid it. Of course we chose the dirt and bumped and jiggled along for a couple of hours before reaching the Namatjira Highway, one of the prettiest outback roads I had ever seen. One side is all national park and the road runs through the west end of the McDonnell Ranges which are incredibly beautiful. Here was every type of hill imaginable. Rocky bald ones, rocky ones covered with trees and bushes, smooth undulating ones with rocky ones in front and strange rock formations which ran along like drystone walls but red!
We stopped to look at the Ochre Pits near Ormiston Gorge. They were beautiful, all the gorgeous colours used in traditional indigenous artwork could be seen in the rocks. There were a few tour group coaches on the road and one had pulled up at the same time as us so we tagged along to have a listen but the tour guide did not share nearly as much information as the signs around the site so we were glad when they left and we had the place to ourselves to look around.
There were plenty of free over night camping areas along the Namatjira Highway but not many allowed dogs except Point Howard Lookout where we parked up right at the top of a hill with spectacular 360° views. There were a few other vans there and when we surfaced in the morning we discovered another tour group had pulled up and were being given a guided tour of us, basically, and the other campers. We must have been a novelty, I hope they enjoyed it.
Temple Bar Caravan Park 10kms outside Alice Spring was our destination. It was really nice, generous pitches in the shadow of a vast rocky section of the McDonnell Ranges. The amenities were old but clean and all for $28 a night, which was very good so close to a big tourist destination. Unfortunately they only had one site available for 2 nights and we were hoping to stay for about 6. The owners were helpful and found us another site for the third night but then nothing so we went to Winngardi Caravan Park right next door and found they had availability for our further three nights. So, our visit to Alice Springs involved a bit of moving house but we had somewhere to stay and that was what mattered.
Alice Springs was a really attractive city. A fair bit of the place was quite new looking so I guess many older places had been knocked down because it has been a large established centre for a very long time but the juxtaposition of old and new made it a very interesting place. We had all kinds of warnings about Alice from various people we encountered but found that visitors just need to exercise a bit of sensible caution just like they do in thousands of other places around the world. Certainly, as someone brought up in a big city, I could point out many places where I have felt far less safe than Alice Springs. What did feel awkward is that we white tourists sat drinking our fancy coffee in places where the indigenous population were clearly not welcome but, don't get me started or this will turn into a rant.
The ANZAC Lookout offered 360° views of the city which was fabulous and gave a real feeling of the original settlement growing up in the middle of nowhere. After doing a bit of grocery shopping in Coles we went to buy a wine cask and discovered the rules around alcohol were very strict. There were police officers on all the bottle shop entrances and port or wine casks could only be purchased after 5pm and then only tiny ones and one per person on production of a drivers license. So we bought our allowance and headed back to the van to admire all the resident bird life.
It was so cold overnight that the water supply at the caravan park froze. We did know, obviously, that the desert is hot in the day and cold at night but it took a bit of getting used to. The next day we left Harvey in the van and visited the Alice Springs Telegraph Station, the whole reason why Alice Springs was there in the first place. The station was built in 1871 as a link along the Overland Telegraph Line, connecting Darwin and Adelaide. Its construction also integrated Australia into the telegraph network of the British Empire, reducing the delivery time for a message to England from months to 5 hours! The visit was great, only $16 each with an excellent talk at the beginning and as much time to explore the buildings and send telegraph messages to each other as we liked. It was a beautiful site and tables were being set up for a wedding as we left. We walked up Trig Hill (more scrambling up rocks) then back to chill at the van.
Moved pitch in the morning then returned to Alice Springs, this time with Harvey. We planned to walk the History Trail but it was a bit disappointing with many of the historic building closed . We had heard the Ghan was arriving that day so went to the station to investigate. The station staff advised that the best photo opportunity was the point where the train came through The Gap as it entered the town at around 1.20pm so we went and waited and it was incredibly exciting to hear the train tooting its horn on the approach. The Ghan was hugely impressive, 36 carriages passing through the rocky gap along side the road, well worth the effort to go and see it.
On the way back to the caravan park we stopped of to visit the grave of John Flynn, the remarkable man who founded the Royal Flying Doctors then we dropped Harvey off and went to find Standley Chasm. Not only was Alice Springs itself fabulous but it was surrounded by places in the McDonnell Ranges like Standley Chasm, many of them were gorges, gaps or, as in this case, chasms. It was a brilliant walk, only a couple of kms so not too demanding. A gorgeous trail led walkers through the rocks until the chasm revealed itself at the end, absolutely magnificent.
After a move to the neighbouring Winngardi Caravan Park next door, $30 unpowered, not quite such good views but better amenities and more birds, we returned to the city and visited the Royal Flying Doctors Museum. There was a good little film to watch and an ok museum, not as good as the one in Broken Hill where they have planes but we are always happy to donate to the cause. Sadly the Women's Museum was closed but over the next couple of days we carried out a couple of post 5pm grog runs to stock up, Ian walked around Ormiston Gorge and we both visited the Cultural Centre It was only $6 entry and had three decent exhibitions running in the main building alongside a cinema, cafe and craft centre. Next door was the site of the original Alice Springs Airport which now housed The Central Australian Aircraft Museum, free entry with loads of exhibits, information and very knowledgeable volunteers.
We loved Alice Springs and I would encourage anyone to ignore any negative stories they may have heard and visit.
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