Off to See the Wizard - Kings Canyon to Alice Springs

Time for another catch up……this time for two days.

KINGS CANYON TO ERLDUNDA ROADHOUSE

On our way out of Kings Canyon we called into the Kathleen Springs Walk.  We had passed the turn off to it on our way in, but had not heard anything about it, so ignored it.  We are really pleased we called in on the return trip.

As you enter the gorge there is a prominent bluff.  You can just see a tiny spot above the highest point.  It is a surveying trig station.

Below the bluff is the remnants of some old stock yards. Cattle were introduced to the area in the 1890s and the permanent water of the springs were used by the cattle. The stockmen used a fence across the narrow gorge to trap the cattle to brand them.  These stockyards were built in 1962.  They had a gate that was open most of the time, but when it was time to send some stock to market they would close the gate and trap them, ready to load onto trucks.

It was interesting the learn that the aboriginal people had also used the narrow gorge and water source as a trap for hunting prey for food.

A little further along the track is the remains of a large water tank and windmill.  A fence was put in place to prevent the cattle from accessing the springs and consequently fouling them.  Water was pumped by windmill from Kathleen Springs to a holding tank here.  Water from the tank was piped into water troughs for the cattle to drink from.  During dry weather the cattle would graze up to 16kms away during the cool of the night but would always return here for water.

It was a nice easy walk, even considered wheel chair friendly, but there were a couple of rises that would have been hard pushing and some of the path was fairly broken, so not all that friendly.

After walking beside the creek, which had lovely clear water, we finally reached the waterhole.  What a beautiful place. The bright green foliage at the bottom right of the photo was a fishbone style fern.  Totally unexpected by me.  We stayed there for a while, soaking it all in and chatting to a few other that were there before retracing our steps to the car and back on the road.

We actually thought this walk was much prettier than the King Creek Walk at Kings Canyon, but with hardly any publicity. Go figure.

We had our lunch at the junction of the road to Kings Canyon and the Lassiter Highway running from the Stuart Highway to Yulara, checking out the Red Centre Way sign.

Then it was just driving to our overnight destination of Erldunda Roadhouse, at the junction of the Stuart Highway and Lassiter Highway.  It was a really well set our caravan park for where it was.  We had heard that fuel cost $3.11 per litre when we went in to Yulara, but hadn’t needed to fuel up. When we called in this time it had reduced to $2.93 per litre.  Still dear, but not nearly as bad.  We still didn’t need to fuel up, as we had filled a jerry can when we had cheaper fuel, so used that.

The park has a few animals to check out. “Cluck Norris” the rooster, several emus and a camel.  I don’t know what it’s name is but we had a little chat.

Another sunset, complete with our van.  Maybe it should be a ABS Tour - Another Bloody Sunset Tour.

ERLDUNDA ROADHOUSE TO ALICE SPRINGS

We were back to travelling new roads again. It was just an easy 200kms up the road to reach Alice Springs.  The landscape continued to change with hills in the distance and crossing a few dry rivers, the Finke, the Hugh and finally the Todd River.

Once we reached Alice Springs we checked into our caravan park.  Oh, the joy of a shady and grassy site. We didn’t realise how much we would appreciate it after camping on dirt every night since we left home.  The people here at the park are very friendly and helpful. We are here for five nights.

After we had some lunch we headed into the big city.  OK, big country town, as the population is about 25,000.  However, it is the main centre for a huge area.  

To get to the main part of town from our caravan park you have to drive through “The Gap”, which divides the West MacDonnell Ranges from the East MacDonnell Ranges.  Through that small space runs the road, the Ghan Railway line and the Todd River.  

There appears to be a lot of the big retailers here.  We hunted out Super Cheap for Mick to buy a socket on a long handle to try to fix the 12v issue we are having with our fridge.  

We then went for an explore.  We had heard varying opinions of Alice Springs.  Some say we will love the place, while others tell sad stories of indigenous kids trying the handles of every car in car parks, caravans being broken into in caravan parks while the occupants are asleep, lots of people just loitering in the streets.  

This was my first impression. Our first stop was the Information Centre.  Most of these have bright and helpful staff to give you information.  Not here.  You are just directed to the corner with the brochures.  I bought a post card. The lady at the counter just grunted that they don’t take cash (which wasn’t a problem) but no smile or greeting.  Todd Street Mall is a main area I had heard about, however, it was very disappointing.  There were a few aboriginal art galleries, but lots of empty shops and it just had a general feel of being unloved and neglected.  The streets seemed rather dead, other than people loitering.  We then found there are a few main shopping malls.  This seems to be where most of the activity is.  Then we went to find Coles to catch up on the groceries. It is not in a shopping centre and the surrounds are rather depressing and run down.  The shop was good, and very busy.

We have been told it is quite an ordeal to purchase take away alcohol.  There are police present at every bottle shop who check your ID, want to know where you come from etc and then ID is checked again once you are inside and it is checked against a black list they have.  Pretty sad, isn’t it. We haven’t needed to buy any, so haven’t personally encountered it yet, but may have to further up the track.  

Having said that, there are lots of murals on buildings to try to brighten things up.

There appear to be lots of government buildings and a large hospital precinct.  There is also a large well lit sporting oval with a flash looking grandstand setup.  There will be a lot more to see than that first little bit. We will enjoy exploring more.

Our day was completed by having a chat to a really interesting fellow camped next to us and Mick cooking on the barbecue.  Good to see he’s hard at it.

Oh, and we finished listening to an audio book.  We have now listened to three.

They have all been good,  We will listen to another of the Dervla McTiernan books when we start driving again.  We have worked out that we don’t want a book that goes for ages, as we will get bored with it.  We are both fast readers and sometimes there are things that you would just skim over as you read, but with an audio book you have to hear it all in full, and it is hard to just duck back to review something a bit earlier in the book.  Also, it needs to be fairly fast paced to keep Mick’s attention, for that very reason.

I’ll have more to share soon.