Alice Springs to Cloncurry

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Our return flight from Darwin to Alice Springs was pleasant...although we had transversed this same trek by train heading north 5 weeks earlier it was amazing to view the ground from the air with all its vastness, beautiful ochre colours and at times the main highway between Alice and Darwin also the train track which we had happily rattled along in The Ghan...

We felt a bit like we had come home as our Qantas flight descended to Alice, over The Gap landing smoothly...no air bridges here, so down the steps we went and before we knew it we were contently settled back in our van at East McDonald Ranges Caravan Park for the next few days.

Hitched up and on our way again we headed north up the centre to an interesting place called Gemtree where we fossicked for red garnets...the day we chose to go fossicking was sunny, hot and very dusty! Nevermind, we were like everyone else and certainly in the spirit of finding our treasure...which we did! Back at camp later that afternoon we were delighted to find amongst our handfull of garnets 7 which were good ones to have cut and polished...now we have to deceide what to do with them!

The second night at Gemtree was the Opening Night of the Olympic Games, a kindly welcome was extended to one and all of us fossickers to grab our chairs and view the events on a very large screen while enjoying drinks and nibblies...we were surrounded by several large fires to keep us warm...we really needed those black beanies and black gloves we had found at Moree some months prior...it was FREEZING cold but the night was exciting and the stars above were absolutely gorgeous!

Next night we stayed at Wycliffe Wells which is supposed to be the UFO capital of Australia...we didn't see anything unusual but certainly the camp ground was somewhat strange to say to least! Long days ahead but we didn't mind as the Outback is so all consuming...Devils Marbles were rather amazing!

Continuing further north up through the centre we began to really fall in love with the Outback...such country is very beautiful although very sparse, the quietness of the Outback is amazing as are the 4 boggie road trains we often encounted along the way...whoever was going to get over to the side was always a thought as they loomed into the distance ahead...we always got over wherever we could! Folks often refer to the truckies as not too friendly, overall we found them to be very understanding and more often than not call us on the UHF to let us know what they were about to do...most thoughtful I always thought!

Out in the middle of 'no wheres ville' we came across Barkley Homstead so deceided that we needed a good rest and the Pub dinner was good as are most of the roadhouse stops along the way...next day we were off early to Cloncurry where we found a pleasant country town and a great little bakery that made yummy pies so of course we had pies for lunch...the pies were so-o-o good we dashed back for some vanilla slices to have with our coffee!

Since leaving home we have passed through many states...NSW QLD VIC SA NT WA and now we were back in QLD and looking forward to heading further north to the Gulf!

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