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Published: April 26th 2009
Meet Gloria, our gorgeous new neighbour. She lives on the bush outside and is an Australian Golden Orb Weaving spider. She's a pretty clever spider, her massive web is yellow colour to attract bees to it and she can change the darkness of her silk to suit local conditions. If the weather gets too windy, she can release some of the structure so the web doesn't get blown away. So that birds don't fly through it she's strung an extra few threads (about as thick as fishing line) in front of it and left some insect carcasses prominently on display to make it more visable, although one of her cousins in Queensland was filmed killing a bird by chomping down into its head. Fishermen in New Guinea actually use webs from a similar sort of spider to catch fish, they take down the web and screw it up, and then throw it in the water where it opens up. Nine of her relatives were killed in the Columbia space shuttle crash, they were taken up to see how they coped with making webs under zero-gravity conditions (reakon one escaped and bit through the shuttle wall). We know all this 'cos she
Gloria
Golden Orb Weaverscared the shit out of us and we looked her up on google to see if we'd die if she bit us (no)!
So, we're finally at Alice Springs, our home for the next couple of years or so. After nearly three years of travelling its time to settle down for a while and start replenishing our bank account. Took a few days to drive up here from Melbourne and we covered about 2800km. We did detour a bit to Albury on the Victoria/New South Wales border to see Tracey and Jeff, Meg, Milly and Jezza for a couple of days. Always lovely to see them, not least because Tracey always makes me a chocolate cake. Mmmm, lovely, all dripping with rich chocolate sauce. Oh no it wasn't... was it Jeff? But I suppose, yes, it did look a bit like the unwanted remains of the gravy....
Tilly, our van decided to play up a little bit and not to start every time. It happened a couple of times but then she would eventually come to life, but then eventually died in a layby luckily only 5km from a town. We had to flag down a passing campervan
who (seemingly reluctantly) agreed to track down a mechanic for us who arrived to scratch his head and confess that he didn't have a clue about the problem. He did tow-start us though and we made it to the next town where the next morning the van started without a problem. Feeling confident, we switched the engine off in a busy petrol station in Adelaide where Tilly then decided not to start again, blocking half the garage for half an hour until we managed to get somebody to tow-start us again. We found an auto-electrician to remove the immobiliser that we figured was causing the problem and it all seemed good. That is until we pulled over into a rest area, really in the middle of nowhere - hundreds of miles from a town - and she wouldn't start yet again. We think the battery is on its way out, and this time I'd left the headlights on for a few mins when we stopped and that was enough to drain it. So, luckily after a while the solar panel topped up the battery enough and she was fine.
Spent four nights on the Stuart Hightway on the way
up. The first in Port Augusta (or Porta Gutter) which despite its poor reputation we actually quite like. Then Glendambo, barely more than a couple of petrol stations and a motel, but where we had a good evening with some of the guys from the local sheep station a few years ago. Then a night in bizarre Coober Pedy, part mining town, part scrapyard and part surreal dreamscape of a madman. Most of the people here live underground to escape the heat and there is something like 50 different nationalities in town, all here looking for opals. There are even underground churches here. The town is littered with junk and its sometimes hard to know whether its old mining equipment, old film props from the many movies that have been made here or surreal sculptures either made to entice tourists into opal shops or just the product of minds fried by the baking sun and years of drink. The final night was at Erldunda, the turn off to Uluru although this time we just carried on north without visiting 'the rock'.
We stayed the first night in Alice in a caravan park and then moved into a two bedroom
flat, right on the side of the Todd River. Sounds picturesque but would be more so if there was actually any water in the river. It does flow every so often and they say that if you see the river running three times then you're in the town for life. We really like the town, not least for the baffled reactions of most people when they hear that we've chosen to move here, normally people who have never been here themselves. For a fairly small town (the population, about 27,000 is about the same as Hertford where I was born) there seems to be plenty of shops and services. Mainly because if you can't get something here, its a long way to the next town. We're roughly half way between Adelaide and Darwin, both about 1500km away, and there is nothing much before either. To go any distance east or west really you need 4WD. Since the town has to be self-sufficient, there seems to be quite a lot on to do as well. We went to a free outside premier of a film the other night, set locally
Samson and Delilah will be shown in the UK sometime next
year. We've seen another free film outside and been to a free heritage night at the Telegraph Station.
Saturday was Anzac day and Alice has been home to about 150 Vietnam Veteran Motorcycle Club members who were here for the service. Today they tried to set the record for the most Harley Davidsons to ride through Bojangles bar. Thats right, actually through the bar. They managed about 50, not too close to the record of 86. Incidentally, Bojangles (about 4 minutes walk from our flat) has a webcam on 24hrs. www.bossaloon.com.au The local radio station broadcasts live from the bar and if you go online you can listen to what we're listening to, maybe see us on the webcam and even buy us a beer. Shout us a round and the DJ calls it over the airwaves. Two schooners of NT would be lovely, thanks. Beers come in different sizes all over Australia. You get pots, middies, schooners, pints that aren't real pints and pints that are.
Went to buy a newspaper the other day, $1.50 it should be. That'll be $3.50 she said. Turns out you have to pay extra for the national papers here because they
get flown in
first class. First class? What with extra legroom and a choice of canapes? I'd rather buy a paper thats flown economy and save my money.
The actual town might not be that picturesque in itself, but the surroundings are stunning. The MacDonnell Ranges run though town, and the classic photo of Alice showns the view down Bath Street towards Heavitree Gap (in the ranges) from Anzac Hill. A couple of minutes drive from town and you're in the bush. A half hour walk from the town along the river is the Telegraph Station, the original reason the town exists. The overland telegraph line carried messages between Adelaide and Darwin, and every 250km there had to be a repeater station where a bloke listened to the morse code of the message, and then resent the message to the next station. Water being scarce in the centre of Australia when they found a reliable water hole in part of the normally dry Todd River they named it after Alice Todd (the wife of the surveyor) and built a repeater station. Alice never saw the spring named after her. The area now, only about 3km from town, is teeming
Blower through the heat haze
Used for sucking waste from opal mine shaft with wildlife including wallabies, kangaroos and euros (type of wallaroo). I stood still for 15 mins taking pictures of ants (don't ask) and two kangaroos seemingly oblivious to me hopped at full speed just about 4 feet away.
I've done a bit of job hunting, and maybe got a couple of things possibly lined up. Keep randomly bumping into people with ambulance service connections (my old career) who seem to think that I should apply there, so you never know. maybe I'll go back to that. Claire starts work in A&E next week.
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Linda
non-member comment
More photos at Bojangles
Hi folks. My hubby was there for Anzac Day and his camera hasn't worked. Do you have any more photos of the bike ride through and/or Bojangles?