Messing about on the river

---

Day 118 - Wycliffe Well to Alice Springs

Another early start to the day and earlier than we’d actually wanted. Birds are great, we’re quite fond of them unless they are Galahs and they don’t understand the ‘Not before 6am’ rule! 5 o’clock they started squawking this morning and I think they were seeking revenge! Mr Howells decided to do a bit of spot lighting last night and got them all stirred up and flappy by flashing the torch. I knew it would end in tears! You great Galah!

We’re on the road by 7am for the second day running. It’s a 4 hour journey to Alice Springs today but we’re starting out in coolness before sun up which is just great, much nicer than already being sweaty and facing 4 hours in the car!

There are a few cattle lining the route, they’re much fatter than those we saw in Queensland although it looks like they have a lot less to forage on. We stop for fuel along the way and I laugh at the sign behind the counter which reads “Due to the lack of robots available, most of the staff are human and therefore liable to react unpredictably if abused!” Alrighty then!

Today’s road trip goes well and our wildlife radar is fully operational but sadly not required. There is a distinct lack of living creatures out here with even our feathered friends seeming less keen on this route. We know animals live here, we see the occasional dead one on the side of the road, the run of the mill cattle or kangaroos nothing else.

However, we do come across a different kind of animal today, the human kind! A Holden comes steaming past us at one point, there’s 4 or maybe 5 young people in it waving out to us so of course we wave back. Next thing they’re throwing beer cans and rubbish out the window onto the side of the highway, we’re not impressed. They disappear from view. Further along the road we spy a white car pulled over, 4 people stand around the car with one hand holding a beer can and the other holding, well I’m sure there’s no need for me to spell it out but they were in no position to wave back at us this time let’s put it that way! Back on the road they came and were soon overtaking us again, waving out but we’re bored with them now. A bit more rubbish flies out the windows and they disappear again. Imagine our surprise when no more than 5 minutes have passed and they’re pulled over again for another natural break. Let’s hope that the single female passenger in the car was the one driving and not drinking. We can but hope.

An oncoming car pulling a caravan passes us but their pop-up roof top is starting to ‘pop-up’. We give them a shout out over the UHF but get no response. A little while later we hear another traveller shout out to the ‘caravan travelling north’ telling them the same thing so they’ve obviously not spotted it themselves. We keep an eye on ours for the rest of the journey just in case! The road is pretty bouncy!

We’re nearing our destination of Alice Springs and soon spot the ‘Welcome’ sign. It’s still early which is great and means we have the rest of the day to get out and do things. Finding the campsite is easy with Tom Tom, what a star Mr Lawton is for sorting that out for us! I’m especially pleased because I’d be navigating otherwise which would just never do and we’d probably be in Copper Pedy right now having taken a wrong turn!

We’re staying at the Big 4 MacDonnell Range site and have been allocated pitch 31 which we find to be an easy park up and near to the amenities, but not too close! We’re really missing our normal ‘free’ or ‘permit’ camp spots now but a lot of those sites around this area don’t have toilets and they’re a no no for us!

We set up and then head straight off into town because today is the Henley-on-Todd Regatta, the only dry river boat regatta in the world! We drive through Alice, we would have cycled by Darryl quite rightly pointed out that if we did that we’d miss everything by the time we got there! Good point, car it is! We find our way to Anzac Park and the dry river bed of the Todd. This is the 48th year of the regatta and in all that time it’s only been cancelled once due to flooding when there was ironically too much water in the Todd!

It’s great to see this huge charity event so well supported, there are thousands of people here and of course the Variety Club Bashers are out in style. What a laugh we had watching the Kayak racing where they have to ‘paddle’ into the sand to move the boat along and the boogie board racing with 4 people pulling the poor sod through the sand on the boogie board! Very funny! The commentary team are hilarious and whenever there’s a presentation to be made to the winner of a certain race we must all be upstanding for the national anthem. We dutifully stand for Rod Stewarts ‘Sailing’ and for Blondie’s ‘Tide is high’ and later on for Boney M’s ‘By the rivers of Babylon’! The Battle Boats paraded through Todd Mall this morning, we missed that but they are in the main arena now getting ready for the water fight later, or at least that’s what we think it’s all about! The ‘Surf Rescue’ competition is funny too and the Yacht race with all the states Variety Club Bashers is brilliant! South Australia take the win although the final was held up for a while when a snake (later found to be a legless lizard) was discovered in the Queensland yacht!! Honest! Everyone was having such a great time and it’s hard to imagine how quiet Alice would be without the 3000 extra people here! It’s buzzing today!

There are Aboriginal artists working in the streets of the Mall when we wander back through, the art looks good and we’ll have a better look when we return next week for a few days.

We had shopping to get today so off we went to Woolworths for some supplies, it feels like we’re always shopping! We don’t get much, just fruit, veggies and some more Lime cordial which is keeping us hydrated in the heat! We nip across to the newsagents to get yet more stamps for the endless amount of postcards! Whenever I ask for 50 stamps the assistants always look stunned, today was no different! $70 later and we now have plenty of stamps again!

Back at camp Darryl puts the shopping away and I post the postcards - about 35 went today!!

The swimming pool looks inviting and we’re sweltering in the heat so we go off for a quick dip and enjoy the refreshingly cold water. We get chatting to the blokes in the pool and the subject quickly turns to the cricket! We’ve not bothered with the TV for the last few nights so we’ve no idea what’s happening but they forlornly tell us that Australia are not doing too well and it will take an amazing c**k up by England for them to turn it around. Darryl is already pondering the conversation with Grant if things continue to go England’s way!! We’ll keep a lid on it until the results are in! Grant, stand by your phone!!

We check our mobile and find a message on there from Anna (Grant’s lovely wife) and they’ve got their girl puppy at long last - Daisy! Congratulations everyone, we’re really looking forward to meeting her! As soon as the cricket’s over we’ll give you a ring!!!!

We’ve got time to update the blogs from the last couple of days too. I’ve taken to writing them when we’re on the long car journeys but the upload and the photos have to be done at camp because they sun’s normally too bright in the car to be able to see things properly!!

We get a great email from Mum and Dad K with a poem attached! It’s brilliant, well done team Kettle! Have a read of it on the Bloggers poet society blog, it’s called Another Ode to the Wallaby Wanderers. It’s really very good.

Thanks for all the messages too guys, it’s great to hear from you, we like getting mail a lot!!! Great to hear from Claire and Chris back in Bristol too.

We manage a quick catch up with Kangaroojack who are back in the Atherton Tablelands which is an area we will go back to explore in full on another trip as it’s beautiful. They’re getting ready to move into a house for a month in Cairns, it’s a great place and we wonder if they will make that their base in the future.

It’s a race weekend back home so our beloved ‘sister’ team of The Dogs Bollocks are at Shakespeare County Raceway with ‘Ramraider’ in Wild Bunch at the Open Sports Nationals. We have a check on Eurodragster via the excellent live report to see how things are going but they’re not in the top five at the moment. We Skype some encouragement and a little while later get a shout back. Ed’s driving this weekend and he’s been going to quick for the dial in the team have set, hence the unusually low placing. Hopefully they’ll turn things around. A quick shout out to Harrison too competing in Super Street with the Thatadoo camaro, he’s currently in 3rd spot which is excellent. Good luck to everyone.

There’s a big party atmosphere in the Tavern next to the campsite and we contemplate gong over for a beer or two but we’ve got another big drive tomorrow so we give it a miss, there’ll be plenty of time to party next week when we return! Instead we settle in to watching an AFL game between Brisbane Lions and Port Adelaide. At one stage the Lions were trailing by 47 points but despite their captain getting knocked unconscious (but refusing to go off the pitch when he came round) and other injuries they battled on and eventually clawed their way back to take the win. Best game we’ve watched since Hawthorn beat Carlton (sorry Dale!).

So good night from Alice Springs and we hope to bring you the first Wallaby Wanderers pictures of ‘the rock’ tomorrow.

Safe travels

Dar and Sar

---

Comments

[bulldog hibbitt]

howdi folks
ello stangers, hope your both ok...blummin eck Sar - thought you'd have managed to stop sh&g doing his early rises ! ha ha .. Thnx for the cards, was a lovely surprise... You truly are living the dream and 1/3rd of the way through what can only described as the the ultimate lifetime experience.. Joined this travel blog thingy..perhaps by the time you get back, I'll have mastered it ! ha ha Just on the Sunday before returning to work from a 2 weeks off, been to Devon for 8 days which was nice, only 1 day of pooh weather so carnt complain. Last week in Kent next week - back in Hams after but we have lost our office, Joanna has also moved to a new job so 1st task is to find a 'new home' in Ops Build...ha ha Still unsure what I'll be doing but dare say plenty to do when I do get back.. Other than that not much else has changed...will keep you in the loop. keep in touch Pete Bulldog Hibbitt... ...AKA Angry Hibbitt ...AKA Angry Kid

[Jan Kettle]

Should have called it: 'Another Ode etc'
I can't claim any credit for the wonderful poem as it was all Dad K's work. He didn't realise that one of the other poems had that title - still, great minds and all that!

[Stuart Hall]

Thanks for the postcard
It was waiting when we got back from our week in Menorca. The charity do sounds like a total hoot!