Alice Redux

I just got L's photos, so here are some more pics from our expedition to Alice Springs:

Rainbow Valley, sunset.

Rainbow Valley, sunrise.

This was our buggies spot, and although the flies calm down after dark, they start again at daybreak. Our traveling companion, J, offered to cook us a pancake breakfast, but seeing that they would have been filled with 'sultanas' (the little raisins sold here) we opted to eat at Stuart Wells, a roadhouse up the highway: bottomless cups of instant coffee, and eggs on hamburger rolls with grilled tomatoes and fatty bacon.

It was good choice. The back room was plastered in newspaper clippings about the family and the outback lodge they had once run. There were faded pictures of tourists 'yabbie' (crayfish) racing and smiling for the camera under rafters strewn with undergarments. A large section gives tribute to Dinky-Di, the world-famous singing dingo, who used to stand on the piano and yowl.

As the articles thin, one can piece together the story of the original lodge's demise. The proprietor, faced with the expiration of his 30 year lease, protested by returning it in the state in which he first found it. The final pictures are of the family tearing down the lodgings, their daughter's grave visible in the foreground. A small glimpse of outback grit and grief.

Out of Stuart Wells we headed up the Finke river, with an ill-fated detour into the desert looking for the springs at Ilpara. We found them in the end - little clumps of rushes in a small gulch - a far cry from the gushing cenote that my sun-addled brain had so sorely hoped for. That night's campsite, however, more than made up for it.


Our campsite the next night, Finke River. Beautiful swimming.

Crossing the Finke.