Camp Roasts to Greek Lunches

2008 Best Australian Quilt displayed at Royal Flying Doctor Museum Alice Springs

Detail from quilt above

The Campoven kitchen that can feed hundreds at Gemtree 

River bed as part of walk at Gemtree

Our Bush Camp at Gemtree

First shooting of the shy Territory dingoes

Three wise men (or women) at the Devils Marbles

A lucky shot at the Marbles

Territory single lane roads - even used by road trains but not while we were using them

The Marbles are pretty big

A quirky shot from Sally

We are so far north that swimming is possible - maybe later this afternoon

So - here's a change. Sally is quilting so you get me doing the blog.  In return I have used some of Sally's photos to show that she is a better photographer than me.

The last post saw us leaving Alice Springs and contemplating going out of coverage for a week or so.  Thankfully we have had coverage in spots and are now in Tennant Creek.

As an addendum to the Alice post, I have added pictures of the quilt that hangs at the RFDS museum. It was judged Australia's best in 2008 and well deserved too.  Such precision and beauty that even a troglodyte like me was impressed.  Sally had a fantastic time for the last few days in Alice as we were parked next to Elaine and Brian.  Elaine is a long time quilter and so it left Brian and me with a lot of time while they talked quilts and crafts.  You meet some wonderful people on the way.  I discovered a leak in our main water tank 24 hours before leaving Alice and with Brian's help and transport managed to remove the tank and have it repaired before reinstalling and all over a period of about 3 hours.

On our last day in Alice we went for coffee at our favourite "Red Dog Cafe" which just happened to be owned by Brian's cousin (he discovered that while in Alice).  They are lovely people and serve great coffee.  We sat next to a pair of grandparents with their 5 year old grand daughter.  What a card - she talked non stop and the crowning line was "MY hair smells of Bug Killer".  Grandmother laughed and admitted that the nits in Alice are so bad that the only treatment that works is "Frontline" - yes the stuff they use on dogs for fleas.  I had pictured this beautiful girl with a dog collar for a necklace but apparently you can buy it in liquid form.  We have had the most wonderful conversations over morning tea in all sorts of places.

Reluctantly we left Alice, a town we had grown to love, and headed North on the Stuart and then turned onto the Plenty Highway driving 70 km to the Gemtree Campground.  The attraction was the legendary Campfire roast held on Wednesday nights.  We were not disappointed - a huge meal with seconds and the most tender beef I have eaten - and that's saying something given that we get our meat at home from Queensland's best butcher.  It must have been the atmosphere - the stars above, the two campfires and the old newsreel style movie of the proprietors' family history.  Dated from the time that the grandfather had set out from NSW with family and wagon arriving in Gemtree over a year later, some story.  Gemtree is named for the gem fossicking industry in the area but we resisted the urge to get down and dirty and left the next day headed west to rejoin the Stuart and the north towards Litchfield.  140 Km just for a baked dinner - distance matters little in the Centre.

The Stuart is a beautiful 2 lane highway with unrestricted speed so it is the first step down to get on to a one lane bitumen road which was what we had all the way to Gemtree.  The idea is that you drive in the middle of the bitumen until you have a two car situation and then you work it out.  Our strategy was one of total submission so when a car was spotted in front or in the mirror we pulled over and parked on the verge till they had gone.  The idea was to avoid dust and stones.  You would be amazed how many 4x4 people couldn't cope with this and took to the dirt just to spray us.  Luckily there was no damage from flying stones.  It is amazing how much damage these people cause to their own cars by doing 100k on rough dirt tracks.  The rear skirt on many had been peppered with, not chips, but divots from their own flying stones.  There is certainly a smell of testosterone in the air when you talk with them.  There is a picture above of one such encounter.

We stopped at a couple of Roadhouses and mixed with the many tourists and nomads plying this busy highway.  Aileron, which is the town of the Big Aborigine, Barrow Creek, Ti Tree and eventually we arrived at the highlight of the day - the Devils Marbles.  The marbles bit is obvious but why the devil I'm not sure (Sally would look it up and give you the history if she was writing this but I guess I'm lazier).

I have included some of our photos of the Marbles but it is hard to show the magnitude of the group.  The first amazing thing was to get a photo of a real live dingo up close.  We have seen almost no wildlife on the trip and it was almost like it had been trained to sit in the carpark and wait for tourists.  It is a bit like Stonehenge in the 60s when you could crawl all over the rocks so we joined the throng and the challenge was to get people-free photos.  We were there for about 30 minutes and moved out with a mission to reach Tennant Creek that night.

Many years ago Sally had a sewing machine called an Elna Lotus.  When she bought a lovely Bernina full size machine she handed it down to the kids and now she has been longing for the compact Lotus (which we bought in Nottingham in 1969).  Just out of Alice Springs Sal found a near new Lotus on Gumtree still in the box and protected by the foam inserts.  It was for sale in Tewantin and only used by a little old lady who was now in a Nursing Home.  With very patchy 3G coverage we negotiated the deal and finalised it as we arrived in Tennant Creek.  It's funny the things you find to do while driving hundreds of kilometres on an unrestricted highway.  Deal done and safely at Tennant Creek in a beautiful, fairly dusty, old but clean camp ground.  They have Imparga TV coverage so at 9 tonight I can gnash my teeth watching a game that Manly needs to win to avoid the possibility of going from first to fifth on the ladder. Go the mighty Maroon and Whites - see there is a time each week when I barrack for the real original Maroons.

Tennant Creek is a real surprise - quite a nice little town with a couple of pubs and a hospital, post office, supermarket etc.  We found the most wonderful little Greek Cafe for lunch and will be back for Brunch before we leave tomorrow morning.  Our next stop is Daly Waters where the pub does great meals we are told (who says life doesn't revolve around food?).

Once again I must warn you that coverage will be limited but we are really looking forward to a holiday in Litchfield and Kakadu.  Hopefully Chris and Brittney will have sprogged soon with our second Great Grandchild so that we can rip the top off the champers that we are saving for the occasion.  Keep smiling guys and get plenty of rest, you will need to bank some sleep for  the night shifts ahead.  We wish we could be there but no doubt when we arrive in August there will still be some baby hugs left.

For now that's all folks and normal transmission will resume after Litchfield.

PS

Sorry I left out some of the wide shots of the Marbles.  Look at the size of the people in the third one.  After the last picture Sally has added some real information.  You can't keep a good raconteur down.

Yep, I can't help myself.  We did wonder why Devil's Marbles? and here is what I found.  John Ross, of the Australian Overland Telegraph Line expedition, 1870, said :
"This is the Devil's country; he's even emptied his bag of marbles around the place".

More interestingly, the Aboriginal term is Karlu Karlu, which translates as Round Boulders.  One of the main Dreaming stories for the area relates to how Karlu Karlu was made.  This tradition tells of Arrange, the Devil Man, who came from a hill nearby and travelled through the area.  Whilst walking along, Arrange made a hair-string belt.  As he was twirling the hair to make strips, he dropped clusters of hair on the ground.  The clusters turned into the big red boulders at Karlu Karlu that have become so famous today.  On his way back to his hill, Arrange spat on the ground.  His spit turned into the granite boulders in the central part of the reserve.  Arrange finally returned to his place of origin, a hill called Ayleparrarntenhe, where he remains today.

Just saying!

Caterpillar Dreaming

The beautiful Ellery Creek Big Pond, one of the largest permanent waterholes in the region

Part of the 223km Larapinta Trail which winds along these ridges for the entire length of the Macdonnells

The rock formations here are varied and interesting

Just another beautiful waterhole in the Macdonnell Ranges

Ormiston Gorge, with two great walks, the shorter Ghost Gum and the longer (4 hour) Pound Walk

2 metre Mulga snake encountered at Ormiston Gorge
(don't be fooled by the innocuous name, it's actually a King Brown, one of Australia's deadliest snakes)

Mt Giles, Ormiston Pound

Ray at the lookout, 2 hours into the Pound Walk

Panorama of The Pound, Ormiston Gorge, from the lookout

Our trusty wheeled home, showing the caterpillar-like hills behind

This is the Arrente Yeperenye dreaming which tells the story of an ancestral spirit in the form of a giant caterpillar that moved through Alice Springs and created the landscape including the Ranges

Redbank Gorge, a short 20 minute walk from the carpark

It's cold out in the early mornings!

Again, the giant caterpillar hills on the road back into Alice Springs

An endangered Gouldian Finch at Glen Helen Resort.
Not, unfortunately, in the wild, as you can see from the cage behind 

Glen Helen Gorge, which protects a significant waterhole along the Finke River

Ray's favourite photo of Glen Helen Gorge

The Ochre Pits, just west of Glen Helen.
Despite the $5000 fine, some people still try and dig out pieces to take home!

Sunrise over our bush camp

Two Grey Nomads on the way to Standley Chasm

Our knowledgeable and informative guide, and Arrente woman, Dee, at Standley Chasm.
She taught us much we weren't aware of both about the local area, and her culture

Standley Chasm (it's at least four times as high as the photo shows, in fact it's 80 metres above the rocky floor)

Simpsons Gap, and a chat with a delightful young Californian traveller
 (one of the beauties of this life is the great people you meet along the way)

As Ray gets more involved in his photography, our Blog photos grow.  I have to apologise for including 23 of them in the current blog, but it was originally 38 - culling them down to a manageable number becomes harder with each blog!

However, I digress.  Since leaving Alice Springs last week, we have "done" the West Macdonnell Ranges (commonly known here as the West Macs).  The West Macdonnell National Park stretches for 161 km west of Alice Springs and is a vast and spectacular region which ranges from Simpsons Gap in the east, west to Redbank Gorge, with Ellery Creek Big Hole, Ormiston Gorge, Glen Helen,  and Standley Chasm in between.  The Ranges are estimated to be approximately 340 million years old and were formed when two tectonic plates collided; rocks deep beneath the earth's surface twisted and folded, eventually thrusting upward into the sky.  Wind, water and time have exposed the skeleton of what was once a giant mountain range, much bigger than that which remains today.

The traditional owners of Alice Springs, the Arrente people, are spiritually connected to the Range through Dreamtime stories.  The Yeperenye Dreaming tells of a giant caterpillar which created the landscape, and if you look closely at some of the pictures above, you will see why; the hills undulate like a caterpillar, and are similar striped.

We've probably seen more birdlife in this area than any other so far, with Mulga Parrots, Port Lincoln Ringnecks, Zebra Finches, Magpie Larks, Peregrine Falcon, Wedge tailed Eagles, and Spinifex Pigeons to name the ones we are able to identify.

River Red Gums and Ghost Gums (think Albert Namatjira) abound in the dry creek beds and on the slopes, with all manner of wild flowers getting ready to bloom.  There are huge cycads in the more sheltered gorges and around the waterholes and the fact that the region had rain within the last couple of months means that the usual dry and dusty Red Centre is now a lush and blooming green sea.

We did the 4 hour Pound Walk from Ormiston Gorge camping area, although with photography time it took us 5 hours.  In all that time we only came across 2 other walkers, neither of whom had cameras, so they easily outstripped us.  The lookout giving access to the Pound proper is just breathtaking, and although it is steep and rocky, and I dislike heights, I couldn't help but scramble up to the top to admire the view.  Ormiston Pound is a ring of mountains dominated by Mount Giles on its eastern boundary and Ormiston Gorge on the west, the entire pound encompassing 46 square kilometres.  It offers spectacular views from its circumference of Mount Sonder, Gosses Bluff crater, and the surrounding range.  Apart from those stark statistics, it is also a truly stunning area, one to take the breath away.

The picture of the Mulga snake was taken the day before our walk, in the Gorge itself.  At the time the photo was taken there were young German tourists climbing down the rocks above it, and Ray below trying to get a photograph.  Obviously the snake was feeling threatened, and dropped from the rocks to the sand, right in front of Ray's feet.  He went backwards at a rate of knots, nearly landing in the water, and the snake made for a crack in the rock face!  We took the photo back to the Ranger who informed us that it was a Mulga snake - on looking it up, it turns out that it's one of Australia's deadliest snakes, the King Brown, so too close an encounter!

We have been able to take our time and enjoy the country over the last week and out here it's easy to understand the Aboriginal attachment to country.  It's a timeless land and sometimes just sitting and observing seems the right thing to do.  At the moment the skies are deep blue and cloudless, the daytime temperature between 18 and 23 with a light breeze - what's not to enjoy???



To be continued - the East Macs.

Olive Pink Botanic Gardens

This is for my history buff friend Georgina.

This is such an interesting story - and again an almost unknown one - that it seemed like a good idea to include it in a separate blog.

Miss Olive Muriel Pink was born in 1884 and grew up in Hobart, Tasmania, and then moved with her family first to Perth and then to Sydney where she studied art at the Julian Ashton Art School and then went on to work as a draughtswoman with NSW Railways Department.

Miss Pink's first foray into desert Australia, and into developing a broader understanding of Aboriginal culture, came about when she went to stay with well known anthropologist Daisy Bates at her camp in Ooldea, northern South Australia, in 1926.  This visit formed a turning point in Olive Pink's life and she returned to Sydney with greatly enhanced resolve to work toward improving Aboriginal welfare and embarking upon her own research in the field of Anthropology.

Arriving in Alice Springs for the first time in 1930, Miss Pink was on an extended rail-based tour of Central Australia, sketching wildflowers along the way and making contact with Aboriginal people and anthropologists and scientists doing research in the region.  The next two decades saw Miss Pink moving between Sydney and living variously with Warlpiri people in the Tanami Desert or around Alice Springs collecting information about culture and customs that was to form the basis of her thesis in Anthropology.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Miss Pink lived in Alice Springs,  mostly in an ex-Army hut located on Gregory Terrace, making a small income selling cut flowers from her garden, exhibiting her artwork and cleaning the courthouse.  She dedicated much of her tine to lobbying and advocacy on behalf of Aboriginal people - particularly focussing on trying to establish a secular sanctuary for Warlpiri people in the Tanami.  Miss Pink's letter writing prowess and her determination to change policy and the minds of politicians through endless meetings were formidable.  Many of her persuasive, and at times vitriolic, letters survive in archives and collections around Australia.

In 1956 Miss Pink was successful in lobbying the NT Government to establish a Reserve on the edge of Alice Springs township.  The Reserve, originally called the Australian Arid Regions Native Flora Reserve, is now known as the Olive Pink Botanic Garden, and Miss Pink was its Honorary Curator from 1956 until her death at 91 in 1975.

Alice Springs

How appealing are these faces?
We stopped at a Camel Farm along the way and couldn't resist photographing these two.

Todd Mall, Alice Springs.  Tree-lined and shady.

Sturt's Desert Rose, the State floral emblem of the Northern Territory

Just one of the many beautiful sunsets here in the Alice, from the back of our motorhome

The distances here can sometimes be daunting

Part of the old Telegraph Station grounds, Alice Springs

Biking down the (dry) Todd River - must be some sight in full flood

The old Ghan train, Transport Museum, Alice Springs

Must have been fun to dine in style

Rare photo of Ray on old steam train, Transport Museum

Scary road train

Billabong, Olive Pink Botanical Gardens

View of Alice from the top of the Olive Pink Botanical Gardens

Port Lincoln Ringneck Parrot, Botanical Gardens

Some of the contestants in the Finke Desert Races which were run this weekend

All around us in our campground - an interesting week

Well, we wanted some down time after some of the long days driving in the Centre, so have spent the last week in Alice Springs at the G'day Mate Caravan Park 4.5 km out of the centre of the town.  Luckily we have our bikes, as it's a very pleasant ride along a well-constructed bike/walking track which continues for miles outside the town.  There is one drawback, however.  It runs alongside the dry Todd River, which is home to some of the "long grass" people (it's permissible here to call them "Blackfellas", as we're "Whitefellas"), which means that a good lookout is necessary for broken glass along the way.

We had biked into town a couple of times, and taken the history walking tour with a knowledgeable guide; ridden out to the old Telegraph Station, part of it through the sandy Todd River, and into the Sunday Markets at Todd Mall, but came a cropper yesterday on our way to watch the time trials for the Finke River Races (dirt bikes and buggies).  We made the 7 km there no problem, though the track further out of town was a little bumpy, but Ray must have picked up some glass along the way and his tyre deflated while we were watching the end of the dune buggy time trials.  To say that he was unimpressed is to put it mildly, and an hour later, having taken the wheel off and replaced the tube, and with both of us working hard on the bike pump, we were on our way back to the campground.

After a morning's work today cleaning the bugs off the front of the van we decided to ride into town and buy something special for dinner (our main stock up being tomorrow morning on our way out).  I'll draw a cloak over the SECOND puncture, but it involved Ray walking his bike home, and changing yet another tyre, thanks to a broken bottle scattered over the pathway.  I continued into town, bought some goodies and flew home to arrive shortly after Ray and his long walk.  Broken glass is a huge problem here in Alice, with both sides of the bike path glittering like the Crystal Highway.  There doesn't seem to be much visible trouble with clandestine drinking, but it is necessary to run the gauntlet at every liquor outlet, with two policemen standing outside checking that each buyer has a home address.  We were told that this is not a whiteman's law, but instituted by the Aborigines themselves (though not all of them I'd guess).   When there is drunkenness, it's very visible indeed, with much yelling and swearing, even in the Todd Mall.  There is also a mobile police force with pushies, trail bikes and cars.  It's a different world out here.

(Ray:  This is my paragraph.  I had sympathy for the plight of the poor aborigines when I lived in Brisbane but believe me it's very confronting when you spend time in a town like Alice.  Were had previously visited Cooktown and the Lockhart River when sailing but were not prepared for the hopelessness of Alice.  Blackfellas and girls everywhere sitting on the green grass all day with an incredible number of small kids.  No open sign of alcohol consumption but the after effects are everywhere - broken glass.  I did not see one aborigine who was working in any kind of a job and can only assume that they are all on welfare. I have talked to a number of locals who have tried to employ aboriginal labour and they say it is hopeless as they don't want to shift from benefits. I add this view only so that people can think about the problem.  I have no solutions and I don't think those in charge have a clue - Ray.)

Apart from the above, Alice Springs is also quite a cosmopolitan town with some good cafes, restaurants and coffee.  It's full of travellers of all nationalities, young and old, which makes sharing a table at a coffee shop interesting.  There are some very pukkah parts of town - there's even a Hilton - and more caravan parks than I've seen elsewhere.  It's a lovely time of year to see the place, though the last few days have been quite wintry and our first 2 days swimming in the lovely pool here have gone by the board.  The water was cold even then - it'd be frigid now!  We don't notice the night time temperatures so much because of our diesel heater, but when Ray climbed the ladder this morning to clean the solar panels, he said that there was ice on the roof!  Ice in Alice!!!

We're headed east or west tomorrow - either way we'll be visiting the Macdonnell Ranges for the next few days.  After that it'll be another restock at Alice before heading up to Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks.  No doubt you've heard the news about the fisherman taken from a boat in Kakadu recently - I promise we'll keep out of the water!