Blog 4 A Town like Alice

After Tennent creek we decided to drive straight thru to the Alice, setting up camp there at the MacDonnell Caravan Park on the 28^th June. On the way down we stopped at Barrow Creek one of the old Overland Telegraph Stations, first used in 1872, the buildings are still there and maintained. It was here we saw the memorial to Tom Roberts; I used to work with his son Bill Roberts in Townsville in Telstra. Tom was one of the last linesmen to work on the line and lived there from 1952 till his passing in 1988 as a caretaker.

Next day we had a set up and rest day and planned the visit to the Alice area, it was our intention to make camp here for a while and do overnight trips to Yulara, Kings Canyon etc, however the cold weather soon put a stop to that, so the plans changed to doing day trips around here and then taking the van to Yulara.

On the Friday we set out to the east MacDonnell’s travelling out to Ross River Resort and then back into Trephine Gorge. This gorge gave us a bit of a hike ( more bloddy climbing) but it was worth it, up around the rim of the gorge and then back down to follow the creek back to the car park.

On the way back we stopped at Corroborea rock and did a stroll around it. ( No we did not dance around it)

Couple of days later we went back to Jessie’s and Emily’s Gap, there are a few gaps in this high range the one that the Todd river runs thru is Alice itself is interesting, the river and the rail line as well as the main highway all pass thru this gap.

We decided to do the West MacDonnells next driving to the end of the bitumen at Tylers Pass lookout. Here we were approached by a German tourist, his car had broken down, he had his wife and 16 yr old daughter with him and they were driving to Kings Canyon via the West MacDonnell’s.  If you have a look at the map from there it’s another 135 klm of dirt road to the Canyon that way, all right I suppose if you have the right vehicle they had a “Wicked Van”. We all know how reliable they are, we took the wife back to Glen Helen Resort so she could call the company, leaving her there after we were sure arrangements were made with the company for them to come out and replace the vehicle.

We then went and did some more gapping and gorging through Ormiston and Serpentine Gorges.

Ormiston Gorge

Serpentine Gorge

We also had a look at the “Ochre Pits” where the Aboriginals got their ochre for the paints. You can see where they got all the colours from, wern't allowed to pinch any though, which is fair enough.

 

In town apart from the usual shopping for food and grog we also visited the Museum (ours is better) and art centre, and went and had a look at Flynn’s grave.

We are just about gapped and gorged here at the moment I think we will spend the next couple of days blugging out until we hit the road again on Monday.
Overall Alice has been great we have had some relaxation as well as some climbing, walking and sightseeing.