Apr 25-29 Alice Springs

We didn't plan to get to Alice Springs quite so quickly. On the final leg of the drive, we considered stopping at a couple of places, but decided to keep moving. We were influenced by a combination of road-side noise and the number of campers around. Being Easter Monday, there were no doubt more campers around than "normal".

We did the obligatory stop at the NT border and took the obligatory photo (of the obligatory dogs).

We stayed the first night in Alice in a caravan park close to where Ruby lives, and close to the main road in to Alice. An easy place to find for our first night. Not only was it a bit pricey, but we also felt a bit wedged in, between 2 permanent vans. Ruby had very kindly provided us with a list of dog-friendly caravan parks around Alice Springs, so we checked them out on our first morning. We found a cheap and cheerful park (well its actually more aptly described as "rough and ready") about 10km out of town. Not that we wanted to be that far away from Ruby, but we now have more room for us and the dogs, and we have lovely views around us. We have a rocky cliff on one side of us and a dry (but lush green) creek on the other. The people in this park are much more friendly as well. We have booked for a week and so far it has been very pleasant and relaxing.

Our camp site at Temple Bar Caravan Park

One of the resident eagles at the top of the rocky cliff

Views of a dry river bed on the other side - note how unusually green it is!

The driveway into the caravan park

Ruby has been working evenings and starts at 3pm. So we get to see her in the mornings, which is nice. And then we just take it easy in the afternoons. She has a few days off from Sunday so we'll plan to do something special then.

So far, we've been taking it pretty easy in Alice. Cleaned the car, which took most of one day. Another day (or major part thereof) was consumed because of a bad smell that was emanating from the car's internal fan. For many days now, every time we used the air conditioner or any fan speed, the cabin would fill with the shocking odour of a dead animal. As we are planning to go further north to hotter climates, it was necessary to investigate and fix this problem. After pulling apart much of the front dashboard of the car - far more than was actually required but I don't usually do this sort of thing - I found the culprit. It was a cute little mouse, firmly wedged into the blades of the fan rotor. We're very glad to have that fixed now.

The unwelcome extra passenger hiding in our car fan

A clearer picture of the smelly little bugger

Ruby won't like it, but here's a picture quiz for anyone who's interested. We call the following photo "the Oreo".

Guess which arm belongs to who?
But who has been in Alice Springs the longest?