Day 13: On the road to Alice Springs

Driving across the Red Centre from Yulara (The Ayers Rock Resort) to Alice Springs was a delight. So much more interesting than taking yet another flight. The road stretched ahead, almost straight, for mile after mile, kilometre after kilometre, with hardly a vehicle of any kind to be seen. However, the landscape, with its subtle changes, was fascinating. As were Graeme's anecdotes. After his mother died when he was six, his father packed him and his three brothers into a camping van and they spent the next seven years travelling around Australia. What a different kind of education that must have been!

Our first rest stop came at the Mount Connor lookout, where in the distance loomed up the mesa shaped mountain, part of the same range and created at the same time as Uluru and Kata Tjuta, but geologically so different. It reminded me of Cape Town's Table Mountain.






The lookout was surrrounded by deep orangy red sand dunes. The facilities consisted of two "long-drop" toilets. Better not to drop anything too important! On one of the doors was a not very politically correct employment advertisement, seeking a woman machine operator for Mount Ebeneezer, 24 dollars a hour plus accommodation and food. It remarked that women were better employees!

Coincidentally our next stop was at Mount Ebeneezer, about an hour further on, where there was a cattle station and a roadhouse.


Jack and Bernard waited under the sign.


At the side of the road was one of the many road-trains which drive the long straight roads through the relatively empty centre of Australia. This monster had 90 wheels!



Countryside views...









The third stop was at a camel farm, which still breeds and exports camels. Evie was the lone, brave soul who went for a spin.





The view of Alice Springs from Anzac Hill.


The war memorial.



We arrived, tired but happy at our hotel, where we were very pleased to find, surprisingly, a really excellent Indian restaurant.
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