Day 19 - Alice Springs

Thursday, 17 June 2021

Every holiday has its off days. We’re suffering humans after all living in an imperfect world. Holidays may be an attempt to get away from the daily grind to a world of daily fun and pleasure. But life happens.

After 18 days, today was truly our first real dud day. It started OK. Up before dawn. Beautiful skyscape at sunrise. On the road early.

But the Mereenie Loop Rd is one of the Northern Territory’s best examples of its worst roads. Wide and sprawling, its centre abandoned for the corrugations, the sides falling into sandy ditches, rapidly growing their own railroad tracks. Three hours, 30 kph, I feel a migraine coming on.

The view though is stupendous, the long winding snake of the MacDonnell Range doing its best to lift our spirits.

We arrive in Alice early afternoon. A decade later, it’s still a rough town. But it’s also winter so the number of black people lounging about, in the parks, under the bridges that cross the dry Todd River, are slim. It’s cold and the wind chill doesn’t help.

Stock up days aren’t interesting, barely worth writing about – a string of boring chores that takes us from the Visitor Centre to Woolies for food, the liquor store next door (we have to show our ID twice to purchase wine, first to the heavily armoured police standing guard at the entrance, second to the flippant young man at the register who rolls his eyes when we ask why we have to show ID again), Target to replace my torn duvet cover, a mad last-minute search by Johan for 3.75 kg propane tank before the 5pm closing of the town while I tap away on my laptop in the front seat, catching up on work.

We whiz out of town an hour before sundown with no clue where we’ll be staying the night. We’re frazzled, dazed, grumpy. My head hurts.

The 24-hour rest stop 30kms out of town is a short narrow strip of concrete close to the highway with three campers already set up. Totally unappealing. We drive another few k’s and spy a track heading west, the campers' trail. It winds back into an empty bush; we park and set up camp.

We bought salmon for dinner, a treat after the austerities of the road, an attempt to specialise our day. We spend an hour at the table in the camper poring over maps, trying to envision the next chapter of our trip. The Visitor Centre lady’s brow furrowed when we asked about the Tanami Rd heading northwest into the Kimberley. Rough. Not exciting landscape. Road-trains. Big ones.

The last point tipped us and we decide to head north up the Stuart Highway. The rest will get figured out tomorrow. My head’s throbbing and a mild nausea joins it. Snake into bed, pull the stack of covers over my cold head. Let the darkness settle over this dreary day.