Day 22: Another Restless, Sleepless Night

December 6, 2010

Lightning is dancing in the distance horizon – long veins sizzling across the sky with only occasional thunder. We’re camped in a dry river bed with a view of a rusted rail bridge overhead. The frequent flashes are unsettling and makes sleep elusive. Towards midnight the thunder play gets closer and big drops of rain ricochet off the tent. I touch Johan to see if he’s awake. “Yeah, a bit of a worry, eh?” he responds.

We get out of bed and lift the tent flap to check out the situation. A storm is looming and we have three problems: the possibility of heavy rains could make the river run; even if it doesn’t, the soft rocky sand could bog the wheels if it gets too wet; the rough track in the from the main road included a dry mud patch which, if wet, could be impassable on the way out. What do we do?

We go outside, look around, watch the land around us flash into sight, sit on our camp chairs and discuss the pros and cons of packing up and getting out of the river bed before the rain hits. That’s fine, but there’s things crawling over my legs, biting. Don’t ants ever sleep? I walk about, crouch, try to get a feel for what we should do. But hunches aren’t happening, especially with ants crawling up my legs everywhere I stand.

We go back inside to get free of the crawling river pests. We sit in silence for ten maybe fifteen minutes watching the storm on the horizon. Finally I say, “You know, we’re not going to sleep anyway; we might as well pack up.” So we start the whole process, usually a post-breakfast job, packing, dis-assembling, tucking away. Everything’s packed except the tent when finally a hunch comes. “You know, I think we just ought to go to bed. It’ll be fine.” It’s a combination of fatigue and intellect: it’ll be another hour before we’re in bed once we pack up and re-assemble the tent; and the storm seems to be abating. At least the lightning is less. Johan doesn’t always go along with my hunches, but this time he does. He must be weary too.

In bed, Johan flips on the light and reads. I toss and turn. The first rain comes, pelting on the tent for fifteen, twenty minutes. “See it was only short,” I mumble when it stops. Finally I drift off to sleep, Johan still clinging to his book. The next rain comes a bit later and this time doesn’t stop, seems to continue most of the night. At some stage, I don’t know when, Johan flips the light off and we manage to sleep until daylight.

Camping in the riverbed

A vague sense of relief greets me when wakefulness returns. We haven’t been swept away; that’s the first good news. But Johan’s flitting about, anxious to get past our other two problems. We eat a hurried breakfast, our feet propped up on a camp stool; the ants seem to have increased tenfold with the rain. Exiting the river goes smoothly. Johan lowers the tyre pressure and, though the engine labours, the wheels don’t spin. Back up on terra firma, the river’s edge, we stop to fill the tyres. The portable electric pump gets smothered in ants and everywhere we stand, within seconds a team of ants cover our feet and attempt the climb up our ankles and calves. While Johan patiently fills and checks each of the six tyres, I stomp around, half-crazed by the thought of being eaten by ants.

We pass the third test, the muddy embankment, with ease and let go a nervous, tired chuckle when we hit the main road again. It’s another fifty kilometers to the next town and the bitumen road starts soon after that. When we finally feel its smooth contours underneath, we relax. Johan, who finally stopped reading at 3am, lets out a formidable sigh, his eyes at half mast. It’s time for me to drive.

The first view of the Flinders Ranges is thirst-quenching after so much dry, flat, monotonous landscape. The road that heads east into the range from the highway doesn’t jive with our map. We take it anyway, but the heavily rutted road and a big ‘no camping’ sign makes us turn around after a few kilometers. We drive further south and find a pleasant bush camp on a station with views of ancient river gums and a backdrop of the range.

The Flinders Ranges coming into view

Merna Mora station campground with views to the east of the Flinders Ranges

Day 21: A Night at Lake Eyre

December 5, 2010

We camp on a dune overlooking the lake. There’s a well-groomed camp area at Halligan Bay, but there’s only a small circle for campers and no private bays. While we rest and read under the awning of a picnic area, a 4WD pulls up with a young couple from Sydney. They park the car in the camping area and while the man goes off across the salt pan looking for the water’s edge, the woman sits in a camp chair reading, hidden behind a floppy hat and candy-coloured oversized sunglasses. Later, just past dusk, bobbing headlights appear in the distant dune and we watch while another 4WD towing a camper trailer makes its way across the 10km lakeside track to the camping area. It’s not so remote out here after all.

Dusk falls while we eat dinner. Our toes enjoy the caresses of the soft sand. In the dimming light I spy a couple of small rodents scurrying from the bush a few meters from our chairs. These are dunnards, tiny marsupial mice with round bodies and curvy ears – incredibly cute. With each scamper from the protective bush they get a few inches closer to our feet, investigating the strange new smells. An array of insects is also emerging – moths, grasshoppers, wispy flying things. By the time we retire to the tent we have to shake off a pot pourri of bugs also intent on exploring the new visitors. While we lie in bed, our 12-volt reading light just above our heads, the pounding of hundreds of insects against the canvas makes it sound like rain has come.

Once the lights are out, the bugs mostly disappear. But then starts the scurrying, scampering, and what I fear might be chewing sounds of our little marsupial friends. I can’t work out whether they’re inside or outside the tent and several times I sit up to point a torch in the direction of the noise. Sleep is elusive and the restless mind is prone to hyperbole in the dark of the night. I imagine hundreds of mice emerging from the bush, their rubbery feet easily scaling the sides of the tent, their busy jaws chewing a hundred holes through the canvas, sticky, prickly paws prancing over our hot uncovered bodies, on through the mattress and into the plank of wood underneath us until finally, finally they reach their goal: our cache of food – dried grains, fruit and breads safety tucked away in a covered white container deep inside the trailer. A desert dunnard’s culinary delight.

Midnight: the usual desert breeze has gone dead in the night. It’s hot and feels claustrophobic in the tent. I go outside, put some water and two tea towels in a bucket and climb back into bed. I wring out one of the towels and hand it to Johan, whom I know is as restless and hot as I am. The other I wring out and lay on my sweaty body. It acts as a natural air conditioner and within 20 minutes I’m finally nodding off.

When the light comes I’m groggy and disoriented. Something’s playing with my fingers and I open my eyes to see Johan, already bright eyed and bustling about, smiling at me. “Don’t you think it’s time to get up?” It’s eight o’clock and he’s worried about the dark clouds on the horizon and the stretch of potentially hazardous road that gets us out of the Lake Eyre National Park. I’m relieved to see the tent still intact as I grumble out of bed.

The rain stays at bay and the trip back to Williams Creek is uneventful. The Oodnadatta Track south is a wide, straight, gravelly grey road that leads to the Flinders Ranges, then on to Port Augusta and eventually Adelaide on the south coast. It’s a reasonable road, except for frequent undulations through creek beds that have to be navigated in second gear. It takes us most of the day to get a mere 120kms down the road. The landscape is flat and monotonous, broken only occasionally by an unimpressive flat-topped hill.

The Oodnadatta track follows the Old Ghan rail route and telegraph line built in the late 19^th century and used to transport goods from Adelaide to Darwin up until 1980. We stop at various points along the way – ruins of old stone rail stations, huge cast iron tanks used to deliver water to the steam engines, and rusty iron bridges over the tops of the many dry creek beds. The best of the lot is Coward Springs camping ground, once a bustling stopover with a hotel and artesian springs, now a tourist destination. In summer, it’s pretty quiet and the advertised camel rides have gone. But there’s one thing still bubbling away: the artesian springs. Johan finds it first and takes the plunge. Oh, the unspeakable refreshment of a clear pool of cool water after days of dust, sweat and thirst! We linger…

Further down the road is a viewing area for Lake Eyre South – not as impressive as our time spent at the north (and larger) lake. But there are some great interpretive boards here and we take in the fascinating geology of this unworldly landscape. Far under the lake's catchment area, and spreading for an area almost twice as big, is the Great Artesian Basin, one of the world’s largest underground aquifers. The water gurgling up through the springs we just enjoyed a bath in has been in the ground for 2 million years. Apparently there’s enough water in the basin to fill 127,000 Darling Harbours (in Sydney). That’s big.

Such a strange contrast: this vast, parched, empty landscape with so much water lying deep underneath it.

Lake Eyre in the early morning

Creek crossings on the Oodnadatta Track (most were dry)

Ruins of old train station house and bridge

AAAH! - wet, moist, cool...

Day 20: Lake Eyre

December 4, 2010

The thing is, when I’m in the desolate outback, I love it. I don’t complain about the hardships, the dust, heat, the difficulty of it all. It’s only when I come back to comfort – like the relative comfort of camping in a groomed caravan park as we did in Alice Springs – that I get weary. Seduced by comfort and easy living, it’s hard to imagine why we put ourselves through it – and I resist going back.

But when I’m back, it’s really OK. And I’m glad to be back. We camp midway between Coober Pedy and Williams Creek. There are a few scraggly trees about, but thunder clouds in the north and west long ago blocked out the sun. The night is warm, windy and the night sky dense with stars. I point my binoculars at a bright star straight overhead. I think it’s a planet because through the binocs I can see a plane of tiny moons sitting next to the star, three on the right, one of the left. Johan thinks it’s Jupiter. We’ll have to wait till we have internet access again to verify our viewing.

Williams Creek has a hotel, a public toilet, a camping ground and a makeshift airport. For $235pp you can get a birds-eye view of Lake Eyre – the only way to see the Lake says the ad at the depot. The young chap in the hotel comes from Manchester and has been in Australia seven months. He loves it, despite the fact that it’s the middle of nowhere and in the off-season (now) there are only three residents in town. Both he and the lady at the air tours office think we can make it OK out the 60km 4WD track to see the lake. It rained a while ago, and there is water on parts of the track, but we should be able to get around them. Rain is due again on Tuesday; we have three days to go exploring before we need to be back on bitumen. Even the road here from Coober Pedy could be treacherous if heavy rains come.

Four-wheel driving in an all-wheel drive vehicle is challenging, adventurous, and some would say crazy. But we got our Subaru through the 170km Holland track in W.A. last autumn and had great fun navigating the various road hazards along the way. As long as it’s dry, an AWD can do pretty much what a 4WD can do. But it doesn’t score a chance if you get bogged.

The road out to Lake Eyre provides similar challenges to the Holland track. Side tracks diverge off sections that are wet, muddy or too heavily rutted. The only difference is this is a pretty isolated road – in our two-hour, 60km trek to the lake, we don’t meet anyone. This kind of thing pushes Johan to the brink of his comfort zone, but he agrees to try it until we can’t go any further.

Luckily, we make it to the end, Halligan Bay. Our first site of Lake Eyre as we rise over a dune is breath-taking. Geologists call the 12,000 square kilometer lake an inland sea because it lies 15 metres below sea level and there are no outlets from the lake. Five major rivers drain into the basin, catching water from 1.27 million square kilometers of land to the north and west – one-sixth of Australia. Because of the arid climate, most of that water dries up before it reaches Lake Eyre, but if there are two consecutive years of heavy rain, the lake begins to fill. It was last full during the floods of 1975. With the persistent floods in Queensland the past year, the lake is once again filling. Migratory birds flock to the area, plants and sea life are reborn, the seemingly dead environment springs to life.

We’re told in Williams Creek that the lake is still 65% full but the bird activity has peaked and there’s unlikely to be any spectacular viewing, at least from ground level.

When we get to the shoreline, all the eye can see is a vast plain of salt flats. Through the binoculars it appears there is water maybe a kilometer out from shore. There is a pool of blue water in a small bay near where we park the car, so we trudge across the salt flats to investigate. The crystal white flats are like ice, and as we get closer to the boggy edges of the water, they creak and crack, like a frozen lake threatening to break. Johan breaks the crust and pulls up a handful of sepia-coloured mud. It has a surprisingly sweet, fruity smell.

The water leaves a thin veil of white on my feet and legs from wading in the shallow pool and everything we touch with our wet hands turns white. The thick blanket of clouds and a persistent wind make the walk bearable on a 40˚ day. 

First view of Lake Eyre

Going for a walk on the salt pan

Finding water!

Not as good as eating snow...

Gathering salt crystals to use for cooking

Cooking dinner at dusk

Day 19: Outback South Australia

December 3, 2010

If in my lifetime there comes the opportunity to travel to the moon, I won’t feel compelled to go. The South Australian outback offers a similar terrain. The Mad Max movies were apparently filmed here, depicting life on earth after the “final doom” and the end of civilization. You get the picture.

Heading towards Coober Pedy on the Stuart Highway, the landscape is flat and sparsely vegetated with ankle high shrubs. Thirty kilometers from town mounds of sand start to appear, increasing in numbers the closer we get to town. The ants must be hard at work here. Or in Coober’s case: opal miners.

Coober Pedy is known for two things: opals and underground houses. Every third shop in the one main street advertises something to do with opals – gemstones, jewelry, fossicking – or underground buildings – an underground hotel, restaurant, B&B, even a Catholic church. This truly is a version of the wild west, with ‘opal fever’ swooning through the streets. If I thought Alice was mad, this takes the prize.

Like Alice, Aboriginals wander the streets and crouch in the parks and curbsides. But they don’t look as well cared for as in Alice Springs – neither does the town for that matter. I pass by a group on my walk towards the underground church. Four men and a woman, all old, or at least looking it, are leaning up against a concrete circular statue. The man sitting on top calls out to me, “Hey you, come ‘ere.” I wave and start to walk past. “You, missus, come ‘ere,” he says waving me over. I turn and walk over to the group.  He holds out his hand, cackles a cryptic greeting. I take his hand; “How’s it going?” He doesn’t let go of my hand and with his other hand he pats his belly. “Wonderin’ if you had anyting toweet,” he says. “Purdy hungry in ‘ere.” I pull my hand away and shake my head. “Sorry, I don’t have anything on me.” The woman sitting at my feet has on colourful worn clothing, a mop of rust coloured hair and a grotesque black growth just inside her toothless open mouth. She nods when I say, “Pretty hot out here today.” “Yeah, purdy ‘ot idiz,” and her head continues to bob while I walk away.

The heat is indeed intense again -- 38˚ in mid-afternoon. There’s little shade in the treeless town but we find a small patch of green grass near a kids’ playground on the edge of town. We have lunch and print out the documents we need to send off to the Internal Revenue Service in Philadelphia. Later, I buy an International Express Post envelope at the post office and wonder whether I’ve just raised a red flag to the IRS. What’s this? She hasn’t submitted a tax return since 1987? After her, boys. Considering I have no Australian tax records beyond seven years (the time our tax office requires to keep them), I imagine a huge headache if they decide to prosecute. Ignorance of the law won’t get me far when dealing with the Tax Man.

We cut through the south end of town to have a look at the underground Orthodox Church. It’s truly spectacular, cut deep into the side of a rock hill, with curved ceilings and statues of Elijah and Moses carved straight into the side of the rock. Surrounding the church the landscape resembles a mining site, a quarry or a rubbish dump – mounds of gravel and rock and rubbish everywhere. At every rock mound, the façade of a house is set against the rock face, the interior of the house jutting into the rock. On the top of the rock mound various pipes stick out, letting in (or out) air and possibly light. We’re told the rock “underground” houses maintain a steady 25˚ temperature year round.

We head east on an unsealed road 10kms south of town. We’re taking a 500km sidetrack through the South Australian outback to see Lake Eyre in bloom. The land quickly turns desolate and extremely flat -- it’s good to be in the wild again.

Underground Orthodox Church, Coober Pedy, South Australia

Inside church

Underground houses, Coober Pedy

The stark landscape of northern South Australia

Day 18: So Long A.S., Hello S.A.

December 2, 2010

On the outskirts of Alice Springs we find a large shaded parking area next to some attractive civic buildings. Perfect spot to internet. Surprisingly, there’s an email from the American Consulate with a courteous response to our questions (previously we’d received an automated not-so-courteous response telling us, due to the volume they receive, they don’t respond to emails). They’re very obliging to our request for more time to gather the required documents – and yes, they do require a 2009 U.S. tax return from me. Contact the IRS if you have any queries.

While Johan surfs the internet in search of guidance for how to fill out a U.S. tax return (he has infinitely more patience for these things than I), I go on a curiosity search of our surroundings. It seems we have arrived at the Araluen Cultural Precinct, a centre for Central Australian art and culture, comprising eight attractions including an art gallery, museum, aviation centre and a outsized sculpture of a caterpillar, the Yeperenye, which in the Aboriginal Dreaming is the creator of the MacDonnell Ranges. The centre is built around a small hill, a sacred site for the local Arrernte women, which has been fenced off and signed with no trespassing – only approved Arrente women – and no men – are allowed access to the hill.

Yeperenye, caterpillar sculpture

Inside the caterpillar

The plan was to put some miles under us while we have a long, straight bitumen road ahead to South Australia. But I suggest to Johan we spend a couple of hours in cultural nourishment instead. The art gallery is named after the famous 20^th century Aboriginal artist, Albert Namatjira. His distinctive water colours are part of a fine collection of art depicting the local landscape. It’s intriguing to see artists’ interpretations of the countryside we’ve been exploring and passing through. It seems that Alice Springs is a magnet for artists from across Australia and even around the world and there is a lively art community of both indigenous and non-indigenous artists who live in and around the town. This offers another interesting angle to our overall perception of the area.

The Museum of Central Australia displays a broad spectrum of scientific interpretations of the region, including a mind-blowing evolutionary timeline from the Big Bang to present-day Australia, where paleontological digs in the ancient rocks are uncovering the earliest traces of life and evidence of a great inland sea. Again, a fascinating perspective on the rugged, ancient landscape we’re traveling through. I comment to Johan that the discoveries of science seem about as hard to fathom as the mythical stories created by Australia’s indigenous people. Both are incredible interpretations of reality that are intriguing and mystifying – both are definitely mind expanding.

After a picnic lunch in the park, we’re back in the car ready for our long journey to South Australia. As we pass through Alice Springs we both feel a trace of regret that we didn’t spend more time getting to know this peculiar, multi-faceted place. It’s clear now that there’s more to it than our initial first impressions.

I drive the 300kms to the South Australian border while Johan sits in the passenger seat, enjoying his first experience filling out a Form 1040 for the U.S. government. Several other ‘attachment forms’ are also required and he manages to keep his cool meandering through the maze of cryptic bureaucracy while I manage to keep awake on the three hour sprint down a dead straight highway.

 Navigating the difficult terrain of U.S. bureaucracy

Cocktail time at our camp on a dry river bed, South Australia

Day 17: MacDonnell Range

December 1, 2010

First day of summer in Australia. The weather has remained temperate: highs around 28˚; lows around 15˚. Alice can hover around 40˚, occasionally up to 45˚, for most of the summer we’re told, so we feel very lucky.

After some discussion about our travel predicament, we make the decision to abandon our Outback Way venture for the time being and head south. There’s a possibility we can pick it up again after the interview in Sydney, but we’ll have to decide that once we’re there. Much of it depends on the weather; but Queensland hasn’t been dry for many months. It doesn’t look promising.

We’ll go as far as Coober Pedy in South Australia, then take back roads, via Lake Eyre east to Sydney. It may be a bonus passing by Lake Eyre – a huge dry salt lake in central South Australia that only fills a few times every century, when the rains in Queensland are above average. When it fills, the lake springs to life with both flora and fauna that otherwise lie dormant for many years. It’s a spectacular site. The lake was full a couple of months ago; if we’re lucky, it still is.

We make a booking at a caravan park in Sydney via the internet for three nights: 12-14 December. That gives us twelve days to travel approximately 2700kms. Possible, but only just, given the slow pace we’re prone to travel.

My disappointment about leaving the Outback Way unfinished is tempered by an unexpected (though minor) sense of relief. As much as we love camping and the outdoors, we’re both discovering, at 51 and 61, our stamina for the physical work it takes, the lack of creature comforts and the frustrations of things getting dirty, broken or lost, has decreased with age. I don’t want to give in to it – but from what I hear, denial is the first sign of aging.

Before we head south we decide to have a look at the MacDonnell Range, west of Alice Springs. The first 100kms of the 250km loop is paved and heavily trafficked with tourists in the peak season. We turn into the first site, Simpson’s Gap, at the same time as a tourist bus, but we consider ourselves lucky as there are parking bays for ten buses and it’s the only one. The canyon is lovely with tall red rock walls. A man carrying his son on his shoulders, sings a loud ditty and we all smile when his voice bounces to and fro off the walls.

The next two sites require entry fees. That, along with the distraction of other people, makes them unappealing so we opt for enjoying the photos in the guide book instead. We pull off an unmarked dirt track that leads to three waterholes and campsites tucked deep into the ranges. The track follows a river and only a half kilometer in, it’s clear we can’t traverse it without a 4WD. We pitch camp on the dry sandy river bed, next to a pool left over from the recent rains. It’s mid-afternoon so I throw on my day pack and head up the track. In 8kms there’s meant to be the first waterhole and campsite, but I go past the 8km mark and can’t find it. It’s quarter to five and if I’m going to make the 8kms back to camp before sundown I need to turn around. Never mind; the open plain I’m hiking through, with wide vistas of rocky hills and cliffs and an abundance of wild flowers, is splendidly appealing, especially in the late afternoon sun.

Johan has a roast chicken dinner and a beer ready for me upon my weary return just before sundown. We leave the chicken carcass out a ways from the tent – there are wild dog tracks in the area – and it’s gone by morning.

A walk through the MacDonnell Ranges

These charred corkwood trees reminded me of the some of the
old black fellas we saw in Alice Springs, minus the
cowboy hats.

Wildflowers are in abundance.

A painted goanna and I have a stand-off on the track

Nice way to end the day...

Day 15-16: 'Legendary' Alice

November 29-30, 2010

Alice is a strange place. And also beautiful. We arrive from the south through a gateway of red rock – a convenient parting of the MacDonnell Range that allows the Stuart Highway to pass through. I’d imagined Alice Springs to be a dusty, unsightly town on a flat desert plain. Nothing like it. From atop Memorial Hill, the 360˚ view offers spectacular vistas of 'mountains' – the 500km spread of the Range running east to west -- what were once 3000 meters high. After 400million years of weathering, they now stand a few hundred meters. Alice sits right in the middle of them.

Entrance to Alice Springs is through the MacDonnell Range

Alice Springs from atop the Memorial Hill

The town itself has the oddest mix of people I’ve ever seen. There’s something of the wild west here, even if it’s stuck smack dab in the middle of the continent. As we enter from the south, all we see for the first few kilometers are black people, Aboriginals ambling up and down the footpath or squatting on lawns or verges. The town isn’t big; a few streets of commerce make up the town centre and other than the ubiquitous indigenous art gallery, it could be any other Aussie town. What’s odd is the people. Set in their faces, in their bodies, in the way they dress and adorn themselves is deep-seat dysfunction: mad, angry, crazy, kooky, wild, repressed, eccentric…strangeness. The population is at least fifty percent black; the other half is a surprising mix of multiculturalism like you’d see in any big city in Australia, but which isn’t that common in rural towns. Asians, Africans, Indians, Middle Easterners. Why are they here, so far into the deep centre of Australia?

Johan says the town reminds him of Asia – developing countries who aspire to look attractive to foreign visitors, but don’t really have the knack, or the resources to pull it off -- or a population of people who appreciate the town’s decoration enough to look after it. Alice is an oasis of greenery, civic art, friendly interpretive panels explaining the history and quirkiness of the town, and lots of people, black and white, loafing about. But there’s a dirtiness to the place; as though an old woman, decrepit and unwashed, aspires to regain her lost beauty and adorns herself with fineries. But no one’s convinced.

Old black men seem fond of wearing American cowboy hats. The whites wear the standard outback Akubra hat. Though it’s a school day, young people roam the streets and through K-mart and Target. I don’t see any black people working in the shops. An old bent woman with a hunchback lumbers across the street, oblivious to traffic. An aging bikie, thinning grey hair tied back with a band, medals and trinkets roving across the front of his black leather jacket, smokes a cigarette sitting on a low wall in front of the Town Hall. A tall extremely thin girl walks down the mall with a hollow grey face; the visage of her frail body like a skeleton gives me a shiver. And everywhere, huddles of Aboriginal people, sitting cross legged on the ground, talking in their native tongue, avoiding eye contact with tourists who glare.

Our stopover in Alice is mostly practical: errands, stocking up, fixing things, emailing. We check into the nicest caravan park on the south end. In town we shop, eat ice creams and get discouraged that our mail forwarded from Pamelup a week ago hasn’t arrived. We’ll have to stay over another day.

We spend a fair amount of time on-line. The American Consulate has sent cryptic requirements for Johan to attend to prior to his 14 December interview in Sydney. We try to ring, email, but it’s impossible to contact a human being. They obviously don’t want to waste time dealing with people’s queries and problems. Figure it out yourself. It’s all on our website, is the message you get when you ring. But the answer to our question doesn’t seem to be anywhere; we’ve spent hours searching for it.

I walk through town, up to the memorial hill, down along the river walk until it gets too far south and all I see are black people sitting in huddles along the river bank or on the dry river bed. Makeshift camps, disheveled linen on dirty old mattresses, appear amongst the tall grasses. I suddenly feel unsafe and make a beeline back to town. I was going to walk back to the caravan park, but it means walking through the Aboriginal neighbourhood we drove through to get into town. I have no idea whether or not it’s safe, but it doesn’t seem a good idea on my own, so I ring Johan to come pick me up.

The Todd River runs through Alice Springs. Because it's usually dry, there are few bridges 

built over it. Most roads run right through it, with a water measure to let you know 

how deep it is should you dare to take the plunge.

This is the only bridge I found in town. Many squatters hang out under the bridge, 

on the dry river bed or its banks; a few seem to have set up camp there.

We stay a second night, which isn’t a bad thing; it’s nice to relax and chill for a couple days. No driving, no putting up and taking down the camp. Running water, electricity. A shower.

Our mail is at the post office when we check again on Tuesday so we decide to take off on Wednesday. But first we check in the Visitor Centre for road conditions along the Outback Way going east. Bad news: the heavy rains in Queensland the last couple months have washed out part of the road. It’s only passable with a high-clearance 4WD. What to do? If we attempt it and get stuck, we’re stuffed. If we can’t get through there’s no alternative route but to come back to Alice – a 500km return trip. The man behind the desk at the Visitor Centre suggests they may lift the closure any day; best to keep checking the Queensland road service website. But we don’t have a lot of time to spare and rain is forecast for most of eastern and central Queensland over the next week, making it unlikely that the situation will improve. And frankly, camping in the wet isn’t very appealing. As we need to be in Sydney in less than two weeks, we have no choice but to abandon or postpone our completion of the Outback Way.

 Town centre Alice Springs

Camping at the caravan park, Alice Springs