Last Day in Alice Springs

On the 11 March 1871 a telegraph line surveyor, William Mills, discovered a waterhole in Central Australia and named it Alice Springs after the wife of the Superintendent of Telegraphs for South Australia. In the 1800’s the settlement of Alice Springs played a pivotal role in the opening up of

The Captain and the Navigator doing what they do best

Central Australia. In 1887 the discovery of gold at Aritunga, some 100km east of Alice Springs provided the springboard for a population boom in the area. Alice’s current population is around 28,000. We love learning the history of the places we visit – some have extraordinary origins.

Our three day ‘R ‘n R’ in Alice has been very social. We based ourselves at the Big4 Holiday Park and it would have to be one of the superior parks we have stayed in. Everything is laid on for the traveller and there is a social event arranged each evening. It made for an excellent rendezvous point while we waited for our friends.

Dearne and Janet enjoying a quiet ‘red’

Janet arrived safely from Hamilton on Wednesday and has moved very quickly into the motorhome mode – late wake up call, early coffee, healthy breakfast and then a bit of local exploring. The Navigator loves having a girlfriend onboard that she can gossip with and talk ‘girly’ stuff.  She doesn’t get much of that from the Captain. As a double surprise, a girlfriend that she met in January at the Elvis Festival in Parkes pulled into the Park yesterday afternoon in her motorhome. The wine was flowing last night. Di will be travelling with us on the next week of our journey.

Woolif, Rod and Woolif’s partner Kevin having a quiet catch up

For the ex matelot’s amongst our followers, we had a surprise visit yesterday from Woolif Walsh(ex Steward). Woolif served on HMNZS Canterbury with Rod when they bought the ship out from England in the early 70’s and they also served together at HMNZS Irirangi in Waiouru during the mid 70’s. It’s amazing how people can come together after 40 years of no contact and yet the conversations flows liked they talked everyday.  It was great to catch up Woolif and safe travels for the future.

Harry and Jane arrived at the Park this afternoon and are all set for our adventure. We last saw them in November when we stayed with them for a couple of days so it was great to catch up again. We are all stored up and ready to go.

A couple more shots of our Alice Springs visit HERE .

The plan is to leave here tomorrow morning and drive into the West MacDonnell Ranges. Having three motorhomes travelling together takes a little bit of planning so we have made a tentative arrangement to overnight tomorrow night at Glen Helen Gorge.