Darwin to Alice Springs….
Wednesday 11th October 2006
We have now arrived in Alice Springs from Darwin. We left Darwin on Sunday 8/10 after an early start of 5.30am to meet the bus. The fact that we didn’t leave and the bus didn’t pull up until about 7.00am is another matter. I think someone was having a joke at our expense – FUNNY! The bus was full, 24 of us on this adventure through the Northern Territory. There were only 3 English people on the bus, Janine and I being two of them. The rest were German or French. We were asked by our guide to write our names in permanent marker on the windows so that we could all see each other’s names and try to remember them. Our first stop was Adelaide River at a place called the Adelaide River Inn. This is the place where they have the stuffed bull from the film ‘Crocodile Dundee’ on the bar. It was huge.
After our Adelaide River breakfast stop we reached Katherine. Now Janine and I have, as you know, already visited here on our road trip so we weren’t very excited at the prospect of going here but actually we had such a fun day. We went canoeing along Katherine Gorge. Janine had never got into a canoe before and thought she would fall in but we didnt. We paddled up the gorge and stopped along the way for a swim. After we had got in we noticed a sign up the right of the sand bank saying it was a ‘crocodile breeding area’ and not to swim there. Didnt notice any crocodiles at the time though. Thank goodness. The scenery along the gorge was wonderful. It is magnificent to see the different colours of rock and great to have a breeze in your face as you are paddling along. We spent about 3 hours on the gorge and afterwards we spotted some wild wallabys in the trees. One had a joey in her pouch. That night we stayed in permanently pitched tents with bunk beds in them. It didn’t really feel like camping. We were not allowed a fire as there was a total fire ban that day because of the temperature. Hot hot hot!!
On Monday 9/10 we got up at 5.30am and it was still pitch black. There is surely something wrong about this. Reminded me of having to get up for work. This was a great day where our first stop was at the Mataranka Thermal Pools. These pools were originally built by soldiers for the more senior ranking men. They are 32 degrees in temperature and it was like getting into a luke warm bath. I think this was because the air temperature outside was so hot that getting into the baths didnt feel so hot. Walking to the pools was interesting. There is about a 5 minute walk through some vegetation which is inhabited by flying fox bats. I have never seen so many bats in my life, and out in daylight too. They were hanging and flying around and making such a screeching noise. After we had all got out of the pools the rangers began firing shots to scare the bats away. I think they are trying to keep the numbers of bats away but to me it just looked like it was creating a lot of noise and the bats were just flying around in circles until they stopped shooting. Mad.
We stopped for lunch at the Daly Waters Pub in Daly Waters (pronounced Daily). This place is famous because it sported Australia’s first international airport. We saw the airstip and arrived at this crazy pub famous because there are things everywhere in it. Whenever anyone visits they leave a piece of themselves behind. There are T-Shirts, knickers, photos, stickers and all sorts left here. Janine left a plaster with her name on and I left my Fijian phone card with my name and date on it.
We continued our journey driving through Elliot. This small town is interesting because there are 2 aboriginal communities that inhabit this town. However, they do not get along with each other and things got so bad that an order had been placed on the town whereby each communities’ members can only visit the town on certain days so that they do not clash. This seems very sad to me that they cannot get on but it keeps the peace now. There are about 500 aboriginals to 100 white folk in Elliot and it highlights the fact that not only do some aboriginals not get on with white people but that they clash between their own aboriginal communities too.
We drove along Stuart Highway and our guide explained that a man named Stuart made about 6-8 attempts at getting from Adelaide to Darwin many years ago. During this time he got scurvy and other illnesses but he did make it in the end. At his funeral only 7 people attended as he was not very famous. It was only after he had died that he was recognised. Along this road we collected some firewood for our camp fire that evening before reaching Tennant Creek.
Tennant Creek was the first place to have a Telegraph wire that connected Australia to London. When they were building the telegraph station they found gold there and tried to look for more but could not find anything else. Years later another man decided to have a look for some gold and employed an aboriginal man who found gold amongst another rock. The man sent a message via the telegraph wire to his friend in Adelaide passing about 8 different telegraph poles along the way. It sparked a gold rush. That night we sat around the camp fire and slept near the fire in swags. This was the first time I had ever slept in a swag and I actually quite enjoyed it. It is like a matress with khaki thick material attached to it like a sleeping bag that zips up either side. You put your sleeping bag inside the swag and zip up and away you go. I went to sleep looking at the stars above me and woke up on Tuesday 10/10 moring with the moon still shining brightly in my eyes.
On Tuesday we visited The Devil’s Marbles. They are named as such because of a man named John Lewis who stopped at this place with his cattle. Overnight half his cattle had died and he believed that the land had a curse and so he called the stones there the ‘Devil’s Marbles’. The cattle actaully died from eating a plant that grows there. Aboriginal people explain the marbles through the Rainbow Serpent. She came to lay her eggs here. Her eggs are the rocks and the cracked rocks are explained by the eggs hatching. Geologically, the rocks formed 150 million years ago due to erosion which still occurs today. Rain and water seeps into the rocks and the ground causing the rock to crack and create the rounded shape. The stones are so red due to water rusting the sand stone.
Near to the rocks are red gum trees. They indicate that a water supply is nearby. If an Aboriginal was in need of some drinking water they would climb a hill and look for these trees. Once they had found them they would dig by the trees to find the water. If they still could not find the water they would get the root of one of the trees and drink the water out of the root. Frogs and crabs live near these trees too. Frogs mate and drink basically. When the rain arrives they drink lots of water and fill themselves up. When the dry season hits they hibernate and slow their heart beat down to about one beat per day slowly drinking the water they have stored up. They can last 5-10 years without any rainfall. This is how they survive until the next wet season or rainfall. From the Devil’s Marbles we walked to another set of rocks where the Devil’s Bollocks exist. I am sure you can imagine why they are named so.
After the marbles we drove along the stretch of The Stuart Highway, towards Barrow Creek, where Peter Falconio was abducted. This road runs for 47km with no turns! There is just vast land here. The reds of the soil are amazing to look at and when you look into the distance it just seems as if the road is never ending.
Barrow Creek Telegraph Station was so interesting. All Telegraph Stations had to be built near a water supply so that the 4/5 workers had access to water. The white people built this station and used the water supply without any consideration to the aboriginal people. They consider water to be very precious and sacred. So much so that they do not wash but only drink water. They were not happy that the water was being used in this way. They were also unhappy that the cattle on the land would drink the water and so they would kill the cattle for food. However, an agreement was made that cattle would not be killed and the white men could have use of the aboriginal women in return for flour, sugar and alcohol. This agreement lasted a while until the white men got greedy and wouldnt keep their end of the bargain. In revenge 2 aboriginals went to the Telegraph station one day and killed 2 white men working there. Their graves are just a short walk from the station. A man called Sam Galey was sent to investigate the murders and find the aboriginals who had done this. Instead, he just killed any aboriginal man in his sight. He killed about 100 aboriginals and was never convicted. A similar incident occured when a white man who had an agreement to provide tobacco in return for aboriginal women broke his side of the bargain. He was killed by aboriginals and a man named Willshire was sent in to investigate. Willshire was worse than Galey though in that he hated all aboriginals and went into whole communities wiping out not just the men but women and children too. He was convicted eventually but he could afford a good lawyer and got off, retiring on a good pension and having (still to this day) a street named after him in Alice Springs. Recently, his grandaughter and family went to the aboriginal community there and apologised for what Willshire had done. This explains why there is some animosity between whites and aboriginals, and all this happened 100 years or so ago.
Before reaching Alice Spings, we stopped at The Tropic of Capricorn. This is a 23.5 degree acute line separating the Tropic of Capricorn and Cancer. The top, from Darwin down is classed as the tropical region. I am now officially out of the tropics signifying a change from 2 seasons, dry and wet, to 4 seasons. Half an hours drive from here is Alice Springs. It used to be called Stuart Town but was officially renamed after a vote. The spring nearby used to be called Alice Spring after the man who owned it named it after his wife. Therefore some people called the town Stuart town and others Alice Spring. A vote was called to officially name the town and Alice Springs won.
Tags: Alice Springs, Australia, Darwin, Travel
georgiebees
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