Road Trip – Day 48 (May 2)

8am saw us on the road again, we were heading towards Alice Springs.

From the Kings Canyon Resort to the Sturt Highway, we saw the big three in the area – dingoes, camels and brumbies (wild horses).

It started while we were packing up and these dingoes were just wandering around the caravan park. We hear them howling during the night a few times but the real surprise was to see them so close to humans. We kept grabbing cameras trying to get decent photos of them as the dingoes were moving very fast. In the photo you can see the dingo looking for food next to a group of humans.

We had just settled into the 160 km back to the Lasseter Highway, when we heard a noise on the 2 way radio that sounded like horses. Viv & Eric were in the lead vehicle and they had seen some brumbies (wild horses)running alongside them and then crossing the road right in front of them. Luckily the brakes were working and Eric managed to slow down in time to avoid a crash.

We were on the look out for camels as we saw a lot of camel dung on the road. Suddenly another call from Viv to say there were camels on the road. All three caravans stopped and we waved down a bus to stop while we checked out the camels before very slowly moving towards them They finally moved off the road and were quickly lost in the bush.

We finally reached the Stuart Highway so we could continue our journey towards Alice Springs. As we drove along and watched the landscape speed by I was reminded of Dorothea McKellar’s poem, “My Country”

“I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me”.

We passed over the Palmer River, just a dry riverbed and onwards towards Alice Springs. There had been flooding around this area in early March and the landscape was green. Lots of birdlife.

We can’t stop to take photos all the time so a lot of photos are taken while we are driving. Denise and Viv are also doing the same. However we did stop to look at the Cannonball Run Monument. The Northern Territory Cannonball Run was held from 22 May to the 27 in 1994 on the Stuart Highway from Darwin to Alice Springs and return, a distance of nearly 1600 kms, and attracted 118 racing enthusiasts. On 24 May, during one of the timed sections near Alice Springs, a Ferrari F40 crashed into a checkpost killing its occupants, The monument acknowledges the spot where this accident happened.

Back into the car and  we arrived at Alice Springs about 3pm.