A Day Off (Alice)

Day: 9 (Alice! Just Alice.)

Distance Travelled: 45kms

Weather: Fine, Sunny, Hot

Today's Biggest Challenges: Not long enough! :)

What I've learned from today:

Highlights of today: Today was a fantastic opportunity for a break and some time to ourselves. We slept little during the night as we were all on edge after hearing about the van that got broken into yesterday, so we all slept with one eye open.

I got up early as I wanted to make the most of the day. I also wanted to check out one of the churches in town and they happened to have a super early service at 7am (super early for a day off anyway haha), so I headed off for that. It was great to meet a few new people and see how they did things in a different area… it was a little different but again, great to see new faces and see new things. It was relatively short (20 minutes) so I was out for the sunrise and decided to head up Anzac Hill to watch it. The hill is a beautiful, peaceful place on the northern outskirts of town and in the cool breeze of the morning it was a great refresher. Sadly, I lost my balance on the hill while parking and the bike fell over on the low side. There was no one around and I was worried about getting it up again, however I remembered seeing a video on picking up bikes by grabbing it backwards (back to bike) and walking it up, and it worked surprisingly easily! New skill for the kit.

Headed back for a yummy brekky of eggs and toast. First breakfast in yonks that’s not porridge or cereal! Made for a nice change and was great to put a bit of pazaz into the food for once. Then I spent time catching up on writing while the others got themselves out of bed. Stu got up early too, to take the bike to the mechanic and get the tires changed as they’ve been getting some serious wear on the front… not sure if it would even make it home on the current set as they’re getting so thin. Will be good to have new ones! Might even be able to do something about the bent lever from the fall.

Come about 11am Stu was back with the bike and Kristal, Anthony and I decided to head off on the bikes to the gaps outside town on the eastern ranges. Exploring Jessie’s and Emily’s Gaps turned out to be a great decision! The rock strata here is just so immensely old it’s hard to fathom the amount of years between its formation and our arrival there - one thing I’ve learned on this trip is just how phenomenally old Australia is. In many of the rock strata layers it is impossible to find fossils simply because of the fact that the rock pre-dates all life entirely. It’s so difficult to fathom.

Anyway, after gaping at this for some time we walked through the dry, sandy riverbed and to check out some aboriginal paintings on the walls. I noticed a climbable path up the side of the gap and thought it would be a good opportunity for a better view. The others joined and a little scramble ended up being a full half-hour climb to the top of the range. It was well worth it though! The sights from the top rivalled any we have seen so far! You can see horizon to horizon, a few odd ranges far in the distance and, looking east, Alice is clearly visible along with Pine Gap, the US/Australia joint air space facility. And far, far to the east, the West Macdonnell Ranges begin! They just seem to have a voice of their own that just calls and begs to be explored. They are light-blue and tan in their appearance from the distance and they remind me somewhat of the mountain ranges from home… a beautiful sight. I can’t wait to see them!!

After some time we headed back down to explore the other gap (very similar in sights) and then headed back for some lunch. We met Stu’s friend Marie back at camp and she and her kids shared local stories and answered our questions about the area. The whole day I had been trying to get a hold on any of the rover crews in the area to meet up before we leave tomorrow and it’s proven rather difficult. We’ll just have to see how that goes.

Later in the afternoon we had a chance to do some shopping for groceries before a nice stew for dinner to end our rest day. We discussed plans for the following day’s exploring of the Macdonnell ranges and cleaned up for another (hopefully not too) restless night. Before bed I got another message from the crew leader of the Alice Springs Rover Crew and we have arranged to meet at a cafe in the morning, yay! Keen to meet some interstate Rovers and get travelling again after a restful and exciting day. Till then, MMG