STRUTH - talk about a hectic pace. The 600 odd kilometre run from Uluru to Chambers Pillar - with a couple of hours to resupply in Alice - was a dead set sprint.
First up we tentatively abandoned our two young adult and teenage daughters at the Yulara campground reception (for their transfer to the Uluru airport and home) - trimming our carload to four (Kit, me, Hamish and Kate) - before putting the foot down for the 450km run to Alice Springs.
We were hoping to meet up with the rest of our "Simpson expedition party" in Alice, but with a fair bit of resupplying required at Woolies, Repco, and the sensational Milners Meats they'd got sick of waiting and had hit the road.
As an aside, I can highly recommend the pies at the Stuarts Well Roadhouse about 90km south of Alice....after all, we had to stop for fuel anyway.
Alice Springs
Ideally, we would have spent at least a night in Alice, and would recommend making room in any itinerary to do this. Apart from the need to resupply, there is a lot to see.....which we missed. This would have included (but not been limited to) the Royal Flying Doctor Museum, Old Telegraph Station.....and Sunday markets.
A Couple of Practical Tips:
* Fresh Water: Apparently not all of the tap water in town is potable - but the Puma servo near the laundromat had fresh water to fill up with, provided you also gave the diesel tap a tickle.
* Grog: The bottle shops don't open until 2pm.....and if you are traveling through on a Sunday (like we were), your only option will be the Thirsty Camel....and you can expect a queue. Also - as with elsewhere in the Territory, cask wine (ideal for a desert crossing) is prohibitively expensive.
* Meat: As mentioned earlier, Milners Meats is a cracking butcher shop. They have two store fronts, and whilst they don't "open" on a Sunday, we did pre-order (which they cryovacced and put in the fridge for us on Saturday). On our way into town we just gave them a bell and one of the young blokes just jumped on his treddly from the pub and came down to make the transaction. Talk about service!
* Groceries: Apparently you can preorder groceries at Woolworths in Alice online.....not a bad idea.
Chambers Pillar
By the time we'd loaded up at The Thirsty Camel, it was close enough to 3pm by the time we left Alice for the 165 km run down the Old Ghan Route to Chambers Pillar in the Eastern McDonnell Ranges (taking in the first section of the famous Finke Desert Race). Not far out of town, we hit the gravel - which was pretty heavily corrugated from the get go and got progressively rougher as we got toward our destination.
We aired down the tyres pretty early to take some of the sting out of the bumps (to about 34psi on the back and 22psi on the front) - but it still took us a bit over 2 hours to get there....which did give us a beautiful sunset run in. The last 5 km or so from the turnoff was really quite spectacular, and best not to rush. Needless to say, however, we didn't get a lot of time to enjoy our surroundings that arvo - particularly considering we were the "fresh blood" in the now five family deep touring party....and there was a gut load of catching up to do!
Sunrise was another story - with the first rays of sun hitting the spectacular 50 metre sandstone butte - with colours changing from mauve to pink to ochre. John McDouall Stuart first "discovered" the pillar in the 1860's but the to the local indigenous people, the landform is part of the dreamtime stories. They believe it was formed after the gecko ancestor Itirkawara was banished for taking a wife of the wrong skin group and retreated into the desert, where he was turned into the rocky formation.
Lesson learnt I guess.
A walk over the dunes around the base of the pillar was a great way to start the day, and after some brekky, a few ablutions and the obligatory pack up, we were ready to hit the road a bit after 9am toward Dalhousie Springs.
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