Oct 13 - 17 - (Day 256 - 260) - Alice Springs and back via Hemmi's free camp near Alice Springs!

Tuesday 13 October - Thursday 15 October - Alice out to Hemmi's Camp north of Alice

As you may or may not remember back at Mataranka our solar blanket died. :( So this is one of the reasons for heading to Alice to pick up the replacement that is being sent from Adelaide. Greg did some tests on it but that only determined it definitely wasn't working, but at least they were happy to replace it after sending them some video evidence and explanations of what wasn't working. 

 

I needed to do some food shopping and get some bits and pieces organised for the boys birthday so we parked the car and van and Greg and the kids went into the library to do some work and read for a while while I went about what I needed to do. 

 

I got what I needed in the shops and headed back to the van and packed it away and headed into the library where everyone was still happily reading and working. After a while I asked Greg if we were able to pick up the solar blanket yet to which he replied 'Oh yeah I'd nearly forgotten about that.' and we quickly checked where it was up to and it seemed to be in Alice but not unpacked yet. So we made our way down there via the petrol station and by the time we had parked and Greg had walked to the post office he just got a notification to say it was ready for pick up. YAY!

Being now solar blanketed up, we made our way back into the bush again about 30km north of Alice to make sure it worked, before we went into the West MacDonnell's. On WikiCamps the place is called 'Hemmi's Camp', no idea how it got that name, but it's a decent enough spot - flat, far enough from the road to be quiet enough, but close enough to Alice to still have phone signal, helped along by the Cel-Fi Go signal booster in the car. We came back to a slightly different spot this time but still nice and quiet and peaceful. 

 

After setting up the boys wanted to play some cricket. They haven't played for some time so really enjoyed the challenge again.  

 

Hard at work painting & reading. :)

We had some lovely sunsets and saw some pretty amazing creatures you just don't see in other parts of Australia.

Another lovely start to the sunset!

 

One evening just as I was about to empty a container of water outside I spotted a centipede. Then while outside we saw a small scorpion and a leaf tailed geeko. 

 

Leaf-tailed gecko

Centipede! Greg used to see these periodically back home as a kid but we haven't seen one for some years now.

A baby scorpion!

Friday 16 October

Our gas bottle ran out overnight, so the fridge was back up to 11 degrees in the morning - nooooo! Our van has two gas bottles so we switched it over to the other one, but as it was a pretty hot day it didn't really cool down any further. Thankfully the night was cool so next morning it was down to about 3. Our last caravan water tank ran out as well! We have a 15L water cube for 'emergencies', so we used that to get through our last evening and fill up our water bottles for the next day, but we definitely needed to head back into Alice on our way out.

Saturday 17 October - Birthday Time!

The boys' birthday!! Happy birthday Matt and Jude, we're so happy to have you in our family.

 We'd planned a number of different activities for them, and Mim came up with a really neat idea. She wrote each activity on a piece of paper and put one inside each of five balloons, then blew them up. The boys then had to pop a balloon as we went through the day to find out what the next activity would be.Well what a day it was! We got up about 5:30am and the boys popped their first balloon, which said we'd be climbing Mount Gillen, just west of Alice Springs.

Mount Gillen

We gave up on the idea of catching the sunrise from the top as this would have meant waking up at 4am, but even by the time we packed up the site and got there about 7:30 it was feeling a bit warm. After an initial wrong turn we headed off on the right track. Mount Gillen is 920m above sea level, although since Alice Springs is about 580m above itself, the climb is 'only' 340m. Initially it was a fairly smooth track but it started getting steep. The weather quickly got hot and we started to wonder if we'd actually make it all the way.

 

Setting off along the track to Mt Gillen

  

There were numerous stops along the way, each of which we wondered if it would be our finishing spot and the start of the return back down! But each time after a rest we pushed on a little further. We'd each taken a water bottle but Jude gulped all his down by about the half way mark, despite advice to ration it!

The sun just peeking around one of the rocky outcrops on Mount Gillen

The climb got quite steep, and was nearly vertical at a couple of points, but after numerous rests and 'we can do it's, followed by 'what are we doing?!'s, we made it to the top! The view was pretty amazing! The MacDonnell Ranges stretched as far as the eye could stretch out to the west and the east, across what is otherwise a relatively flat patch of land.

 

This satellite map gives a good idea of what you're about to see.
You can clearly the MacDonnell Ranges running across the photo,

This panorama runs from south-east to north-east. So the centre is looking west, and as you work to the right in the 'choppy' part of the panorama, you see the outer suburbs of Alice Springs.

Looking east into Alice Springs from Mt Gillen.

At the top of Mount Gillen

We started our descent, most of us with jelly legs! Jude ended up borrowing some water from the rest of us as the temperature was really starting to climb, and had a bit of coaching along the way on the power of positive thinking and having a clear vision of what we're aiming for. The hot, dry, dusty track with dry throats was a good little parable of our walk through this life, and the importance of keeping our vision of the kingdom strong (in this case the vision being a long cold drink when we got back to the van!).

 

Cold iced tea after a hot climb!

We actually didn't have much cold to drink as we hadn't had enough water left over to put into the fridge, so we stopped by a service station and got a bottle of iced tea each. It was soooo refreshing!

By now it was about 10:30 and we still hadn't had breakfast, so the boys popped their next balloon which was that they could choose to have breakfast at Hungry Jack's or McDonald's - they chose Maccas so we headed in and enjoyed pancakes and McMuffins! The boys opened their presents here too - they both got a shirt, while Jude got a toiletries bag and Matt got a bag of chocolate bullets. We aren't really doing 'presents' much anymore, especially when space is a premium like it is for us now. We're mainly doing experiences like we've had (and will be having later!) which will create better memories than token plastic junk. 

This 'breakfast' really turned into a brunch because the mountain climb had taken so long. This done, they popped balloon number four. Four, you say? Well yes, because Maccas was supposed to be breakfast and balloon number three was supposed to be lunch. But given things had pushed along so late we had to jiggle the order!

 

Balloon number four said that we were booked into the Alice Springs Reptile Centre at 1pm! Jude loves snakes so he was delighted, and the others were pleased enough too.

 

This was absolutely the highlight of the day, for all of us! Although it was predominantly for the boys, we all found it thoroughly enjoyable, and for $50 for a family it was pretty reasonable value for the amount of things we got to see and touch.

 

 

 

They have a couple of rooms with snakes and lizards in enclosures, as well as an outdoor section with larger lizards and a saltwater croc. Jude was a ball of energy! He was bouncing from enclosure to enclosure, "Dad look at this one!" "Oh wowwww!" "This is soooo cool!". I eventually gave up trying to quietly look at the information on each enclosure in turn and resigned myself to being pulled around the centre at the rate of one enclosure about every 15 seconds! They fed their Perente, which is a large goanna-type looking thing.

 

Then came the best bit - the reptile show! One of the staff, Jess, showed off and passed around a Bearded Dragon, Blue Tongue Lizard and an Olive Python!

 

 

 

 

 

Jude's had his heart set on a Black-Headed Python since spotting one at Rainforestation in Kuranda several months ago, but being able to get hands-on with an Olive Python was great too! Honestly it was such a delightful creature!

 

Look at the gorgeous rainbow colors on the back of this Olive Python!

 

 

 It probably sounds strange saying a snake is a 'delightful creature' (I can hear Mum at least saying this!), but pythons are non-venomous, have no fangs (only some sharp teeth if they need to grab something), and so long as you don't smell like its usual food (rats) it has no interest in trying to constrict you to eat you.

 

Who needs a travel pillow
when you've got a python?

Having a fat Olive Python around your neck is like a warm soft travel pillow you can just rest your head on. It was really cuddly! Yes I know, this is bizarre to say about a snake, but to one degree or another we all felt it was really nice! The skin was so soft and smooth too.

 

Jess gave us some really good advice about keeping a snake, in particular to start off with something smaller like a Stimson's Python, if only to get the hang of it and so if you make a mistake it isn't strong enough to do any damage. E.g. if you were foolishly handling mice and then poked your hand in to touch the snake, a small one will still bite you but it won't hurt too much. They also don't have the strength to do any damage if they do decide to constrict. 

 After the show we saw the saltwater croc being fed a whole chicken (and when I say 'whole', I MEAN 'whole' - as in, feathers and all!) It was a dead chicken which, from the smell, must have been dead a few days at least, but Snaps didn't seem to mind. The handler 'Rex' seemed to be slightly mad himself, he was quite happy to be in the enclosure with this croc, he pointed out all sorts of things about its behaviour which he really seemed to understand and did translate into how the croc was behaving. But he was also describing how the croc was peeking up out of the water every now and then to triangulate his (the handler's) position because he's very territorial and would want to kill every human watching him because they're in his territory. And there was Rex with the enclosure door open and his back to the croc calmly explaining what the croc would be doing in sussing out his location!
I was sure he was slightly batty himself!

After the show was officially finishes, Jess got a Stimson's Python out for Jude to hold!

At Monte's for lunch

Once this was done it was after 3pm, so the boys popped Balloon Three, which said we'd be going to Monte's for lunch, which is a carnival-themed eating place in town which Laura from my old work had recommended us to go to. Being 3pm it wasn't going to be lunch, but in the end we only got chips, onion rings and drinks. It ended up being quite filling, so we decided to call this an early dinner. The location was very quirky but very interesting, with a curious circus / sideshow theme around the tables.

This done, Balloon Five was popped which told the boys of a chilled afternoon followed by a midnight feast! We did a bit of shopping at Woolies for the midnight feast, and then decided to just go back to the Heritage Caravan Park we'd been at last weekend, as it was close to 5pm by now. 

Well it USED to be sunny in Alice!

Our batteries weren't fully charged yet, our water tanks were still completely empty and we all felt pretty grotty and dusty after the hike and in dire need of a shower! We were surprised to see it raining heavily when we came out of Woolies, which delightfully had dropped the temperature by about 10 degrees down to about 28!

We set up camp, had our showers and had an apple for tea (needed something healthy after our rather junky day!), before doing our reading and having an early night, prior to the feast!

The midnight feast - the crowning jewel on the boys' birthday!

-- Greg and Mim