WEDNESDAY 16 JUNE   KINGS CANYON TO ALICE SPRINGS   342kms

It was another beautiful sunny day with a cloudless blue sky.

We got away quite well, at 9.30am.

The Mereenie Loop Road was varied going, but always interesting scenery. There were some corrugated sections, some areas of road works. In places, surface runoff in storms has cut into the road and made channels and sections where only one vehicle can squeeze through. This damage does not look all that recent.

 

We stopped at a lookout point back over the George Gill Range.

Encountered a couple of different and amusing road “signs”, each end of quite a sharp bend: Lift um foot………..Puttum back down! Painted on old drums. Guess some of the locals had come to grief on that corner, over time.

We saw a drilling/bore crew setting up, not far from the road, and from that assumed that the Mereenie oil/gas field is producing. There were also pipeline markers as we got further along.

There was not much traffic on this road. We just took it steadily and carefully, but were passed by a Disco, towing a camper trailer, at speed. He threw up stones over our front.

Came upon a broken down rig – vehicle and trailer – with a couple and two young children. A bracket under the trailer had broken, affecting the axle and wheel. He was not in the NRMA – not that there is any easy way of summoning roadside assistance out here! John helped the guy chain the axle into place, using some chain we had, and we followed them as they drove slowly towards Hermannsburg.

Some time after the road swung back to the east, we could see, coming closer, the hills that mark the Gosse Bluff. This is an old impact crater – probably from a comet that hit the earth a very long time ago, and exploded. Back then, the hills that form the rim of the resulting crater, were very much higher, but erosion over time has worn them well down. But the feature still stands out, very strongly.

The road deteriorated markedly after the junction with the Gosse Bluff road.

Just before Hermannsburg, we came around a bend – and there was the Disco and camper trailer, all flipped over with wheels in the air and the roof torn off the camper. Two men were getting things out of the interiors. One was the driver, the other was presumably someone from Hermannsburg. The accident had obviously happened a while ago, because it had been a while since he had passed us, and we’d had the other stop since then.

We stopped to see if help was needed. The driver said he was a doctor and his wife had been taken into see a doctor at Hermannsburg, with sore ribs. He seemed remarkably unshocked. It all looked a hell of a mess. He said that he had gotten into the soft sand on the shoulder of the road, lost control, snaked all over the road, hit the bank and flipped, finishing up facing back the way he’d come. He said he’d only been doing about 5kms an hour at the time – no way! Given the speed at which he’d passed us – and, likewise the young couple we were following, who said he’d been doing at least 80kmh – we found that extremely hard to believe. He also said it was a new rig, and he’d left Adelaide the day before. All the hallmarks of a traveller in far too much of a hurry and driving far too fast for these conditions.

The driver said they were going to try to pull the vehicle back over onto its wheels – like he thought it might still be driveable!

We passed police coming out of Hermannsburg, but no sign of any tow or help equipment.

In at the Hermannsburg settlement, the young couple found they would be able to get welding done to fix their trailer, so we left them there and continued on our way to Alice Springs. Going in along the Larapinta Drive – which became a sealed road about 40kms after Hermannsburg – was really pretty, with the West MacDonnell Ranges looming.

After an eventful trip, we reached there at 4pm. Booked into the MacDonnell Ranges Caravan Park, at a cost of $113 a week, after Big 4 discount, for three weeks. John thinks we will need that long here, to explore thoroughly – and play bowls. I’d have been more inclined to book in for two weeks. We have been here before – briefly – and on that visit explored out to the east, as far as Trephina Gorge.

We were given a nice big site, with shade trees, looking out towards the ranges to the east. This caravan park is south of the town, through the Heavitree Gap that cuts through the range. We stayed here for a couple of nights on our LSL trip and liked its quiet and security, being out of the town, plus it is modern and very clean.

Just on dark, we drove into town, only a couple of kms away, to buy wine – which we have been out of for a while now – and to get a pizza for tea. Took this back to the van to eat, and it was very nice too.

John’s “good” hip is very sore today, after yesterday’s walk, and he took some Surgam today, to try to ease it.