Week 8

Wednesday – Last night the temperature dropped to around 13 deg Cel (brrrrrrrrrr) and we broke out the quilt which we haven’t used since we were last in Alice. I guess we were spoilt in Darwin when the overnight temp was 21 – 23 degrees.
Nola is off to the local Hair & Beauty this morning (vanity therapy) while I attempt to recover ½ tonne of red dust from the Touareg.

Thursday – Off to bowls again today. This time its social bowls at the Alice Springs Memorial Club at 1:00 pm. But before that Roger had a Major Disaster to contend with . . . the battery in the TV remote control died!!! (no problem the local two dollar shop was able to help out)

We found out that The Ghan was due to arrive this morning from Darwin, so with camera in hand it was off to the Alice Springs Railway Station

The Ghan

The Ghan Arrives

The Ghan Locomotive

With buses, coaches and railway staff waiting the Ghan arrived with two locos and twenty nine carriages behind. Numerous people were busily taking photos and Roger got told off for walking in front of the loco!!

Friday - Lazy day for both of us although 'I' did give the 4WD a wash (first for three weeks).

Lawn Bowls at the Memorial Club was a bit of a disaster to say the least. Poorly organised and apart from all the interstate visitors, no one stayed back to have a drink (they just vanished)

Nola & I lost both our own team games but it didn't really matter as the scores weren't recorded or even mentioned and no prizes up for grabs. 

I knew my team was in BIG trouble when;

1. They made me skipper and
2. Our lead bowler put his first bowl down . . .  before he had even rolled the Jack!!!!

As we only had a couple of days left before roughing it again, we treated ourselves to a $27.00 p/head Seafood Buffet (All U Can Eat) at the Alice Springs Casino. (any savings we had on the meal, we gave back on the poker machines)

Lasseters Casino

Saturday – Nola & I decided to give lawn bowls a miss today (after our last experience) and we went to the Old Timers Annual Fete. This event is attended by hundreds of people every year and is a huge fundraiser for the Old Timers Retirement Village. Everything from food stalls, books, furniture, bric-a-brac, art and craft stalls

How much for this old rag?

They even had a huge truck load of gifts donated by the local businesses which ended up on their Chocolate Wheel Stand. Naturally Nola had to have a go at that – you guessed it, lucky Nola won a large banquet fry pan, plus a couple of other small gifts!

Winners R Grinners

Sunday – Last day in Alice Springs and we left at a respectable time - 9:15 am which is the latest time we have left anywhere (well it was Sunday)

Our original plan was to get to Desert Oaks Rest Stop . . . just 170 km south of Alice. After arriving at around eleven . . ish, we then decided to push on as far as we could. We ended up at Cagney Park Station which is about 150 km north of Coober Pedy. Unfortunately there’s not too much to see along the Stuart Highway (lots of ‘nothing’ to be precise)

Monday – We left around 7:45 am determined to get some kms behind us.

We stopped at Coober Pedy for coffee and mandatory photo shoot;

Big Blower Truck (in the background stupid!)

Creative Signage (read the small print)

Further down the Stuart Highway we topped at Glendambo where we had lunch & refuelled.

We arrived at Lake Hart in the early afternoon where we had;

1. No Water
2. No Power
3. No Mobile Phone,

but we did have FULL Broadband / Internet Service???

Lake Hart

  

Lake Hart Wildflowers

Tuesday - After our free night at Lake Hart we hit the bitumen again. First stop was at Port Augusta for fuel and some shopping. Unfortunately we picked up a screw in one of our caravan tyres and now we had to extend our stop for puncture repairs.

No problems - dropped off the tyre to Beaurepairs / went shopping / lunch at Macca's before moving on again.

We're heading to Port Broughton tonight, but made a quick diversion to Caputo's Seafood at Port Pirie. This place has been there forever (well just celebrated sixty years in business) and is right along the local Fishermans Wharf. Two meals of garfish and one meal of flathead (yummy) we hit the road towards our next destination Port Broughton.

This place is an old favorite of ours, having spent numerous long weekends and holiday here at Nola's parents Ron & Molly. They had a shack on the Fishermans Bay Road and a bondwood boat that Ron had built himself.

Fond memories here at 'Broughton' with countless days fishing for garfish with the father-in-law and other family members.

Arrived at Port Broughton Caravan Park around 3:30 pm and we'll probably stay here for a couple of days.