Day 14 – Desert Park and an Afternoon Drive = MUD
Day 2 of being a tourist in Alice Springs saw us head out to the Desert Park. It’s just a 5min drive from where we are based. The park is huge and consists of different habitats you find in an arid area such as sandy, woodland, salt plain, clay pan etc. At each habitat there is a number which you punch into an audio device and listen to information corresponding to where you are. There are also bird aviaries and cultural displays at each habitat.
We listened to a local indigenous woman tell us about hunting, gathering, tool making, bush foods and cultural practices. This was really interesting as we don’t have a very good understanding of indigenous culture at all. What I did find amusing though was that in indigenous culture there are specific tasks that the woman and men perform for example, men do all the hunting and would never go near the “kitchen” and ground seeds as this is a woman’s job…sound familiar? The guide explained what each of the tools were used for and how specific woods are used for each such as the digging tool/punishment stick is made from Mulga as it is very strong.
They also have a fanastic nocturnal house that had quite a few highly endangered animals such as the Bilby as well as snakes, spiders and lizards and my least favourite animal bats!! Our favourite experince was the bird show,the presenter came out and talked about the birds you find in the area and right on cue as he mentioned each bird they appeared out of nowhere. He then fed them bits of meat which he either threw in the air or placed on the ground to demonstrate how the bird fed, Col nearly had his head taken off by a low flying Barn Owl! I’m sure no one has ever been hit but it was bloody close!
We came back to the camper for lunch and then decided as the day was still young we would go on a bit of a 4wd adventure through the Owen Springs Reserve and then exit it and go onto Simpsons Gap for the sunset. The loacal guide book describes it as a high clearance 4WD track that in parts follows the actual river bed of the Hugh River (dry). We decided if it got too knarly we would turn back, no point wrecking the truck this early in the trip.
A lot of corrigations on the first few KM before we turned off for the 2KM detour into Redbank Water Hole and camping site. Very slow going into here so just idling along and we crested a small knoll into the campsite area and surprised a lady from Perth who had it all hanging out in the sun, panic stations as she got them tucked back in and put on a jumper then went and hid behind their camper trailer!!! We stopped and chatted to them on the way out for ages a couple from Perth WA, they could talk and talk and talk. No water in the water hole as it’s just a part of the dry river bed really. We grabbed a Geoacache here and by a fluke of timing we were the first to log it ever.
We travelled the road at varying speeds avoiding washouts and some sand drifts but nothing you could call hardcore. Driving in the river bed was easy as it was all compressed stones. About 10Km from here we got to Lawrence Gorge and another first to find Geocache. Back into the river bed and we had our first face to face with a dingo on the other side of the bank. Another 10KM had us at the Old Owen Springs Homestead and yet another first to find Geocache. They are doing an archealogical did here at the moment excavating the old cellar. The buildings were built in 1866 and was the first pastoral homestead in the central region.
The rest of the road was pretty easy except for one short section of thick gooey red mud. I picked a line as they all looked bad and just went for it. The truck was being dragged into the barb wire fence and I thought it was going to catch it at one stage. Large chunks of red mud flying off the new Coopers in all directions. She is a real mess underneath and down one side. The clumps were so big and sticky they stuck to the rim and put the right wheel out of balance and I had a bad vibration on the way back to Alice. I’ll have to get it off tomorrow at some stage. I could not fling it off no matter how fast we drove. We also had to avoid a large 4WD tour bus directly after this eppisode and ended up stationary on the road in a massive cloud of dust not being able to see anything till it cleared.
As usual we got out of the track just on sunset about 30 minutes behind schedule and missed the Simpsons Gap sunset as it was already dark on the way back to Alice. We stopped at the IGA down the road on the way back in, we were obviously in the wrong suburb and wrong IGA, not going back to that one!
These cache Links have further details of the Owens Springs area:
Great pics!