July 6th-10th, 2011- Heritage Caravan Park-Alice Springs

Wednesday July 6th saw us pack up and head back to Heritage Caravan Park in Alice Springs. We had a leisurely start and checked in just before lunch. The girls got straight to the laundry. The caravan park is quite large and has full amenities but was quite disorganized when we arrived. One of our assigned stalls had another caravan already in it. After a bit of juggling around we all  settled in close to each other with power leads running everywhere to get us connected up. We ended up sharing power so had to be careful with our usage so as to not pop the breaker. We found out where the panel was fairly quickly so we could reset ourselves when we overloaded. All caravan parks in Alice Spring were fully booked out for the upcoming Camel Cup (more on this later); so we were lucky to get these spots. We decided we needed to return to civilization so we could tune in to Origin 3. Turns out we should have stayed blissfully ignorant of the game.We had a small origin party outside our caravan watching the TV with the rest of our group. It was a quiet group by the end of the night.

Thursday five of us loaded in Stephen's car and drove South to Rainbow Valley. About 75KM south on Stuart Highway before heading East on a 4WD road for 22KM. The road was very corrugated but the trip was well worth it. We had another beautiful sunny day with blue skies to enjoy Rainbow Valley. Another wonderful, colourful series of rock formations. We did a short 1 hour walk back to a formation they call Mushroom Rock. Lots of great photos. It is apparently best seen at sunset as the colours are even more spectacular. They must be something then as they were already amazing at midday! We returned over the corrugated road to the highway and back to Alice Springs by mid afternoon.

Friday saw each couple more or less do their own exploring around Alice Springs. We had a couple of errands to take care of in the morning before touring the Outback Womens Hall of Fame. It is located in a former jail and is very interesting. We joined Stephen and Carol at the Telegraph Station Park for a nice picnic lunch. This is a beautiful facility with gas BBQs, Toilets, and lots of green space. Stephen reckons the BBQs are the cleanest he has ever seen. We enjoyed our sausage sizzle before heading off in separate directions to do some more sightseeing. We toured the Royal Flying Doctors Service. Again it was very interesting. It is unfortunate that a service such as this relies very heavily on donations from corportations and individuals to continue operating. I for one think with all the garbage the government wastes money on this necessary medical service should be fully government funded. We returned to the caravan and enjoyed an easy meal.

Saturday we joined a rather large crowd attending the Alice Springs Camel Cup. What a hoot! We had a very fun and enjoyable day. Surprisingly there was no official betting taking place on the various Camel races. We did a pool for each race between us and Sandra was the big winner, winning 4 races.
The camels are quite unpredictable and most races had at least one camel going in the wrong direction and/or a rider being thrown. One of the races involved the camels racing half way around the track, stopping in front of us, and picking up a women rider dressed as a bride before completing the rest of the circuit. They called it the Honeymoon Classic and what a laugh. I don't think too many of the couples would have felt like celebrating their nuptials later that night. Besides the camel races that had teams of 4 people doing rickshaw races and a couple of Pirate Ships from the Rotary Clubs Todd River Regatta doing a massive water fight on the field. Very funny! The girls and Terry left after the Honeymoon Classic. Rans and I stuck it out to the end, enjoying several cold refreshments before walking back to the campsite. One of the highlights of the later races was the Rickshaw Iron Man event which involved pulling the Rickshaw around the full Camel track in loose dirt. A team called Switzerland won and one of the guys decided to strip down to his underwear; throwing everything including his shoes into the audience during their victory lap. I'm sure he was regretting his decision later as it wasn't that warm a day and his feet would have been pretty sore when he sobered up. On the positive side I think the Boys from Switzerland wouldn't have had any trouble finding female companionship later in the evening. We had an easy tea and a very early night (especially Stephen and John)

Sunday is a cleanup/preparation day for our next stage of travel. We are finally leaving Alice Springs on Monday after 16 days. We only planned on spending a week but there is so much to see and we also enjoyed the Alice Springs Show and the Camel Cup. Amazingly there is still quite a few things we haven't seen and most of us and people we have met plan on returning someday. Alice Springs is a very nice, clean, and well laid out town. Sandra and I toured the Alice Springs School of the Air which was very worthwhile and interesting. Once again unfortunately they rely heavily on public donations to operate. It is amazing to see how well they are able to deliver a quality education to these kids scattered across a huge area. We did some grocery shopping, laundry, and prepared to leave in the morning. Talk to soon!