Day 14 - Uluru, back to Alice Springs

It rained all night. I had the bike inside the tent, and the tent is big enough to be comfortable, even during rain. However, it stuffed up my plans to visit the canyon.

The idea was to wake up early, go to the canyon (about 400km's) do a 3-hour walk and then head to Alice Springs before it gets dark.

But with the rain and a temperature of about 6 degC, I wasn't feeling it, so I snuggled a lot longer in a warm bed, and then made myself a hot chai tea and packup up a very wet tent.

I met a very nice retired couple from Adelaide while at the camp kitchen. he used to drive those huge road trains. I finally could get answers to all my questions:

1 - The actually have to drive the trucks, the computer that drives it automatically is a myth, it doesn't exist, all they have is cruise control

2 - The reason the wildilife is most dangerous at dawn is because they come to the edge of the roads to drink the water condensed on the tarmac and then drained to the sides of the road by its camber

3 - You can't avoid hitting the kangaroos, they jump at you from the forest and by the time you see it, you are already hitting it. They even hit the sides of the trucks, he told me that this is the reason most fuel tanks on the sides of the trucks are dented

4 - Tucks also hit cows sometimes. however, they make a lot of damage to the front of the trucks, about $80K of damage a hit. It they go over them it's even worse as they destroy air hoses and other bits under the truck.

5 - Trucks never try to avoid hitting the kangaroos, they just try to hit them with the side of the bumper, so that they move over to the shoulder of the road, otherwise they can get under and damage the air hoses, additionally, if they stay on the middle of the road, they become a danger to motorists, too.

Truckies appear to be a nice bunch of people, I had good experiences with them, they also help you overtake them by indicating when there is clearance to do it.

In fact most people had been very nice to me, almost everybody a pass, waves at me, so I started doing the same, which is interesting, because when the other driver doesn't wave back I get a tinge of rejection; funny, ha?

I lef the camping grounds from Ayers Rock with good memories. the camping is great and surprisingly reasonaby priced.

Great campgound, I recommend it. The best in Ayers Rock... and the only one

Emus in the camping

I saw an emu in the camping grounds and I wanted to touch it. The emu didn't accomodate, so I chase it for a while, he didn't appear too happy about that. Anyway, I didn't get to touch it, but I did get one of  his feathers, it is the most interesting feather that I have seen, it is actually 2 in one,




An emu feather. One root, two feathers in one.

It rained almost the whole way to Alice Springs, so I took it easy, as easy as going at 80-90K on 130K roads; better safe than sorry I thought. In any case, I was not in a hurry and it was just too cold to go too fast.

I made a few stops where there were tables with covers to prepare me another chai tea and recover some of the lost warmth. The weather wasn't helping

The cover on the side of the table is actually designed for a wood fire, but it also doubles as a good carpot (bikepot?)

A Camel Farm, can you believe it!

And here are the camels for the rides

I kept wondering why would you grow camels on a farm, and unfortunately I asked the question.

1st reason - for the tourist and the camel rides, which is a nice thing; then there is the second reason....



I am happy with the 1st reason, I am not so sure about the second, I think I'll pass.

Talking abou the 1st reason, I booked a camel ride. Interesting thing, the creature sits on the ground, so that you can get on top of it, then it stands with the rear legs first, so if you fail to follow the instruction from the guide to lean back as much as you can BEFORE it starts to stand up, you are in trouble; which was my case because when the thing started getting up, I was still wandering 'why does he want me to lean backwards?'

My ride

Hey! that's me on a camel. how 'bout that?   What's next?

Telling me to grab tight; by now I knew that I had to do what he says.

I am glad I did this ride, it was a great experience, the guide loved my bike and he explained that the bumpiness nature of the ride on the camel dissapears once the thing starts running. so he made the camel run so I could see. I didn't fall just because god is great. Then I agreed to him that when it was running it was exactly like on my Kawasaki GTR1400 tourer. I told him so, so that he didn't make it run again or did it do something else. By now I just wanted to get off the camel.

Before it sat down, I was told again to lean backwards, which this time I did, as much as I could. The camel bent the front legs first and if I hadn't leaned back, I would have fell on my nose in front of the camel; so I'm glad I followed the instructions this time.

Didn't you know that there are camels in Australia? They are not local, they were brought in first from the Canary Islands in 1840 , then more from India and Pakistan, they were usually brought with Afghani people to handle them. They were used for the construction of the telegraph and for the supply of goods to Alice Springs and other settlements. However in the 1920's most of them were released into the wild, where they soon established large herds in many semi-desertic areas of Australia.

After that experience and a hot chocolate at the camel shop, I continued the trip to Alice Springs, then I crossed one of the inland rivers and took a photo of this sign. The reason? You know the TV program 'Man vs Wild'? Bear Grillis tells us that whenever you are lost, you have to try to find a river and then follow it, this is because (according to him) all rivers end up on the sea, where there are people. This is however not true with the Australian inland rivers, they do not end up on the sea, they evaporate or dissapear into the ground, some rivers end up in the Simpson Desert, so if you follow one of those, you'll end up in one of the most remote and driest places on earth.

The inland rivers



Finally, arrived in Alice Springs, just before dark, it'll be a refreshing change to put up the tent in sunlight.

I met a lot of people during this trip and they ar all interesting in one way or another. I just had a yarn with the guard at the camping ground, he was born in the Nederlands and came to Oz when he was just 8. since then he has never left Alice Springs, he is near 80 now. he said he has a lot of family in his mother country but he never visited them, nor he'll ever will. he said he is happy in Alice Springs, he never visited any other place in Australia or the world.

I think that this is sad. On the one hand it is good that he is happy where he is. I guess this is a good thing. However, I believe that the world can be compared to a good book. However, if you don't travel, you just keep reading one page of this book and miss all the others.