Day 131
Monday
8 May 2017
Kings Canyon Resort – Kathleen Springs – Erludnda – Alice
Springs
I didn’t sleep well last night. All I could hear was the
scratch, scratch scratch of rodents. Every time I rolled over I imagined them
crawling out from their holes and running all over the van. When the alarm went
at 7am, it was relief to know I would have to get up and not listen to it, but
I was also so tired, I just wanted to roll over and find some peace.
Paul was up with the alarm and off to shower. I made the bed
and breakfast, then went for my shower when he returned, the dingoes could
still be herd howling in the distance. Everything was put away in its
travelling place and we were pulling out of the park at 8.10am.
We travelled back down Luritja Road about 15min until the
turn of for Kathleen Springs. We parked the van in the parking area and then
followed the easy path through old stockyards and onto a naturally fed, spring
waterhole. After taking in the view, we returned to the van and began our
journey south towards the Lasseter Hwy. I set the GPS to Alice Springs and
unfortunately it wanted us to take the road north, being a shorter distance of
just over 400km and 4hours, but knowing the road isn’t sealed in parts we had
to set it for Erldunda first, a two and a half hour drive.
I opted to rest for the drive to Lasseter Hwy keeping my
eyes closes and trying to recoup some of the lost hours. While I didn’t sleep I
did feel a little better. By 11.45am we had reached Erldunda and we joined the
hordes at the fuel pump filling their vehicles. We noticed Bruce’s Winnie
parked in the car park. They had left some time before we got moving.
After filling up, grabbing a quick snack and ducking into
the loo, we continued north on the Stuart Hwy, Alice Springs now only a
two-hour drive away and for the most part was very easy to manage. At 2pm we
arrived at the Gday Mate caravan park, pulling in behind Bruce and Denise. We
paid up for 3 days, were shown to our site and then got started with the setup.
I was so glad to have internet access again, though not free.
$5 for 1gb, I guess beggars cant’ be choosers and it certainly was better than
the deal at Kings Canyon Resort. We the password plugged in, I began the long
task of loading everything on.
We ate our lunch, wrote a shopping list, had a brief rest
and then hopped in the car to drive through the centre of Alice and on to
Bunnings for a new gas bottle and some rat baits. We returned to town looking
for a place to buy batteries, which we found but they had no stock. Paul spoke
to Jaden for a bit, catching up on news from home, unfortunately he has Ross
River virus.
We then ventured into Coles for a big shop and returning to
the van to unload everything and finally enjoy the quiet. We sat outside
enjoying the mild weather, chatting to Bruce and Denise while I continued with
the photos.
As the weather cooled I began to get hungry, so we came
inside and prepared dinner and then ate. I rang Brad to check in with the
goings on. I finally finished adding all of the photos to Facebook just as my
1gb of data ran out. I rang Mum and checked in on them as well, nothing new
going on there.
I read the tourist brochure I had picked up at the front
office, getting an idea of things to do in Alice and then it was time to head
to bed. I hope Mr Mouse has found our surprise and gone off to be quiet and let
me sleep.
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