…done with Alice

Springs.

There’s not much to Alice Springs, a town with a population little more than Elgin which has grown to prominence because of its proximity to Uluru (or Ayer’s Rock, to all you aborigine haters). Saying it’s close to Uluru it like saying it’s sensible to book a hotel in Elgin because you want to see the Angel of the North. And you know where the Angel of the North is when you make this statement.

All I’d read about Alice Springs before going there was Bill Bryson’s description of it being absolutely awful. He balanced this by saying at least Uluru was completely fantastic. I don’t agree with him about either of those things, at least I wouldn’t go to the same degree of hate/love. I’d certainly say that he was in the right area with his judgements.

There’s not much to Alice, spare a nice hill that they’ve put an ANZAC memorial on and a river that is marked in most maps with the words “usually dry” nearby. When colonialists first discovered this river, at a rare time of year when it actually had water in it, guess what they did. Guess what these people who had been trudging through the desert for days, who hadn’t seen water for a long, long time and were presumably absolutely parched, did when they saw this river. Correct! They made coffee!

The most disappointing thing about Uluru was probably the clouds. Most people seem to say that it’s most impressive when you can see the light changing as the sun sets/rises. We arrived about an hour after sunset and it was too dark to see much. We got up early to see the sun rise, but the clouds stopped anything magnificent happening.

After that we wandered around the rock, around 10km in all, which was quite a pleasant thing to do. Pretty much every photo I’ve seen of it has been from a distance and they all look the same, don’t they? A bit like this one.

Up close it isn’t how I expected at all. Rather than just being smooth like zoomed out images suggest, it’s full of countours and caves, nooks and crannies, undulations and colour changes.

With a deadline to get our auto up to Alice, we couldn’t stick around for sunset and made out way up to King’s Canyon. It’s not something I can remember hearing much about before coming to Australia, but I think everyone’s in agreement that it’s far more spectacular. We got to see it at sunset which made it even more special.

Prior to this we’d seen an underground town (which wasn’t as amazing as it sounded, unless we just missed all the good bits) and the world’s largest rocking horse (although no one seems to agree with me that this was incredible). Definitely go see that rather than Uluru, though.

And that, missing out the time we got bogged down in sand, is pretty much the story of how we drove around 1000 miles from Adelaide to Alice Springs. We drove, because when in you’re in the middle of nowhere, no one really cares if you’ve got a licence or not.

What did I learn? That even without hours of practise every week, I’m just as bad as everyone else on the road. And that you have to say “brrr” before you drive over a cattle grid. Apart from the guys who drive road trains, they’re incredible.

Filed under: australia, adelaide, alice springs, king's canyon, uluru, world's biggest rocking horse