The Outback - Alice Springs, RVing, & Uluru

The biggest advantage of traveling solo is that you actually get to go on trips.  Back home, it seems impossible to align calendars, let alone priorities and expenses to do something like this.  In most circumstances, I don't mind - I'm pretty good at entertaining myself and finding people to talk to.  Picking up my camper van/RV in Alice Springs, it was clear that having a co-pilot around would have been preferable.

Home for 5 days

The Northern Territory (NT) is vast and vastly different from Sydney and New South Wales (NSW).  Alice Springs is small, mostly poor, and mostly populated by indigenousness Australians - formerly called Aborigines.   The pace here is really slow, and I found it best not to be in a hurry for anything.

After picking up my camper van, I stopped at the local grocer to pick up supplies, then went next door to the "bottle shop" to stock up on cold beer to help with the 95 degree days.  To buy beer or a bottle of wine in the NT, you first have to get passed the guards.  Even small gas stations that want to sell any alcohol have to have 2 guards to check IDs and extensively question the buyer on what they planned to do with it.  I had to get a lesson on the alcohol laws of NT before they would let me in.  Any indigenous folks trying just get a big hassle.  Then when paying, I had to again produce my ID (my passport) which they scanned into their system and tied to my purchase.  Easier to buy a gun in Seattle than a beer in NT!

The drive from Alice Springs to Uluru is about 300 miles, and takes about 5 hours with speed limits up to 130kph (>80mph).  There were places marked on the map that I thought would be towns, but in most cases were just a single structure - usually a roadhouse selling gas, coffee, and maybe some food.  You could even drive for 50 or 60 miles without seeing so much as a road sign telling you what road you were on or where you were going.  If it weren't for the occasional car that would pass me, or the occasional slowpoke that I passed (drive on the left, pass on the right), it would have felt extremely isolated.

Uluru - still 150km away

Uluru sunset

There's a reason why Mad Max was conceived to be in the Australian Outback.  Most of the vehicles on the road look like they could be in the movie.  Every one has 4 distinct features beyond 4wd;  a roo-bar to keep kangaroos from wrecking your front end, big lights up front to see the kangaroos before you hit them, a big thick antenna that I assume is for a CB radio to call for help if needed, and a snorkel to get through the flood channels when it rains.

Milky Way on a starry night

I thought it would be fairly quiet as far as the local tourists go, but I guess I didn't check to see that it was actually Australian spring break and all the kids were off of school.  So, the caravan parks were full and the best I could do was to park in the overflow area down at the Uluru National Park.  Not really a problem, except that without a plug in, my AC doesn't work unless the engine is running - so had to find relief elsewhere during the afternoons.  Fortunately, it cooled down to the 60s at night, so sleeping wasn't a problem.

Uluru was formally turned over back to the original occupants of the region, the Mala tribe.  For the past few decades, one of the big draws to Uluru was to climb to the top, but the Mala view that as disrespectful, and it will no longer be allowed starting next year.  As of now, there's a big push not to climb, but some people still ignore the wishes of the locals and do it anyway.

I'm glad that I came here and glad that I saw and experienced the Red Centre, but to be honest, I wish I had condensed things into one or two less days.  For a quick pass through, the sights here are really Uluru/Ayers Rock along with it's lumpier brother, Kata Tjuta, and some of the wildlife parks and farms.  I'm sure with more time would come more appreciation for the subtle beauty.  Putting 1200km on the camper with diesel at as much as $2.20ASD/liter or about $6USD/gallon meant spending about $300US on fuel for the round trip on top of the ~$200/day for the camper and $30/night to park - so not really any cheaper than staying in the Marriott in Sydney.  Still - a good experience and one I'm glad to have had.

Kata Tjuta

I'll wrap this up with some pictures of the wildlife - both wild and captive.  On the wild side, there are amazing bird everywhere.  Even the local version of pigeons look and sound exotic.  There are various forms of doves, mockingbirds, and parrots that make a huge but pleasant racket in the mornings.  Vultures, eagles, and hawks are seen riding thermals, circling prey, and picking at dead kangaroos on the side of the road.  I visited an Emu farm at one of the roadhouses along the way, saw camels wandering in the brush from a camel farm, and visited the Alice Springs Desert Park that had an incredible open air bird show, with birds from sparrows to owls to eagles trained to enter and exit on queue, swooping low and fast inches over the heads of the audience.  They also had an enclosed area that you could enter and go face to face with giant red kangaroos - the males being about 5-6 feet tall.  If you hit one of those driving down the highway at 130kph, you'll certainly want your roo-bars installed!

just-my-size kangaroo

dingos colluding to eat a baby