North from Alice

The weekend before we left Alice Springs was the very important and unmissable Beanie Fest. It was held from Friday night to Monday morning and the event seemed to take over the whole town. It began about 15 years ago with about 100 beanies and has grown over the years to show approx. 7,000 beanies sent from very talented people worldwide (even Belarus!). Each beanie is ticketed with a barcode and details (creator, how constructed whether knitted, crocheted, felted, etc. and of course the price). The large room was beautifully set up with many tables and stands but even so, people were 3 deep trying to choose which beanie they would like. Complimenting the sale section was an exhibition of beanie creations in the art gallery which truly were works of art and quite spectacular. A series of craft workshops was held nearby on both Saturday and Sunday, and of course the refreshment stalls also did a roaring trade.  I really enjoyed the day and even attended a mini-workshop and in an hour made a baby's beanie with a form of french knitting frame. I felt it was a great credit to the Alice Springs people that the organisation went so well.

We had a day trip to the East MacDonnell ranges to Ross River and the old goldmining area of Arltunga which was interesting also side trips to Jessie Gap and the very lovely Trephina Gorge. Left Alice Springs after a very enjoyable seven days - beautiful weather but quite cold at night. Felt quite excited as from this point on it was all new territory for us. The Devil's Marbles were north of Alice and this collection of strange shaped boulders balanced together was quite amazing.

 I was curious to experience 'the long road north' that Dad and his fellow army mates travelled during the war. When it was decided during WW2 that the north coast of Australia should be defended against invasion, the problem was that there was no road between Alice Springs and Darwin. Men and supplies  could be brought by train to the centre but a road had to be constructed north to Larrimah  and from there a train was again able to travel on to Darwin. Alice before the war had only a small population of a few hundred people and, with firstly the road construction people and then the Army, the town had its own invasion. I believe eventually the Army numbered about 7,000 strong. The road constructed was approx. 640 miles long - and unsealed. You can imagine the road conditions after heavy rain during the 'wet' season and then the dusty, incredibly hot weather of the 'dry'. Convoys of trucks would drive at about 20 mph only because of road conditions, and over three extremely long days of driving would travel the 640 miles to Larrimah. Then after a short rest and the necessary repairs to trucks, the return journey would be made. We thought about this as we drove the now sealed and beautifully maintained Stuart Highway in the comfort of a power steered modern air-conditioned car with the added luxury of cruise control. The four or so hours we travelled each day was more than enough for us and my admiration for the efforts of my father and his mates has grown enormously.

Eventually, we travelled on past Larrimah up to Mataranka and stayed a few nights at a lovely bush park right by the thermal  Bitter Springs. It is in the area known as the 'never-never' ("We of the Never Never" by Mrs Aeneas Gunn - an Australian classic), and has a lovely tropical feel to it despite the termite hills and the bare bushy surrounds. We bathed in the warm, water-lily edged Bitter Springs and visited the old Elsey Station, the Pioneer Cemetery in which the real-life characters from the book are buried. Our last day at Mataranka was Territory Day and everyone was invited to the celebrations at the local footy oval with the ladies auxilliary providing an evening meal (delicious soup $3, mains $4, desserts $3 plus tea/coffee) before the fireworks display began at sun-down.

Next stop on our trip north was only about 100kms further on to Adelaide River. Again we had a lovely park to stop in (with a welcome swimming pool) and Peter spent part of two days photographing approx. 480 war graves in the large, very well maintained garden cemetery. Nearby are the remains of massive complex of WW2 bunkers which not being sign-posted, took a bit of finding.

Today, we've finally made it to Darwin and happy to meet up with cousin Flora and to arrange a family get-together during our stay. More on Darwin later!

From South Australia to Northern Territory

Before leaving Broken Hill I was advised most strongly by the lovely family history ladies that all fruit and vegetables would be confiscated at the manned Fruit Fly stop in South Australia. As I had a large bag of potatoes, another of onions plus the aforementioned pumpkin, I spent a few hours cooking up a pot of Potato, Pumpkin & Onion soup using some powdered stock (it turned out to be very good), also cooked some potatoes whole to use later in potato salad, and caramelised some onions and managed to squeeze the plastic container of these into our tiny freezer compartment. Our fruit had all been eaten so felt quite smug when approaching the stopping place in S.A. However it was the Queen's Birthday holiday Monday and so not manned! Any amount of fruit and vegetables could have gone through to South Australia - and only your own conscience to trouble you.

Had an overnight stop in Port Augusta and then a long drive north to Coober Pedy. We had stopped here for a few days several years ago, so the opal mining landscape and very arid surroundings did not surprise us. What did surprise us was being laid low by the continuing very bad colds we were both experiencing. We rested quite a lot, visited the local chemist for medication, and as a treat, had excellent pizza from John's Pizza Bar & Restaurant. A few drives around the mining town confirmed that little had changed in two years.

When we finally left we only drove several hundred kilometres to Marla for our overnight stop - before continuing the next day onto Alice Springs stopping at Eudunda Roadhouse for lunch. While giving Jessie a walk and drink, we got chatting to a man who came up to admire our dog. It turned out that he was a professional photographer (unfortunately can't remember his name), but he had taken a lot of outback photos and one of a ute and blue heeler dog had been published around the world and had earned him quite a bit of money. Our Jessie could have been the next big doggy model!

Next stop was a week's break at Alice Springs. I'm always pleased to be here in the very heart of Australia - it's our third visit. Even in the four years since our last visit we can see the town has grown quite a bit. Our neighbours in the caravan park here had their portable air cooler out for repairs - seems it had a resident mouse (there is currently a mouse plague in the outback!) eating all through the filters, etc. It had got in during one of their overnight stops. Another park neighbour had one cheeky little mouse running across their bed. Luckily we've escaped this experience. It's astonishing who you meet in the parks - in this one we have one of Peter's old workmates from Lysaghts/Bluescope (and his wife) who now live just around the corner from us in Hastings. We've enjoyed catching up on old times.

While here, we've had a good look around town, visited the local cemetery for Peter's volunteer work photographing the CWGC graves (29) and whilst there also viewed the very nice Albert Namatjira grave. Sadly the cemetery itself just by the old wartime runway, is not very well maintained. The major cemetery - Alice Springs Garden Cemetery on the other hand is just beautiful - probably the loveliest one I've seen ever.

I loved the National Pioneer Women's Hall of Fame which is set up quite beautifully in the old Alice Springs Gaol buildings - as well as honouring the earlier outback pioneer women, it also showcases Australian women's achievements through the years. I was especially pleased to see details of Miss Eva West of Traralgon (my home town) who was one of the first women to qualify as Accountants and who was Shire Secretary of Traralgon Shire during the war years. My parents always spoke well of her and Peter's father used to do carpentry repairs to her house and Peter remembers her quite well.

The Araleun Cultural Precinct has an outstanding set of buildings devoted to outback history, development, natural history, arts and crafts, etc. and currently they have an exhibition entitled The Track: 1000 Miles to War,  focusing on activities along the Stuart Highway during the World War Two period. Defence force units were stationed along the Highway form Alice Springs to Darwin, engaged in road and airfield building, establishing bases and infrastructure and preparing to defend northern Australia. Stories, photographs, and archival material of the period has been assembled into a fascinating exhibition. Dad was one of those soldiers in the 148th Transport Coy who drove the transports from Alice to Larrimah. Several years were spent serving this way - extremely hard work in an unforgiving, hot, dusty environment.

Yesterday we drove the 127 kilometres to Hermannsburg to visit the old Lutheran Aboriginal Mission. It had been set up in 1877 by German missionaries and it was to be a permanent self-sufficient community. The work involved must have been incredible in such an alien (to them) part of the world. By 1891 the first missionaries felt broken men and the mission was abandoned. Then it was re-started three years later and continued for 88 years. The local Arante people were taught many crafts/skills and also the German language! Their own Aranda language survived to this day - but German didn't. The outstanding artist Albert Namatjira came from this Mission and his lovely outback watercolour paintings are world famous.

We've also watched and photographed The Ghan train leave Alice Springs for its long journey down to Adelaide. Seeing this iconic train coming through Heavitree Gap (the southern entrance through the MacDonnell Ranges) was quite something,