The Red Centre and my husband's mistress...

So safely landed in Alice Springs, G rushes off to meet his dream date, a 4x4 Nissan Patrol. However, he is heart broken when they meet, realising Big Bertha is missing a snorkel, a winch and of all things a shovel, although I would be very upset if we needed any of these items!! Suitably calmed by this thought we persuade him not to go back into the airport and demand his conjugal rights and head out instead to start 'his' outback adventure.

Our first stop is Alice, whose description I will return to later....., to pick up 6 weeks supply of lollies( sweets) and water supplies before the five and half hour drive to Uluru.

Flies!

They deserve a whole paragraph by themselves.

Do not underestimate the annoyance of the outback fly. They descend on you as soon as you open the car door and once they have you in their sights they follow, incessantly, proclaiming your arrival to another hundred of their mates who have been waiting somewhere -where I do not know, suspended motionless it seems, waiting just for us. And then this paperazzi are not content til they have blocked every avaliable orifice, searching for what????Do they feed on carbon bloodie dioxide, ear wax, bogeys and dried eye mucus?What is it they want from us that they can't get from 10 tonnes of animal dung?

As you can see they have an effect.

The landscape we drive through is not what we expect. I have tried not to look at too many pictures: I wanted to experience it all first hand. But I expected red soil, a bush here and there and very little else. Instead I give you green! And not just isolated patches but a covering over most of the reddened earth and we witness a huge variation in plant life over the next five days driving.

The animal life is equally awesome and on this one trip alone we see: a giant lizard crossing the road in front of us; a wedge tailed eagle that is so intent on catching its prey, it nearly hits the windscreen of the car and boy are they big; grasshoppers large and green, some red others brown, stripey ones but no spotty ones; butterflies at least five obvious types and sometimes their caterpillars which are juicy and fat with big black spikes like car aerials stabbing upwards; beetles galore,iridescent green ones, black ones with round bodies, large flying ones , eeek!; more lizards, this time somewhat smaller but again all different one even wearing a red helmet; frogs and tadpoles; camels -I didn't think these were indigenous to Oz but you might be fooled into thinking they are as they seems to roam around the desert unhindered by harness or human keepers, and kangeroos. No stop, freeze , go back one! Did I say kangeroos? Yes I was expecting to finally see large numbers of them hopping across the landscape, I'd been promised them after all but not one did we witness that didn't need scraping off the tarmac! Where were they all? Oh yes on the tarmac!

Apart from signage, the road itself is the only man made thing we see and looks like someone has dumped a trail of grey down on wilderness. The edges of the road are not straight and at times the red soil can be seen creeping onto its surface trying to reclaim its territory. It seems very War of the Worlds.

We stop twice on the Stuart highway. Firstly at Henbury Meterorite plains where craters from falling pieces of kryptonite have turned into thriving oasie, or whatever the plural is for this. I am awed by the amazing 'miracle gro powers of said exotic space minerals until G explains that any depression in this flat landscape collects water and washed down minerals-well he could read the bloodie sign , my eyes were too full of flies.

The second stop is at a cafe, though I use this term loosely, at Mount Ebenezer. Here we order coffee and get given 2 empty mugs (is this symbolic I ask myself). I am very relieved however that I don't make a fool of myself by asking for a skinny latte and a long black as a finger points to the hot water urn and instant nescafe jar around the corner. How Melbournian I have become as I can't bring myself to drink more than a mouthful without gagging and suggesting a quick getaway.

Then finally just as we begin to tire we see a large mountain in the distance. It does look truly impressive but alas turns out not to be the end of our journey but Mt. connor which if it wasn't for its size I would believe someone had constructed as a joke to play on the long line of tourists making their pilgrimage to Uluru. Still we did eventually arrive and see the real thing but more of that later.....