The Alice

Monday 3rd August 2009
Banka Banka was behind us by 8:30am, we rolled into Tennant Creek just after 9am, filled up the car and kept heading South. During yesterday's travel we saw temperatures rise as high as 27°C but today the highest was only 23°C. The morning temperature in Alice Springs was only 2°C.
Along the way we stopped at a place called Devils Marbles, a sacred Aboriginal site with the Marbles representing the eggs of the rainbow serpent which plays a significant role in creation dream time.
The Marbles are really just a large collection of rocks weathered into a round shape. It is quite remarkable as these round rocks are in the middle of the dessert, surrounded by scrub.
Not far from the Marbles is a small place called Wycliff Well and it's claim to fame is that it is the "UFO Centre of Australia". UFO sightings go back as far as the 2nd World War where the servicemen stationed at Wycliff Well (to grow vegetables) kept a book with records of the sightings. Unfortunately the old book has been stolen but a new book, containing records back to the 90's, is there on the front counter, for everyone to see.
We filled up the car, bought some muffins and put the foot down to get away from there before the aliens had a chance to abduct us.
Going further south we had another fuel stop before calling in at Red Centre Farm to purchase some tomatoes and Mango Ice Cream. We also had our lunch there and then continued the long track South where we arrived at the Tropic of Capricorn about 30km North of Alice Springs. After crossing the Tropic in a northerly direction on 6th June we are finally leaving the Tropics behind us after spending nearly 2 month up there.
By 4pm, after having covered 600km, we concluded the days driving at a Caravan Park on the Southern side of Alice. For the last 150km into Alice we were listening to ABC radio and there was a special report about the 80 year anniversary Ghan which was in Alice today. As soon as our Caravan was set up we hopped back in the car to see the Ghan at Alice Springs railway station.
The Ghan was the train responsible for opening up the Australian Outback when it started in 1929. The population of Alice was just over 100, but with the Ghan, or Alice Springs Express as it used to be called, Adelaide was only a train trip away and Alice soon began to grow. However, it was not until 2004 that the railway to Darwin was completed and ever since then the Ghan goes from Adelaide all the way through to Darwin, a two and a half day trip covering just under 3000km. These days the Ghan is one of the Great Train trips of the world and mainly frequented by tourists from all over the world. Today we counted 33 carriages on the train, three of them were car carriers for passengers vehicles.
We watched the Ghan depart punctually at 6pm just as the sun was setting behind the hills of Alice Springs and I couldn't help conjuring up images from an Agatha Christie movies as the train slowly accelerated away into the sunset.
While we were in town we also checked out the fabulous views from ANZAC Hill before returning back to the Caravan to plan tomorrow's activities.