11/09/21 Always Going Forwards: Alice Springs

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We have a wee problem with the car: when first started it's not always possible to use reverse, which limits parking to those places that have a forwards exit.  This preys upon Roger's mind, such that he is paranoid about avoiding being parked in, which is a high risk in the congested conditions in which we often find themselves as we travel through western Qld and the NT :

"Careful where you park! Don't get boxed in!"

"Make sure no one can park in front and block us in!"

"Remember we need to be able to go forwards!"

Of course sometimes his concern is justified:

"We have to be able to get out forwards!"  By golly, we're lucky we were given a corner block.

We didn't intend to, but we spent an extra day in Alice Springs today, due to me having hay fever/a cold and not wanting to inadvertently sneeze whilst negotiating the SA border crossing.  I didn't quite ring a bell and call out 'unclean' around the caravan park but I laid low at the campsite all day, keeping company with the laptop, a box of tissues, and the hand sanitizer.


An Australian Ring Neck, Port Lincoln variety.  He came to say hello and solicit food.  I didn't feed him so he flew up and pooped on the car.  Bad bird.


The only outing of the day was a visit to the Alice Springs airport. Alice Springs is hot and dry, which means that a plane parked there doesn't deteriorate the way it would on the coast. Thanks to Covid putting the brakes on air travel, there are about 200 planes from all over the world parked at Alice Springs. There are also tracks through the spinifex all around the airport where people like us have been taking photos, so we poked around all the tracks and took lots of photos, and this is the result.





It just wasn't possible to get them all in the picture.

Nothing much else happened all day.  We watched caravans go and caravans come.  We watched the parking negotiations of caravans, which was quite entertaining. We did our laundry.  The sun shone brightly, the temperature rose to 34C, and Roger pre-emptively grieved the summer which he anticipates missing by moving south.

Tomorrow we  try for our last border crossing.  We have all our fingers crossed and all our paperwork (hopefully) in order.  Now all we need is a fireworks and sneeze-free night.









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