Alice Springs to Wycliffe Well (Then Alien Capital of Australia!) 15 August 2013

After a final day in our razor wire protected compound relaxing, shopping (surprisingly you can get a very good coffee and amazing lemon tart), dining (Alice Vietnamese Restaurant is about 15 ks out of town co-located with the market garden and is absolutely amazing - great tasting food, reasonable prices, 333 beer [that's the brand name, not the quantity consumed by us], HOTTTTTT chilli, El-fresco dining, Christmas decorations [not sure if we were late for xmas in July, early for Dec 25, or if it's Christmas all the time here..] and packing in Alice, we set of northward again bound for Wycliffe Well which for some reason touts itself as the Alien Capital of Australia. I'll try to google this when we next get some mobile coverage and let you know why. Suffice to say we are now happily encamped in area 57 of the campground.

There are an amazing number of hawks and eagles overhead all along this highway - a new one (or pair) every few kilometers. It is not hard to see how Craig and Shannon copped one through the windscreen. Still, wonderful to see them.

About the only man made items of interest on the way here were the giant statue of Ammatjere Man at Aileron and the Barrow Creek Telegraph Station which was in use up until 1986 and only handed over to NT Parks and Wildlife by Telecom Australia in 1988. Oh and the monument, statue, celebratory installation, big thing with a ball on top (pick one or make up one of your own) at the Tropic of Capricorn.

Yes, we have now officially gone troppo!

Funniest thing though was when Hazel spotted a Torrumbarry Pub sticker right up near the top. Just shows to go you can take the Yobbo out of Torrumbarry, but you can't take the Torrumbarry out of a Yobbo. I am of course assuming that the perpetrators were not water skiers (wake boarders maybe? Apologies to all of Janette and Paul's brood.).

The next AGM of the BIG4 caravan park group should seriously consider black balling this mob. Someone went to a lot of trouble setting it up several years ago with all the quirky alien paintwork, huge camp kitchen with open fire BBQ, fancy restaurant and function room and even an almost full sized train running through the park and out to the lake (dam?). Unfortunately it's glory days are long gone: the train doesn't look like it has been anywhere for ages; the restaurant has been put into mothballs; the camp kitchen now has a coin in the slot gas ring; half the lights don't work in the showers; and the water keeps turning off from time to time for no apparent reason.

Note the decorative use of razor wire....