Alice Springs

We have spent the past week relaxing in Alice Springs, and several days after arriving we have fellow Bushtracker owners Narelle and Gordon who we met at Birdsville camped next to us at the caravan park.

The following photos were taken from Anzac Hill which overlooks Alice Springs and the MacDonnell Ranges. The gap in the centre of the picture is Heavitree Gap and is the start of the East and West MacDonnell Ranges.

Our original plan was to head across the Gary Junction Road to Marble Bar which we did in 2007, but we have decided to do Great Central Road with Narelle and Gordon. We last crossed this way from Yulara to Laverton in Western Australia in September 2013. Total distance is 1050 km of dirt.

The Ngaanyatjarra aboriginal council here in Alice Springs issue any permits required to travel across aboriginal lands which also includes WA on the same day. 

Unbeknown to us the Henley-On-Todd River Regatta was being held on the weekend during our stay. Its a series of boat races held along the dry Todd River bed. This year was the 56th running of the regatta.

The vast majority of the events are team-based but events like sand shovelling where men must fill a 44-gallon drum with sand, and the budgie smugglers run for men and women are individual events. The organisers estimate there will be well over 4000 attending. We purchased our tickets days beforehand from the information centre. We were in place at 10:30 to watch the parade with the actual races starting around 11:30 and finishing around 4 pm. The events are many and varied and include

These two guys are crossing the estimated 1100 sand dunes in the Simpson Desert to raise money for Beyond Blue. So we were more than happy to donate some money to such a worthy cause.

They have four support vehicles coming along and we were lucky enough to see inside of the smaller ones. The owner said there wasn't much change out of half a million dollars. The other two are much larger so I'd hate to think just what they were worth.