Originally journalled in August 2003
Friday
After licking our wounds at pleasant Mt. Dare we headed back to Alice Springs to fix our tires and get more supplies for the trip's second half. Since we had consumed all our good spare tires and had only a very marginal spare left, I decided to take the Stuart Highway back to Alice Springs. That offered the least chance of any more tire problems before we returned for repairs.
In retrospect we probably could have blasted home along the main Finke N-S road on higher tire pressure. The ride would have been more interesting and I could have taken some documentary photos of the Finke Route, but by the time I thought of it in those terms, instead of tire risk mitigation, we were halfway along the rig road that connects Finke to Kulgera town and the Stuart Highway.
Like I said, I only took the Stuart because it was best for our tire management situation. Otherwise we all hated any drive along it. Matt remarked, it's always a horrible way to finish up a 4wd trip -- it's both dull and dangerous. It scarcely deserves the label highway -- it's more like a secondary state road -- a narrow two-lane road with a wide, sandy berm and lots of fast oncoming traffic. . At night it's a lethal cocktail of drunk drivers and stray animals. For a long-term resident of Alice Springs it must be horrible when night falls -- any escape is a long drive on a bad road.
I don't remember doing much when we got in Friday night. We arrived just as evening fell. Even the car rental agreements in the outback proscribe night-time driving. The risk of animal strikes is too great.
As always, we settled for another night at the Todd Tavern. I don't recall where we had our meal, but probably it was... the Todd Tavern. We've eaten many square meters of breaded schnitzel and many kilograms of Three Vegetable Delight at the Todd Tavern in 2003.
Saturday
We had a lot of chores to fit in Saturday morning if we hoped to be able to head back to the Outback on Sunday.
We took Ling to the Laundromat next to the BP station and let Mom and Dad spend the day wandering around town.
Expecting no sympathy and no warranty, we took the trucks over to Budget. As expected, they told us the tires were our responsibility. They issued a purchase/install order to Goodyear along North Stuart Highway. We hurried over to begin the repairs. They were only going to be open until 1pm and would be closed Sunday.
Matt and I spent an unremarkable hour waiting for the job(s) to be finished. We did stroll over to former Finke champion Michael Vroom's Desert Edge motorcycle dealership. I don't recall what make he sold (I think all the bikes were red ... that makes them Hondas?) but he had all the models from tiny 125cc up to the 650cc giants. The curious thing about these bikes was that aside from the engine size, they otherwise looked almost entirely identical. Literally nothing but a different engine.
So after an hour or more the tires were finished. By now we're totally sick of Tire Talk so I don't even recall what the guy told us about the tires, but I think we ended up pressurizing them to the high side of his suggested range. [Even now I am sick of talking about those fucking tires]
Since it was a purchase order, we were hoping that maybe it might get lost in the mail or something, and that the replacement cost for three tires wouldn't ever catch up with us. (It ultimately did... Something like 900$AUD I vaguely remember) Regardless, we were now fully repaired and could get on our way.
So it was back into town, pick up Ling, and then over to Woolworths where we bought $180 of groceries. They filled up six apple crates. Throughout the trip we'd been using these teriffic apple package crates that were very sturdy and had a cardboard lid that covered the entire crate, essentially making it double-thickness. They worked substantially better than the cardboard filing boxes we bought at KMart earlier. Plus they were free! (thanks BiLo produce guy!)
After a mediocre lunch at the Sport Cafe we adjourned to the Todd Tavern outside patio where a cranky, unhappy waitress served us Coopers Original Pale Ales (my favorite beer) for the rest of the late afternoon.
Typically, we had dinner at Todd Tavern. It was something of a speed camp, though, because I had to run down to Andrew Langford's 'Sounds of Starlight' theatre in order to book Saturday night tickets. I was dismayed to find it was fully sold out and I was wait listed.
Happy endings, though, as we did manage to get seats. There was a giant high school class in attendance this time, so the room was much busier than our visit in June, during the Finke. Seeing it a second time was still entertaining even though it was 98% the same show as June. My parents certainly liked it; I think Matt was more neutral on Rick Wakeman of the Desert.
The show was over by 10pm at which point there is not much to do other than sleep, so we all headed back to Todd Tavern and got ready for hauling out first thing Sunday morning.
Posted by Nils Blutig at March 16, 2004 11:14 PM | TrackBack
