Day 5 - Salt Creek Rest Area on the Luritja Road to Alice Springs

Tue 18 Aug 2015

 

The sun was streaming in through the front window when we woke up so we  chucked everything in the back and hit the road just after 6.00 am while the other travellers were still sleeping.

It was time to boil the billy so we pulled off a bit further down the road  and noticed another victim of the corrugations – the winch’s control box wasn’t attached to the bullbar. Drat! For some reason when ARB installed the winch they used an L shaped alloy bracket to “secure” the control box. Because of this the corrugations caused the control box to shake and snap the bracket; very poor design. To read more on this click on the link Replacing winch bracket
Now we had to unpack the entire boot to get to the tools and bits and pieces to carry out a temporary repair.

About 2hrs later we went through some more corrugations until we hit the Stuart Highway and enjoyed a smooth and quiet ride into Alice Springs.

About 20 kms south of Alice Springs we saw 3 wedge tailed eagles and stopped for some photos before continuing on to Alice Springs. Young eagles are lighter in colour than adults and get darker over the first 10 years. Females are larger than males and wedge tailed eagles have a wing span up to 2.3 mts. As magnificent as eagles are they require your help when you see them on the road. Their large wingspan means they take a while to get off the ground, so please slow down and give them time to take off. We could have spent another hour or so taking photos but with Family and Alice Springs just down the road we headed off to join them.

Around 2.30 pm we arrived in Alice Springs and checked in to our accommodation; Alice on Todd. This was a nice complex offering self contained 1 and 2 bed units. We enjoyed a lazy evening with family and friends planning tomorrow’s activities. We’re going to the Desert Park and Standley Chasm.

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