My Polo Shirt Logo

Anyone who knows me will know that I'm a pedant - a person who is excessively concerned with minor details and rules - when it comes to documentation and other communicative media.

It comes from my policing and business teaching backgrounds. In policing, the letter of law is important. Teaching document production in typing, word processing and accounting classes requires attention to a high degree of accuracy too, so there's the apparent source.

How does that relate to the heading, "My Polo Shirt Logo?" Read on.

When Christina and I were in England last year, we visited a huge outlet shopping centre near Chester. Every brand imaginable had an outlet there as well as brands we hadn't heard of before. Even Tag-Heuer, one of my favourite watch brands was there. There were literally dozens of them spread over quite a few hectares.

It was a Saturday and thousands of people filled the shops, corridors and open spaces, many carrying branded bags indicating multiple purchases.

Several of the outlets were obviously selling their current fashions, not outdated products. We visited a Polo store where I looked at several lovely polo shirts. They were displaying prices of 75 and 80 British Pounds (around $130-150 AUD) which I thought was outrageous. Locals were snapping them up! 

Without exception, all the polo shirts had been made in China. Thousands of shirts bearing Chinese brands and small logos. I'd seen equally nice shirts at K Mart and Target at home.

There was no way I was going to pay $130 for a K Mart shirt with someone's brand logo displayed. You can buy the same quality shirts at K Mart for $10 AUD. Thirteen shirts for one seemed like a good trade-off.

As we drove back to our hotel at Swindon, it occurred to me that I could buy $10 K Mart shirts and steal logos from the big name brands and have them embroidered on my shirts. After all, Christina has a sewing machine that embroiders. But using someone else's logo is dishonest, so I decided I'd use my own logo. Here it is.


I've got a number of unbranded K Mart polo shirts on which I'm going to get Christina to embroider my Henry logo.

Nobody will know who the hell Henry is, but who cares? It will keep them guessing. Maybe I could start producing my own brand line of shirts at half the price of Polo, Adidas, Nike, and the rest of them. Who knows where this could lead.

Robin

It's Now Henrys of Tanunda

Robin and Christina at Al Ain, UAE

When I started this blog I had moved to Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates for a three-year work contract, so I called it "Henrys of Al Ain". It was intended to help communicate with our friends without having to send multiple emails.

It wasn't a good name choice because I didn't think ahead, that we wouldn't always live at Al Ain. In hindsight, I should have called the site the "Henrys".

It's now 13 years since Christina and I moved to Al Ain. Since then, we've returned to Alice Springs (10 years) and now we are at our final house at Tanunda in South Australia. It's time to change the blog's heading yet again, this time to "Henrys of Tanunda".

I've also changed the URL from https://henrys-of-alain.blogspot.com to https://henry-tanunda.blogspot.com.

I hope you continue to visit occasionally and keep in touch.

Robin

Settling in to Our New House

Concrete block laid for pergola

We've been in our new house three weeks and are still unpacking.

There's no hurry as both of us have all the time in the world now that we are retired.

We've had to buy some metal shelving from Bunnings and other shelving from Ikea in which to store our seeming oversupply of "stuff". (Where the hell did we get it all?)

Each day we go through a few boxes and have a charity box into which we put things we no longer wish to keep. The rest go into our shelving or get moved from table to desk to floor or somewhere until we work out where to put it.

We are waiting for delivery of a wall unit into which some of our heritage crockery will go. At present, it takes up space on an old coffee table.

Two of four Bunnings metal shelves 

 We've had a concrete slab 5.5m by 3.0m laid adjacent to the back verandah which one day will have a pavillion roof, table and chairs and a barbecue in-situ.

Hedge trees are to be placed at our rear fence providing privacy from the main road towards the pergola, but we still hope to be able to sit outside drinking wine and watching the many parades that apparently travel along Murray Street to or from Nuriootpa.

Part of the garden will have lawn and at each side of the pergola we plan to put pot plants with daisies or other annuals to pretty the place up. But not today.

Ikea shelving

Today we continue unpacking and finding places to put stuff.

Christina's "Sewing Room", which I prefer to call OUR "Multifunction Room" will be adorned with two new Horn cabinets by end of the day if they are delivered as promised. One will support her sewing machine and have a gas lift so the machine can be lowered below desk level when not in use and the other is for an overlocker.

Every day we make a little progress. One day hopefully, we'll wake up in the morning and think, 'What will I do today?' and not have to entertain the idea of unpacking and storing.

Then there will be time to visit one of the 72 vineyards, or perhaps do some volunteer work helping others. There's plenty to see and do here and we are just beginning the journey.

Robin

Our Last House

New house - Garden will appear front left square

Two years ago we sold our house at Alice Springs. It was a lovely, comfortable house with four bedrooms, a spacious multi-purpose room and outdoor area, and a large garden. It needed painting and new carpets and some work done on the garden, but we were fortunate enough to sell it without having to do all that.

The new owners were happy to do the painting and lay carpets and also wanted a swimming pool, so we negotiated a price adjustment and placed our goods in storage while we waited for a new house to be built at Nuriootpa, South Australia.

It suited us well. We planned to do some travel overseas and in Australia while our new abode was being built. Unfortunately, the house we had in mind wasn't going to be completed until late 2018 after an earlier estimate of Christmas 2017. We were disappointed, so we decided to make alternative arrangements.

Now, we have paid a deposit on a newly completed house at Tanunda, South Australia, only six kilometres from Nuriootpa and also close to Angaston. The three towns form the centre of the Barossa Valley which many of you will know is one of Australia's largest wine producing regions.

Our new house is conjointly owned by the Barossa Village, a retirement village organisation that provides three levels of aged care; independent living, home care and residential care.

The house has three bedrooms, two bathrooms (both roomy), a one car garage, and a combined kitchen, lounge dining room. We would have liked a two car garage, but none was available. Such is life.

By Australia Day (26th January 2018) we hope to be settled in but will probably still be unpacking our personal effects as they will be delivered the day before.

We are getting excited as the days pass.

Robin

Visiting Baselworld 2017

With a keen interest in horology, for years I had read numerous articles about the annual Baselworld Watch and Jewellery shows.

As they are held in Basel, Switzerland, I never dreamed that I would get to attend one. However, my lovely wife Christina, while planning our overseas trip, included a visit to Basel as part of a treat for my 70th birthday.

Because accommodation was all booked out at Basel, we stayed in a lovely German village called Bad Krozningen, about 40 km away from Basel and took the train to and from Basel.

One of the two train stations in Basel is only a five minute walk from the site where Baselworld is held. With no idea where Baselworld was located, we hopped off at the station and immediately saw signage directing people to Baselworld. Groups of people were walking in the direction of the signs, so we followed and on arrival it was obvious that this was a bigger event than Ben Hur, the movie.

Thousands of people milled about coming in and out of doorways, sitting sipping coffee or alcohol, plucking away at their smart phones, or chatting to others while they sucked in carcinogens. This was truly a huge event and it was day three. One can only guess what day one would have been like.

We bought our 60 Euros tickets and moved into the main pavillion. From then on, it was like trying to take a drink from a fire hydrant - watches and more watches, all the big name brands and some of the smaller brands. Wall to wall watch bling. Although I can't remember it, Christina said I was like a child in a toy shop. Hard to believe really.

We spent most of the day viewing all the bling and the displays that accompanied them. A couple of displays were minimal with entrances only available to invited guests and people within the watch industry. For example, BLVGARI who had produced one of the thinnest watches ever, had two well dressed doormen who took one look at Christina and I, assumed we were well beneath the station to purchase any of their overpriced stock and told us, in more polite terms, to piss off.

When we got to the CASIO stand, we went to enter a hallway leading into what we thought was a publicly accessible entry only to be told by a young lady that we couldn't enter. A tall German man dressed in a suit stepped in and after a brief discussion about where we were from, invited us in. He was the German manager for CASIO and spent about a half hour showing us the new watches on display. He and I got talking and he realised that I had a good working knowledge of CASIO and its products. At the end, he led us to a bar and offered us complimentary drinks and nibbles which we gratefully accepted as we sat back and felt like VIPs.

CASIO produces a very large range of watches under several brand names, one of which is Edifice. In that range, they have a few models that link to one's smart phone from which they get the correct time in whatever time zone one is in. There's an app that sits on your phone and is used to set a second time zone - World Time. Your local time zone is set automatically provided your smart phone is up to date. You can also set alarms and retain logs from timing events. Quite remarkable.

The Link watches also come with a button that will locate your phone ie, you press the button and it causes your phone to beep. Excellent technology.

Later, at Keil in Germany I took advantage of the tax benefits and bought a CASIO Edifice Link watch which I wore for the rest of our journey, It's solar powered, very tough and looks nice as you can see from the photograph.

By the time we had completed our day at Baselworld 2017, we had seen enough watches to last a life time and discovered a number of brands I had never heard of.

Some of the watches are very highly priced which left me wondering who buys all this stuff? An $8,000 Rolex won't keep time as well as my <$500 Edifice Link watch, doesn't have an alarm capacity and won't automatically change to different time zones.

Robin  

Our European Jaunt Completed!

Which of those great poets wrote, "Much have I travelled in the realms of gold ...?" I've forgotten, but we've travelled in the realms of history, all over many of the great cities and towns of Europe and it has seemed like gold.

In the last four months we've travelled thousands of kilometres, stayed in dozens of hotels, bed and breakfasts and one or two "youth" hostels. (Nobody ever questioned our youthfulness).

Because I have this need to write - or type as the case may be, I've inundated Trip Advisor with reviews of over 58 hotels, dozens of cafes, restaurants, and events eg, Stonehenge. Now I'm going to continue to write my blog, but you'll be pleased to know that I'm not going into all the minutia, I'll write in some specific categories that may make it more interesting. You can tell me if I fail horribly or write some informative stuff.

Four Months was Enough

You can only sleep in so many different places, eat at so many different cafes and wear the same clothes for so often. A week or two before our homecoming, I had had enough. Christina, on the other hand seemed like she could go on forever.

I was really pleased when the wheels of our QANTAS jet met the runway at Alice Springs Airport.

The Highlights

For both of us, the highlights were being able to spend a few days with our friends, to make new friends, to meet new people, see many of the historically important places, and bathe ourselves in the history of Europe that makes the European history of Australia look like a weekend tour.

We revisited Mutlu and Alison Ustun and their two boys, Kerem and Onat, with whom we shared three years at Al Ain, At Burnley in England we spent time with David and Barbara whom we had met previously on one of our ship tours. Then there was a group of wonderful people who shared their lives with us on a three week bus tour. Add to that the many other people with whom we dealt and it was a very sociable experience; the nicely dressed German man in Hamburg who spent 15 minutes helping us find a hotel at short notice. The CASIO executive at the Basel 2010 Watch and Jewellery show who gave us a personal tour of the "industry personnel only" display area ending with nibbles and drinks. There are probably plenty of others whom I will remember as I write.

First on my list is the Basel 2010 Watch and Jewellery Show.

Grab a cup of your best beverage and read on.

Robin

Off peak at Costa del Sol

Costa del Sol is Spanish for the Sunshine Coast and it is a region near Malaga. Similar to our Gold and Sunshine coasts in Queensland, Australia, it's a high density region consisting of thousands of apartment buildings and hotels to accommodate a massive influx of tourists.

It doesn't have the high rise buildings we do in Queensland which tends to retain the Mediterranean architecture uninterrupted.

As it's only three hours flight from Gatwick in the UK, there are obviously scores of Brits who make this their holiday destination. There are numerous Canadians, Americans and other Europeans here too, but so far I haven't found another Australian accent.

Unlike Christina and I who purposely have avoided wearing anything that stands out as Australian, a Canadian couple we met wear Canadian labelled clothing and small flag pins because they don't want anyone to think they are Americans. Aren't we people complicated?

The Sunset Beach Club where we stayed is huge, quite a few years old and showing its age, but is very comfortable, well equipped and all anyone needs. It has a large in-house supermarket, a medical centre, dentist, and the usual play grounds, pools, restaurants, and even a child minding centre.

While I expect the summer months would attract thousands and many with children, at present most people were Baby Boomers like us; greying, many a bit heavier than perfect, balding, probably cashed up, and determined to get out and about before they take that final journey from which none of us returns.

You see them en masse at the Happy Hour all getting their Scotch and sodas, sangrias and beer all on a two for one tab. At the end of the hour most stagger off to their rooms or dinner venues and the once noisy venue dulls a little. We visited a few times but only managed the one round of drinks.

There are hundreds of food outlets here and even a Burger King. Food and alcohol is significantly cheaper than in Australia which is good for us because we already lost on the exchange rate between AUD and €.

The area, Benalmadena, and other areas we have visited within the region are immaculate - not a toothpick of rubbish anywhere. How do they manage it? Either the locals are so proud of their towns that they dont spill a thing or, every night after we are all in bed, a thousand workers come out to keep things spotless. I think the former.

The locals are friendly, helpful people obviously accustomed to tourists who dont speak Spanish. When you enter a shop or bar, it's customary to say, "Hola!" to everyone already there.

From the Club where we stayed, you can book numerous tours and activities. We took a 4WD tour of the small villages, olive, cork and almond plantations in the region, had lunch included at a quaint restaurant and attended a flamenco dancers and combined Andalucia horse show. Both were very enjoyable.

Its a lovely part of Spain and time permitting we could have stayed longer.

Hong Kong Stay

Typical street

Our flight from Perth was late getting us in at 8:30 am and landing in a small fog with limited visability.

Cathay City, as the airport region is called, is huge as the air traffic coming in and out of Hong Kong makes it one of the busiest airports there is. It's a remarkably well organised arrival process with almost split second precision. Signage in English and Chinese is plentiful and a seemingly oversupply of helpful employees directyou this way and that.

There is a train that takes you from the outer extreme of the airport to the inner immigration, baggage collection and exit buildings. Very slick!

I was surprised that there was no visa charge. It's perhaps one of a small number of countries that don't have entry fees. It was simply a matter of presenting one's passport and having it stamped by a curt individual apparently impressed by his important office and unwilling to smile, say "welcome" or engage in chatter.

At least when one official noticed my wife using a walking stick to help with a bout of bursitis, he moved us to front of queue. I wondered whether I should get a walking stick too - feigned disability could be helpful.

There are numerous things I like about Asians. Apart from my penchant for shapely, lovely brown-skinned women, the industriousness and ability to create employment from nothing has always impressed. We Australians, who have become too reliant on government as a panacea could learn from their example.

We stayed in an inexpensive hotel with the appropriate title, Minimal Hotel Culture. The hotel is minimal indeed and in the middle of the city's traditional area, Sham Shui Po.

We got to our hotel by bus after a one hour trip that cost $14 HKD, a pittance by $AUD calculations. We initially had some trouble finding it but after consulting a map and two helpful locals arrived at the front door. It's the newest, flashest building in the street. When I first saw the other buildings I was concerned I had probably booked a hotel from hell just to save a few bucks. Once I walked into the minimal foyer, my spirits lifted.
The hotel is new, modern, clean and nicely outfitted with tiny rooms. Thank goodness it had a lift, we stayed on the 17th floor. Each floor has only two rooms.

After settling in we went for a walk through the local markets where you can buy literally anything. The markets are grouped by product eg, electronics, fashion, accessories like bags, belts, and a variety of interesting odds and ends. Most of the small kiosk shops are very well stocked with heaps of inventory.

We neaded to the food area and bought some lovely nasi goreng and what we thought were tofu squares that had been fried but, in fact were egg omlettes.

Our stay was only one night as we headed out to the airport to continue our journey and will stay longer on our return.

If you want exposure to the old Hong Kong and culture, I recommend a visit.

Robin

Our Europe and UK Jaunt

Rainbow Valley near Alice Springs

Next Saturday we jet out of Central Australia for a four-month stint in Europe and United Kingdom.

We'll spend a couple of days at Perth getting some new kit items and then head initially to Hong Kong. A day or two there (we've been there three times before) and we are off to London and then Spain.

We have two tours organised, one a cruise through European cities that commences at Copenhagen and the other a bus tour that begins at Brussels. We've been to Brussels, but it will be nice to revisit and see how much it has changed since 2010.

Late March we will be at Basel in Switzerland where I will attend the Baselworld 2017 Watch and Jewellery Show. As some of you may know, I have an interest in horology. This will be my first ever watch show so I'm really excited to have been able to fit it into our travels.

In the coming week I'll place an itinerary online somewhere and advise close friends of its location. I'll also find somewhere to place our photographs and plan to do some posting to Trip Advisor.

Happy days and lovely nights.

Robin

Merry Christmas from Our Caravan to Yours

Visiting Darwin, Capital of the Northern Territory

We’ve been to Darwin dozens of times and for 18 months from 1997 lived there in the dreadful humidity until we could no longer stand it.

At this time of year it was much less humid (the Dry Season) and pleasantly warmish. My main objective was to have a growing cyst that was becoming increasingly a pain in the neck attended to while Christina’s main objective was to have fish and chips at the Stokes Hill Wharf which we had loved to visit during our previous times at Darwin.

Other tasks included the purchase of a new awning for our caravan. The old one had deteriorated while sitting in the sun at The Alice and after being battered by hail-stones during July, had numerous holes in it. We also bought a new side step since Christina had fallen off the plastic one and cracked it, and we bought two shade cloth screens, both to complement the awning so we look like we are in an annex, but aren’t and still have some privacy.

In the best medical care I have ever experienced (not that I have had much), a doctor at Palmerston Doctors who just happens to be a GP and a surgeon, removed my cyst which was infected. No ifs, buts, or stuffing about. He assessed the situation, agreed it was a cyst and cut it out the same day.

We attended Stokes Hill Wharf and much to our surprise found a joint Darwin WWII Bombing museum and Royal Flying Doctor display centre had been added since our last visit. Before our fish and chips, we paid the small entrance fee and spent an hour or so within the centre.

It’s very well presented and if anything, needed more content, but it had only been open for a week, so it’s early days yet. Many people are unaware of the massive bombing raids the Japanese carried out on Darwin so it’s a worthwhile addition to Australia’s war and flying doctor histories.

Robin

PS: Since writing this I have been to Broome which also has a history of Japanese wartime bombing. Much to my embarrassment, I never knew that.

Perth - Our Loveliest Capital City?

Perth Skyline

Perth Skyline

I wonder whether Perth could be classified as our loveliest capital city. It has much going for it including that it’s not yet over-populated like Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. You actually feel like you have space here and getting a parking spot is neither difficult nor expensive.

Apart from the peculiar “up” names, the suburbs look nice and clean and the rail and bus service is excellent. Perhaps due to the high presence of transport police and video cameras, the trains and buses lack the graffiti and signs of wilful destruction often found in other states.

Planning of Perth and surrounds has been done better than elsewhere with railway stations on raised platforms in the middle of dual carriage highways in and out of the city. You drive down the freeway, take a short diversion to a railway car park and then hop on a train. Buses often use the same facility, so you can bus to the station, hop off a bus and get straight onto a train.

I know this is the case in both Brisbane and Sydney (and possibly Melbourne), but here, it seems much better integrated and smoother.

We stayed at a very nice caravan park at Gwelup (is it pronounced well-up or we-lup - who knows?) not far from Joondalup and Karrinyup, both of which are lovely suburbs with nice roads, large shopping centres and mostly modern housing.

The median price for a house in Perth and suburbs is nearly $550,000 so one would expect to see some lovely houses. But, why aren’t we building simpler, cheaper houses for our young people to be able to get into the market?

Kings Park overlooks Perth and is a huge area of sanctuary for fauna and flora. Excellent views of the city centre are to be had from Kings Park, especially of an evening.

Our travels through WA suggest that Western Australians holiday in their state. Because South Australia, the Northern Territory and eastern and southern states are so far away, I expect that’s what keeps them here. Most of our companions wherever we stayed were from WA with a mixture of international visitors, usually in RVs and and assortment of motor vehicles carrying tents.

If you haven’t been to Perth and Western Australia, make sure you include it in your bucket list.

Robin

Kakadu National Park

After a couple of rest days at Mataranka (Bitter Springs Caravan Park) we drove north-east to Kakadu National Park visiting Pine Creek en-route.

Mataranka boasts hot springs in which people swim and relax, apart from that it doesn’t seem to have any other interesting attributes. At least not for me. It’s an untidy place with a  road-house, where you can stay long enough to refuel and have a bite to eat if so inclined and you are happy to pay premium prices. (In the Sixties, freight was blamed for high costs).

At Kakadu we stayed at Cooinda Lodge (Yellow Waters) for four nights so we could do day trips to the sights which are spread far and wide with a lot of what I call ‘clapped out buffalo country’ in between.

We last visited Kakadu in the 80s and what appeared to me then was that there was a lot of crappy country among which several really beautiful spots existed. Nothing has changed of course, you still have to drive kilometres between the various spots of interest.

We’d been to Jim Jim Falls during our last trip and decided to revisit. After 50 odd kilometres of shaking and bumping on the corrugated road, we arrived and went for a walk through the area leading to the falls, which were at this time of year, not flowing. (It is the Dry after all).

The walk in is not for the mild spirited or unsteady of foot as it largely involved climbing from one rock to another and at times required large steps up or down and a bit of balancing as well.

There is water at the base of the falls and an area where people swim as despite the signs warning that their could be crocodiles in the water, they apparently don’t bother to go to the beach - if there are in fact any. The presence of a crocodile trap a hundred metres up steam suggests that there are salt water crocs found there.

By the time we climbed out of Jim Jim and faced the road back, we were stuffed. It’s very demanding being a retiree!

The next day we went to Ubir Rock to look at the Aboriginal art-work. Since our last visit all those decades ago, the art work has faded significantly and we wondered how it would fare in the decades to come. Like the rest of us, it will eventually fade away and all that will be left are photographs to show tomorrow’s inhabitants what it was like.

My advice is to see it before it deteriorates or disappears.

From Kakadu we headed to Darwin as we had to get a few things done that could only be done in the big city.

Robin

Wildflowers: A thing of beauty is a joy forever ...

Keats was one of my favourite romantic poets when I was at school and I remember much of his work. In particular, the first words from his lengthy poem Endymion always come to mind when I see something/someone beautiful - “A thing of beauty is a joy forever …”

The wildflowers in Western Australia are beautiful. As we drove between the turn-off to Monkey Mia (the place with no monkeys) and Kalbarri, the highway was chock full of wildflowers. They line the sides of the highway and extend back off the road as far as the eye can see. Some are in huge clusters of the same type flower eg, smoke bush, or in dozens of small clusters of a huge variety of gorgeous colours: reds, purple, green, yellow, blues, white, and more.

There are smallish ‘feather flowers’ that stand close to the ground and larger ‘grevilia pink pokers’. Some are more attractive than others depending on one’s view, however, the colours are incredible. The bees are having a field day, good to see after all the stories of bees becoming extinct in some regions throughout the world.

Flower spotting and photographing meant that our journey between the two points took much longer than it would usually. Unfortunately, one cannot take a photo that shows the whole beautiful cornucopia of Nature’s work - to really appreciate it, you need to stand among it and take in the vista.

Robin

The Devil's Marbles

The Devil’s Marbles is located south of Tennant Creek and north of the Devil’s Marbles Hotel at Wauchope (for some reason pronounced “walk up” which I could never understand).

In the “old days” my parents and I used to visit Wauchope for the annual races event, which had several horses and a few races, but was really another opportunity for adults to consume vast quantities of beer and other beverages, mostly alcoholic. Me and other kids spent our time jumping in and out of the swimming pool since Tennant Creek in those days didn’t have one.

Today, the original Wauchope Hotel building still stands, but it has been improved somewhat with nice accommodation added at the back of the main pub building. New owners have given it a paint job and it looks very nice.

Outside is a lovely grassed area with chairs and benches where you can sit and eat your cooked lunch or dinner, sip a cool beer, or perhaps have a cup of coffee or tea. All are available.

The Devil’s Marbles attraction is huge and visited by almost everyone who passes by. It’s off the highway a short distance and juxtaposed by a largish caravan and tent parking area for which the NT Parks and Wildlife Department charges a nominal fee. There is an honour box and a permit one has to display on one’s car. Rangers do check, so it pays to be honest rather than be embarrassed by not paying.

We only stayed long enough to have lunch and a half hour or so to walk around and then continued north. When we visited there were dozens of people and numbers of Army vehicles were in transit apparently having been on exercise in South Australia.

You can see from the photo here what the Devil’s Marbles looks like. Another example of nature at work creating beautiful vistas for us to photograph and look at.

Robin

Outback Humour on the Stuart Highway

The Northern Territory and outback regions of Australia have long been known for strange humour, usually in the form of objects or signage. On this trip north, we revisited a few locations finding some of these oddities.

First, there is Pine Creek Hotel which had quite a large number of brassieres - and conjured up images (in my mind at least) of all these cheeky women lifting their T-shirts and removing their bras so they could donate them to the cause. Whatever cause that might be I’m not really sure. I’m sorry I missed them stripping off for posterity.

Also at Pine Creek was a collection of school identity cards, a few learners permits and drivers licences that people had allowed to be stapled to the wall. Given the current phobias people have about security and identity theft, I found it astonishing that people would leave a drivers licence with full name, address, date of birth, and a photo. Maybe this all happened before the world went crazy.

.

Then there was the Desert Marbles Hotel with its weather stone; As the sign with the stone says, if you look at the stone and it is::

• wet - it’s raining
• dry - it’s not raining
• swinging - it’s windy

And I can't forget the sex sign - well, not quite a sex sign, but you get the drift.

At the Daly Waters Hotel we found dozens of ball caps that people had “donated” for posterity - none in really mint condition. You could spend a week just reading all the verbage and looking at logos on these caps and wondering on what heads they once belonged. I'll let you imagine what these looked like.

When I first arrived in the Territory in 1957 I knew it was different, a Wild West without the guns but as many larrikins and wild people. While the number of wild people and larrikins may have declined, the silly sense of humour still pervades and makes our Territory just a little more interesting if politically incorrect.

That has to be a good thing doesn’t it?

Robin

The Devil's Marbles

The Devil’s Marbles is located south of Tennant Creek and north of the Devil’s Marbles Hotel at Wauchope (for some reason pronounced “walk up” which I could never understand).

In the “old days”, my parents and I used to visit Wauchope for the annual races event, which had several horses and a few races, but was really another opportunity for adults to consume vast quantities of beer and other beverages, mostly alcoholic. Me and other kids spent our time jumping in and out of the swimming pool since Tennant Creek in those days didn’t have one.

Today, the original Wauchope Hotel building still stands, but it has been improved somewhat with nice accommodation added at the back of the main pub building. New owners have given it a paint job and it looks very nice.

Outside is a lovely grassed area with chairs and benches where you can sit and eat your cooked lunch or dinner, sip away at a cool beer, or perhaps have a cup of coffee or tea. All are available.

The Devil’s Marbles attraction is huge and visited by almost everyone who passes by. It’s off the highway a short distance and juxtaposed by a largish caravan and tent parking area for which the NT Parks and Wildlife Department charges a nominal fee. There is an honour box and a permit one has to display on one’s car. Rangers do check, so it pays to be honest rather than be embarrassed by not paying.

We only stayed long enough to have lunch and a half hour or so to walk around and then continued north. When we visited there were dozens of people and numbers of Army vehicles were in transit apparently having been on exercise in South Australia.

You can see from the photos here what the Devil’s Marbles looks like. Another example of nature at work creating beautiful vistas for us to photograph and look at - and blog about!

On, on to Kakadu National Park …

Robin

Western Australia or Bust!

As we heading north from Alice Springs my mind returned to 1957 - the first time I had traversed the Stuart Highway between The Alice and Tennant Creek.

Then, the remote Northern Territory was much more remote. The “highway” was slightly wider than a large vehicle and trees, shrubs and spinifex lined each side providing a high potential for road surprises - that instant when a kangaroo or cow walks onto the road in front of you. Many a vehicle had arrived at its destination with damage resulting from an animal strike. The worst cases were, of course, towed in or transported home on the backs of trucks. On rare occasions, there would be a fatality - no seat belts in 1957.

When two vehicles approached, both had to put their outside wheels off the bitumen so they could pass. This presented an additional hazard given that much of the road edge was badly broken and pot-holed. However, I can recall occasions when we had done the then eight hour trip from Tennant Creek to The Alice and never pass another vehicle.

Today was much different. Although there is always the potential for a road surprise, the Stuart Highway is now a real highway with wide cleared edges, defined lanes and with a general speed limit of 130 km/hr. In some places the speed limit is unrestricted - drivers can drive as fast as they wish, and many brave souls do.

With two tonnes of caravan behind my car, I chose to drive at a steady 100 km/hr along that stretch I had travelled perhaps hundreds of times. Although the scenery is very ordinary, there is a meditative aspect to sitting looking out the front window for hours on end. There are many more fellow travellers on the road today too, which provides at least some intermittent break from the tedium.

We stopped at Prowse Gap rest stop overnight as it has toilets and ample parking space for larger caravans. After a busy few weeks and under the clear, sparkling Central Australian sky, we had the best night’s sleep for weeks. As I dozed off, I thought of my long lost parents and brother and the good times we had had living here when it was like Australia’s Wild West.

Robin

Preparing to Leave for Western Australia

Our Blue Sky Caravan at Alice Springs

When we sold our house in March, we planned to remain at Alice Springs until July so we could help daughter Meredith finish some beautification projects around her house. 

The additional three months also ensures that the Top End of Australia will have a much more pleasant climate than it would have at other times of the year.

All the good advice we have is that you do Western Australia in an anti-clockwise direction. This ensures that when you travel the long, gruelling distance across the Nullabor Plain, the wind is a tail wind and not a head wind. Head winds cause a greater fuel burn than a tail wind (of course), so it’s a better way to do it. More cost effective.

If we spend six months in Western Australia, it will also mean that as we travel south, summer will be approaching and summer in the south is more gentle than summer in the north. Make sense?

By the time we travel north to Alice Springs from South Australia, we will be acclimatised to the summer heat.

Apart from getting Meredith’s retaining walls, new shed and other tasks done, we are equipping our Toyota Prado with a UHF radio (to be fitted next week) and some larger capacity spot/flood lights. The car will be serviced before we go and probably get fitted with two new batteries – nothing worse than having a battery die 20 km outside some remote township and both batteries are nearing their failure dates.

Then there’s the caravan. We need to give it an off-the-power-grid test to ensure our gas appliances (fridge, water heater and cooker) work and that the solar-powered water pump and lighting work also. We don’t expect any problems here, but prior preparation prevents poor performance.

Finally, we need to trim the loading of the caravan as much as possible to keep weight within legal parameters. 

 

In the near future we’ll develop a loosely designed travel itinerary and post it online.

Robin

PS: We are beginning to get excited about our trip as the time draws closer