back to Alice Springs

Dear every one who is reading.
We are back in Alice Springs and are very hot in the day time and freezing at night.
After Edith Falls we went to Mataranka.

The first place we stay'ed at Bitter Springs it was hot allot of the time there.

After Bitter Springs we went to Little Roper Stock Camp.We went to a three course meal cooked in camp ovens in a camp fire. It was a real stock camp dinner.

 For entre we had pumpkin soup and home made bread and damper. Main course had 3 types of meat. Camp oven roast beef that was really east to eat, lamb that was also really east to eat and buffalo that you needed to be a tiger to eat. It was really really chewy. The veges were potato's, cauliflower cheese, roast carrot, broccoli and tinned peas. For dessert we could choose from Spotted Dog and Apple Crumble. I had spotted dog and ice cream with a bit of custard. The ice cream and custard were nice. The spotted dog didn't have much taste and I didn't like it much. Then apple crumble-you all know what apple crumble is.

We learned that the Buffalo is a feral animal in Australia that originally came from Vietnam. They can have horns up to 3 feet long each side. They can hit a coin flicked in the air with their horn tip.

There was a big bull and a cow called Brahmans. The bull was an orphan after his mum and dad were shipped to Vietnam to be eaten. They also had pigs that they would eat once a month. We called them Porky and Ben. They don't have real names because they are going to be eaten.

After dinner we went to a whip cracking show. The guy who was running it is named Nathan Griggs and he holds 5 Guinness World Records. 1. the longest whip made in the world and it took him 3 months to make. It is over 100 meters long, 2, the longest whip ever cracked, 3. the most cracks in 1 minute by 2 whips (689 which is more than 11 per second), 4, the most cracks by a whip in 1 minute with 1 whip (368), 5. I can't remember.

This is him cracking whips that are on fire.

Mataranka is famous for Elsey Homestead which has had a book written about it. We of the Never Never. We visited the homestead and I lifted an anvil up that was very heavy. An anvil is used by blacksmiths for making horse shoes and weapons. 

We left Mataranka on Territory Day which is a special day for people living in the NT. We stayed at the Hi Way Inn at Daly Waters. That night we went out for dinner and watched the local people letting off fireworks which looked dangerous and one went blasting toward a fuel tank but didn't blow it up.

There was an old plane next to the driveway.

We stayed out at the Devils Marbles that night.

Some of the rocks looked like a sleeping giant at night.

Comment if you can see the giant in this picture.

On our way towards Alice Springs we saw some people who couldn't exit the side road because there was a cow stuck in the cattle grid. A cattle grid is bits of train track put down so that cattle can't get through. Cars can drive across it but cows can't walk across it. They are not even supposed to try. We saw the police and station owner on their way to sort it out.

From Tom.