Alice Springs

The first part of today was maintenance for the bikes.  My bike had blown a light bulb and we needed new front tyres and Scott one need a new back one.  we had got different tyres in Perth as that's all we could get and his hasn't lasted as well.  So we wandered off to find some breakfast while the boys at Race Motorcycles in Alice Springs attended to the bikes.


Alice Springs is quite a civilised town in the day time just like any other town.  Found the mall and had coffee and bacon and egg rolls and watch the people go about their business.   Scott bought a motorbike book and was gutted to read that Ben Townley has been injured in Australia in a practice session.  so gutting.  I  just people watched.  There was this homeless woman with her little trolly and all her possessions, she sat down at the table one along from us for a while, then she moved a bit further down, then she would stand in front of us just watching the other door.  Whew then she decided to some and talk to me, what a nutter, she was from Europe and probably Jewish.  She said that African man over there, who was pulling the security camera apart was watching her, and the two security people that came to fill up the ATM machine, she said her grandmother, you know one of those long noses taught her to be on the watch, for people trying to kill you, then she would say that she wasn't hungry she had eaten today, what a fruit loop, she wasn't that old either.  Time to get out of there.


Bikes ready to hit the road to head north.  Well we hadn't gone far and we pulled over, as both were getting the speed wobbles, pulled into a gas station and put some more air in the front tyres seemed to help a bit then Scott did something with the shocks, made a big difference.  Still not 100%, especially when passing a road train with four trailers that didn't keep going in a straight line, don't know what he was up to.


A good part of the Northern Territory has had bush fires and asking people about how it happens, they say " Black Lightning".  If they are chasing a lizard they light the fire to chase it  out and no bother about putting it out.  But a consequence of that is that the spinnifex grass and all the dry stuff has been burnt off and new fresh growth comes back.  We were surprised at what it looked like down there, totally different to what we expected, there was pastoral farms or stations right into Ayers Rock.


Got to Tenant Creek, paid the motel from 3 nights ago from when there eftpos was down and carried on a few more km's and stopped at Three Ways  Road House, pretty budget room but somewhere to sleep and have a shower, even though it looks like it got dirt in the water.

ghost gum