After finishing the MacDonnells, we had one more day in Alice. In the morning we checked out all the touristy bits - The Ghan Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Aviation Museum etc. By the time we got to the Old Telegraph Station we were museumed out. And they wanted to charge us $17 for the privilege. Gave that a miss.

Alice Springs was first established as a telegraph station to link Adelaide and Perth. The early explorers had considered it a good place as it sat on the Todd River, which had plenty of water at the time. It took them about five years to discover that this was actually a very rare occurrence, and it hardly ever ran. But it was too late. They had to make do with bore water.

Alice is a good service town, so we spent the afternoon stocking up on supplies and making use of the free wi fi in the library. It is actually quite a cosmopolitan multi-cultural town. There were certainly Aboriginals, but there were also Africans, Chinese and Indians. And I think that helps break up the black and white, us and them, mentality that makes relationships so hard in some communities. The Aboriginals I saw were friendly and looked happy, although we did see some trouble with police in the evenings.

We headed out the next morning. First stop, just 25 kms north of Alice, is the Tropic of Capricorn marker. This meant we were at the same latitude as Rockhampton in Queensland, and officially in the tropics. It didn't feel or look tropical however. The only difference in the terrain was that we started to see termite mounds appear by the side of the road, sometimes whole fields of them. Many of these termite mounds had been decorated, probably by bored tourists, and dressed in old T-shirts and hats. They stood as comical silent sentinels guarding the highway, and providing a bit of fun and a break of the monotony for the bored drivers.

Next stop was Aileron, a small roadhouse whose claim to fame was that it had the most expensive diesel on the Stuart Highway. It also had some strange statues - of tall iron men and women, and some strange looking lizards. Stopped briefly for a photo opportunity.

After this there was a lot more driving with only some rather unexceptional roadhouses to break up the monotony. That, and the weather. The rains and storms from Uluru had followed us, it seems. For one stretch it was pelting down, and the road was covered in large puddles. Although we drove over many creek beds, these remained stubbornly dry and dusty, despite the water pooling on the roads.

As we came out of this weather event and the world brightened up a bit, we came across a roadhouse called Wycliffe Well, which branded itself as the UFO capital of Australia. Apparently there had been many claims of sightings of strange lights and other phenomenon. There were newspaper cuttings all over the walls.

Not long after we came to our final stop for the night - the Devil's Marbles, or Karlu Karlu. These were hundreds of amazing huge boulders stacked up in haphazard piles across the landscape. The campground was right in the middle of them. And, again, hundreds of photos.

This was another one of those places where we were told the colours would change with sunrise and sunset. But, again, although the rain had stopped there was still a thick blanket of cloud, so not much of a sunset.

The next morning however, the clouds had mostly cleared and there was a magnificent sunrise. And yes, the colours do change with the sun.

GeorgeY's bit

Alice Springs has a nice mix of people. We stayed in the "Gap Hotel", a pub on Gap Road with a caravan park at the back of the drive-in liquor shop. A 30 pack of Iron Jack beer cans was on special. As a cold drink with only 3.5% v/v it is ok, nothing special. The pub had a good deal each day. Monday we had $15 burger and beer. A chicken breast fillet with chips and all bells and whistles with an icy cold schooner on tap was a brilliant deal. I had the Jamie Squire. Tuesday was pizza and a jug of One Fifty Lashes. Pick a normally $22 pizza, and add a Jug of cold beer on tap for $20 - life is good.

On the way out we drove past a tiny cute solar challenge car, missed the picture that day.

Next day was overcast and we caught the most unlucky solar car challenger. With full sunshine the day before, this one was struggling to move in the overcast weather system that persisted. This time we snapped it easily.

Found someone to fix our van door's broken handle and we headed out.