An outing to Wallace Rockhole today, a small, dry community about 120km SW of Alice. The primary school has 20 kids and the high school kids board in Alice. Ken he owner of the campground and shop arranged a guided walking tour for us to the rockhole, with Cathy as our local guide. Was just us and we enjoyed getting some really specific info about the trees, plants and animals around the area. There were some impressive rock carvings preserved near the rockhole which is just a sheltered pool at the bottom of a valley, not a permanent water supply or spring. Sitting there and listening to how you can live off the desert plants and animals around what is really a dwindling deep puddle, really put into perspective the need for a nomadic lifestyle to survive.
After some lunch we were looking forward to a dot painting workshop as the workshops at Uluru were too expensive. Was a tad disappointing as the lady left in charge of us had just setup a painting station with a page of symbols and left us to it. I guess you get what you pay for. We did ourselves proud, can’t say the whole family has ever sat down and painted together, which was an interesting exercise in itself once we ‘released’ the perfectionists amongst us! Was great to get off the well beaten track we’ve been sharing around Alice with grey nomads and European tourists for a day. There was a very sad roadside tribute to 3 of the locals, just on the ‘dry’ border of town. It is a well known area for downing the booze on way home from Alice, I think one of the crash survivors was one of the three daughters of our guide, the three locals that passed away (not the driver who survived) were parents of children in the area- right on Christmas a few years back - can’t stop thinking about how that would devastate such a small community. Reminded me of a very well kept Hermidale, the houses were in really good condition and painted in bright colours.
Anyway, back to the cabin and comfort of our campground for another night to wait out these wheel parts... now mysteriously coming from the Brisbane warehouse, really hoping we can get trailer tomorrow and can get away Saturday.