DAY 27

Week 4

ALICE SPRINGS (Northern Territory, AUS)

Saturday October 9th, 2010

TODAYS MILEAGE – 16 miles or 26 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 4040 miles or 6502 kilometres


My first day back in Alice Springs in over six years.

The ute had seemed to have picked up a puncture in our travels, so Jungle and I headed out early to go see if we could get it fixed. A good mate of mine, Dave Hunt, runs the local Alice City Tyrepower, throws me the keys to his ute and says she'll be right while he looks after mine.

It goes without saying, if need anything to do with tyres or undercar service and you're in the Alice – look up a local. You can't do much better than Dave and the boys.

A quick visit to the Hole In The Wall Gang i.e. the ATM before meeting up with Annie & Yvonne atop ANZAC Hill to give our visitors a view overlooking the Alice and the MacDonnell Ranges. We stopped across the road to visit Batesy, then back to Dave's to swap utes and we were on our way to Marie & Roscoe's for a champagne breakfast.

Now, while Roscoe & Marie are wonderful hosts, the breakfast was not for our visiting Snap Frozen Yanks, it was for all the girls playing in the Alice Springs Masters Games that were starting later on in the day.

From there it was over to the Telegraph Station to check out the first settlement in the area that went on to become the town of Alice Springs.

I also decided to stop at one of my old stomping grounds West's Sporting Club, which many a hangover was had throughout my rugby career. It is now in private hands, who've renamed the Gillen Club and spent a good deal of coin on the place. Although they have retained the Honour Rolls for all the sporting clubs achievements, gone are the team photos and memorabilia that made the place the club it was. Disappointing to say the least, but that's progress I suppose.

Mid-afternoon saw us parked up at the Memo Club with numerous participants of the Masters Games, imbibing in a few heart starters prior to the Opening Ceremony march that assembled in Todd Mall.

I must have seemed to be a terrible host as I could walk ten paces without any number of people coming up to me having a natter about where we've been, what we've been up to over the years and so forth.

Around 5 o'clock, the Memo empties out and we walk down the Mall and into ANZAC Oval which has been transformed into the party place for the official opening. After a couple of hours of standing around, I was bushed and headed for the gates and to my comfortable bed at "Casa Mugannie".

• ALICE SPRINGS ~ The Overland Telegraph Station (Northern Territory, AUS)
• ALICE SPRINGS ~ Honda Masters Games (Northern Territory, AUS)