From: "Philip Merryman" <phil_merryman@hotmail.com>

Date: Sun Feb 24, 2002 12:02:56 PM Etc/GMT

Subject: Back from the outback - Part 2

I am now in Melbourne, so here is the next installment!

The next day the dawn was a brilliant fiery red as the vegetation which gives Mars it's red appearance had taken root on Earth.... Whoops! Thats a quote from "The War of the Worlds" !! :-) What I meant to say was:

The next day the dawn was a damp dull grey, for the rain which usually falls when I am in a tent had descended upon the Outback! It was drizzling!!! This was another early start as we had a 3+ hour hike around the Kings Canyon planned. However no chance of getting too hot this time. But no lie in either as we still had to get the rest of the days travelling in too.

The rain gradually got heavier and finally settled on intermittent but gentle rain. The clouds were quite high so you could still see everything. The temp was now 24C so still warm enough for shorts provided you had a waterproof top. As the first thing I pack when out in the hills back home is a waterproof, this was no exception. However some of the others had to use bin liners! The Canyon was still very impressive, formed by the powers of erosion opening up cracks in the sandstone. It was red, so it did have a somewhat alien (Martian) appearance!!

After this we has another long drive to our next campsite. We went past a range of hills in the distance which were just a short and distinct line. These hills were the rim on a 132 million year old impact crater! It is about 9km across! Unfortunately we couldn't get into it. Just as I was taking a photo of it I found that my camera wouldn't focus. I then realised that some of the middle components of my 35-80mm lens (the one I use all the time) had come loose inside!!! This was a disaster as this meant that I could not take any more photos except with the long lenses! However Greg (the tour leader) had been many things in his time and a photographer was one of them so he knew there was a man in Alice Springs who could fix it! Even more fortunately when we got to the campsite there was another member of the tour company there who was going straight back to Alice, so he gave it to him to take back to the repair man!!

The rain had stopped during the afternoon. Some where planning to sleep outside again, but I didn't trust it! Just as we had all turned in for the night Chris, one of the Aussie lads, called out "There's a gecko in my tent!!" As he sometimes wears glasses without them, and it being dark, by torchlight he really wasn't sure what he was looking at! However, I had my suspicions. Then I heard someone else say something about where the snake was. By now laughter was rife! In the end Chris found that in his sleeping bag!!! Either Matt (his cousin) or Greg (the tour leader) had put the gecko in, and it turned out that Gellios (the Dutchman) had put the snake in, but each not knowing about the other! By now poor Chris was really paranoid as to what else he might find!! As you only hear this in the dark as disembodied voices it only makes it even more hilarious and I was trying very hard not to laugh out loud!!

In the end it calmed down and we returned to trying to get some sleep. A few minutes later I could hear "ticker-ticker-tick" and thought that it was just the tent flapping in the breeze. Then I heard it again, and though that there is something outside the tent (many years ago camping in Wales I remember a sheep getting into the field and chewing the guy ropes). I then heard it again: it was IN THE TENT!!!! So I put my glasses on and lit the torch! It had to be in that order as I wanted to know exactly what it was immediately! Just under the other bed an arms length away was a mouse! A real one!!!!

So I called out "Anybody want a mouse??". Disbelief was the immediate response as they thought it me just joining in with another wind up! My reply was "Never mind your rubber geckos mate, this is a real one!!". More uproar. The next morning Greg told us that by now he was crying with laughter!! This just made Chris even more paranoid as he now realised that REAL things could get into his tent as well as rubber ones. I shone the torch around the edges of the tent, but the mouse had scuttled away somewhere. However I put all my stuff up on the beds and pulled them away from the edges of the tent to stop the mouse climbing. We have mice in the houses on St. Kilda (a unique protected species) so I am used to mice running around! In the end mickey made no more appearances. So with no more rubber reptiles or real rodents we finally got back to sleep.

Then at about 1am the wind really got up and the heavens opened! I had left the tent door and window flaps open, but with the fly screens closed, so as to keep cool. However the wind was blowing the rain directly into the door. To close it and the window meant going outside and a certain soaking in a few seconds! However, I managed to release the tied up door and close it from inside with the wind constantly blowing the tent flaps and rain onto me. However I could do nothing about the window on the opposite side. As it was away from the wind only a slight fine spray was coming through, but this was the head end of the bed. So I decided that I would get less wet if I slept with my head under my towel rather that go outside to close it!

The rain came and went as a few more squalls followed in quick succession, but finally I did eventually get some sleep. In the morning both Matt and I had swamps for tents! Luckily because we used frame beds neither the mouse or the water got into anything!

The next couple of days were spent visiting some interesting creeks and canyons, and on the last day we visited a canyon which is so sheltered that it still has water with palm trees and cycads growning there. One of the last few places where these particular species still grow. It was an oasis in the outback! To get to it we had to use the 4-wheel drive on the bus and it was quite a ride for about 10km each way to get to it! However the cloud persisted and the rain came and went, so with 4 nights camping in one of the driest places on earth it rained for 3!! However, it turns out that February is the wettest (least dry?) month in Alice Springs.

Over these two days I took most of my pictures with the video camera as I could only use the telephoto lens on the stills camera and could not get far enough away to get many pictures in these narrow canyons! As we were returning to Alice when we finally got into mobile phone range Greg rang ahaed to the backpackers hostel to ask one of the company people there to find out if my lens had been fixed, and it had!!! So when we got back to Alice I picked it up, all fixed for Aus$50!! Now back home it took 3 months and 60 Quid just to fix the locking ring!!! So if you are ever in the outback and need a camera fixed, go to the chap at N.T. Camera Repairs, Alice Springs!!

The next morning I was on the Ghan back to Adelaide. As we left Alice the Todd River had water in it! This only happens once a year or less! Not enough to make it visibly flow, but definitely a series of sizeable ponds.

This time on the train I ended up with a two person sleeper compartment to myself!! With my ticket you get put in the seats unless they are already full when you make the reservation, when you get upgraded! So I got a reasonable nights sleep, or as reasonable as you can get on any train, on the way back to Adelaide.

The train today from Adelaide to Melbourne was the first non-sleeper trip. Back south the weather was hot and clear again, around 30C. the train travelled through the corn fields pretty much all the way, but had to struggle over the mountains just outside Adelaide. I got to the Youth Hostel at about 8.30pm. Its now about 11pm, so its good night from me!