Alice Springs

Location: Alice Springs

Miles: 2069

The Stuart really gives a sense of the remoteness that is the Australian outback. This is the first true taste of  how vast and unforgiving of a place this wide brown land is. It is hard country and it attracts hard men. There is a sense of comeraderie amongst all travellers out here, everyone becomes your friend and you just never know when you might be needing them out here.

 I head north across the Never Never, just me and my thoughts as I rocket along, trying hard to let go of even them and become one with this great nothingness that is everything.

It sometimes doesn’t sit well with folks but stick with it and it will work its way into your soul and will remain there comfortably forever.

 Speaking of rockets, Woomera is a good place to check some out. Back in the 50’s England and Australia joined forces to build a rocket testing facility here. All manner of missiles were shot out into the Great Sandy, Gibson and Tanami Deserts reaching heights of 200kms or more and landing often 2000kms or more away.

 Len Beadell was the man responsible for opening up the remote parts of Central Western Australia with his small team of men driving a single bulldozer and grader. They created over 30,000kms of tracks along the length of the rocket range for the purpose of retrieving spent missiles to collect data that had been gathered inside of them.  The Rocket Range museum is worth a look in town and there is an impressive open air museum to view an assortment of the various rockets that were tested and a few aircraft. Well worth the 7km diversion. There is also a café in the towns Heritage centre but...not a lot else.


Jeffrey Condon