Storms hit Alice Springs

This is the damage in and around the library at Alice Springs Hospital yesterday.
Our water came from the roof down the window frame rather than from the ground outside.




The first storm hit around 1:30 pm the next around 3pm.
The first was a furious thunderstorm with high winds,
the second a major dust storm.

There was lots of local flooding and a large amount of trees
were knocked down bringing power lines down including on buildings and cars.


Power was out in much of Alice Springs for 12 hours or so.
It was after midnight when we had power again where I was staying
and as I walked to work this morning there was still streets with powerlines still hanging dangerously low and so the streets remain blocked off.

Sunday in Todd Street Mall

I took a walk around Alice Springs's Todd Street Mall for a quick look at the Sunday Markets

Reg and Rogers Party

Jeanette asked me to accompany her to the 50th birthday celebration for Regina. It was also Regie's partner Rogers 49th. It was a masked party which made it fun.




Our hosts were Jenny and Peter.

Long road to Alice Springs...

Jeanette collected me at dawn on Thursday morning and we headed south.
We stopped briefly at Hayes Creek, Mataranka, Elliott,
Daly Waters, Wycliff Well, Barrow Creek, Tennant Creek
and the Devils Marbles and Ti Tree and finally Aileron, along the way.














We camped for the night near Kunjarra "The Pebbles", north of Tennant Creek. This was really nice sleeping in our swags under the stars and under moonlight. Even though we were 8 km away from the Stuart Highway, we could still hear the traffic and occasionally also aircraft high above us.
Breakfast was al fresco

When dawn came it was also very pretty but it did reveal that Jeanette had a rather nasty insect bite on her leg that she had attended to later at the Ti Tree Health Centre later in the morning.


We then took a side tour to see the Devils Marbles or
as its known by the traditional owners "Karlu Karlu"


Wycliff Wells claims to fame are UFO and alien sightings!!!




We reached Alice Springs mid Friday afternoon.

Sunday roast... well sort of!!

I got a call mid morning from Julie. Could Hugh or I help out on one of the Darwin Sailing Club rescue boats. Seeing as Hugh was celebrating his 30th birthday in New York (and Mick Jagger was there!!) , it was down to me...
I raced down to the club, they radioed Rescue 1 and I climbed aboard and spent the rest of the day out on Fannie Bay. The roast bit comes about because I failed to sunblock my face. I look a bit like a badger today only red!!
It was however a glorious day...




They fell down!!

There was lots of good racing