Alice Springs – Boggy Hole – West Macdonnell Ranges

After a wonderful week away, I set myself up for a few weeks at a school in Alice Springs. We’re half way through the term, and there’s soooo much to do in the area, so I’ve been really keen to earn lots of pocket money and explore the town as well. Alice is an amazing town, and there’s events happening almost every night! One thing that I was most excited for was the Red Dirt Poetry Festival which happens every two years.

At different venues across the town, poetry events were set up from a haiku death match to open mic slam poetry and music-slash-poetry pairings. This year I’ve been doing all sorts of new and exciting things, and after going to a slam poetry event at the beginning of the year, I was really keen to perform some of my own poetry in front of people - I didn’t want to perform for a prize or for anything in particular other than myself. There’s a poem that I wrote called the mirror crow that I’m really proud of and that I was looking forward to sharing with other people. Sam and I got to the event nice and early and I was one of the first people to sign up, so we had plenty of time to drink a little beer and fret about stage fright (Sam did this, not me, even though she didn’t perform! I think she had second-hand stress).

Anyway, the crowd was small but very kind, and I was the last person to say their poem. I have no idea what I ended up scoring, but it must have been good because somehow I ended up in the final round! I was honestly so proud of myself and then instantly worried because - I hadn’t been told until this very moment but – the finalists had to perform a second poem. …… which I hadn’t prepared! So I got up on stage again a few minutes later and shoddily read out one of the few poems of mine that I know off the top of my head. In the end an amazing poet who shared stories of her First Nations experiences won – she was an amazing speaker who strung beautiful words together about helping hungry kids in the supermarket, and some peoples perceptions of her being not white enough and not black enough and feeling an immense sense of not knowing where she belongs. She. Was. Fabulous.

After a few events throughout the week and some time at a school in town, wet set off for a little weekend away to Boggy Hole which is a 4WD access campground. It’s not too far away from Alice, but because so much of the track is sandy and rocky, it takes quite a few hours to get out there. It was also a really hot weekend, unseasonably hot apparently, so we were really excited to go to a place where you can swim since so many of the watering holes are dry right now.

Now, I’m no 4WD queen, so the four of us queens (myself, Sam, Helen, and El) had to practice deflating the tyres and using the compressor before we set off JUST IN CASE we got in a sticky spot… It took about 15 minutes to get in a sticky spot. As we reached the 4WD part of the track, we let down the tyres of the cars and set off. But as we rounded a corner on a particularly hot and sandy stretch, there was a bogged caravan which forced us to stop.
Lesson 1: Don’t stop on sand - you will lose momentum and get bogged.
So we got bogged! We each took turns digging the tyres out and getting back on track in the absolutely blistering heat of the afternoon sun which was just making the sand softer and more slippery.
Lesson 2: Lots of people will assume that the cars full of girls are idiots.
We kept getting asked “do you have a compressor?” and “did you let your tyres down?” or “have you got max tracks?” Yes, Kevin, we’re only in this pickle because you broke down!

Once we were on the road again, it took a few hours to reach the campsite where we set up for a lazy afternoon of reading, swimming, and doing the Good Weekend Quiz.
Lesson 3: Always have a wide range of skillsets when attempting the quiz. We would'n’t have done half as well as we did if we didn’t have Helen and her impressive knowledge of the Wombles.
For dinner, El cooked her famous baked potatoes on the campfire coals which were delicious, and Sam whipped up a dessert of smores dip which was essentially a tray of biscuits, marshmallow and chocolate which you melt on the coals and then scoop up with more biscuits. Yum! We chatted away for a few hours into the night, asking campfire questions ranging from, “if you weren’t doing your current job, what would you like to do?” to “if you could only eat five meals for the rest of your life, what would they be?” As we drank more wine the answers became more heated, and people started hating on my decision to eat banh mi for the rest of eternity.

In the morning after some more swimming we set off back to Alice Springs, and El even let me drive some of the track.
Lesson 4: 4WDing is actually quite fun! Even if (especially if?) you don’t really know what you’re doing and your mentor just sits there directing the drone while you try not to destroy their car. hehe beep beep! We got back to town and I completely crashed, exhausted from so much relaxing. Who knew?

Delicious reflections at Boggy Hole. 

Back to the Monday to Friday grind! I have a total of five weeks scheduled at a school in Alice Springs, and so far, my time teaching has been incredibly easy… a little too easy! Attendance is very low across the school so my class sizes are absolutely tiny; this makes it cool to be able to have conversations with all of the kids and not feel like you’re spread too thin, but I do miss the slightly hectic nature of teaching too (famous last words, hey). My job here is essentially to monitor kids as they complete assessments, make delicious barista coffee in the staff room, and read as much of my book as possible. Not a bad way to earn a few dollars! When I wasn’t at school, I would ride my bike to the bakery for a coffee or take the beautiful Wesley for an evening walk.

The following weekend we set off on another overnight adventure, this time into the West Macdonnell Ranges. This is where the Larapinta trail goes, and at a lot of points during our weekend here, we would see hikers out and about with heavy packs in the blistering heat. We were even told by a couple of people that some of the water tanks along the trail that provide essential fresh water on a daily basis were completely dried up! This gave me massive second-hand stress as I know that a lot of the hikers wouldn’t want to carry a single gram more than necessary and would heavily rely on the assurance of water tanks stationed across the track. But enough about a 200km walk that I didn’t even do!

Where we did go was Standley Chasm, Ellery Creek, and Ormiston Gorge. The chasm was really cool to see – vast red rocks shooting high into the sky. Sam and I walked the little track out the the chasm and hung around until the sun was almost directly in the sky, casting little rays of light against the burnt walls. On the way back to the van we saw a really funny tree. Tree of the day, for sure By then it was getting pretty hot, so we drove to Ellery where we met up with Helen and had a swim and a paddle in the watering hole. The water here was absolutely freezing – like the kind of cold that catches in your lungs – so I could hardly stand more than a few minutes in the water before I had to run out back into the heat of the sun. We lazed on the banks here for a few hours eating sushi and fruit until we decided to continue the drive to Ormiston.

By the time we got to Ormiston Gorge, it was starting to get late - perfect timing for a little beer! So we set up a swag for Helen, parked the van, and lounged around in our chairs before cooking dinner. Sam had done so much organising for our last couple of weekends away that I decided to take the reigns, so on this night I made some black bean tacos with mayo and lime corn which were really tasty. We even had a little chocolate which (somehow) didn’t melt in the car and a few glasses of red wine before trying to get an early night of sleep.

We were up super early the next morning because we wanted to beat the heat before attempting the Pound Walk. I knew almost nothing about it (what’s a pound? Is it like Wilpena Pound? Do I get a puppy?) except that it’s around 8.5kms, and the start is pretty exposed. We had a quick breakfast and set off, hoping to avoid the heat of the day and make it back to camp in time for a little swim. This walk ended up being one of the most spectacular things I’ve done on my whole trip. It was a really vast and varied landscape, starting with fields of wildflowers and a slight ascent, before opening up to the flat expanse of the Ormiston Pound (turns out that a pound is just a really flat area surrounded by mountains that used to act as a natural place to keep stock from wandering). From here, we walked through the pound and into the gorge where the red cliffs closed in at all sides and turned the dry river bed rocks into a crazy array of pinks and purples. By the time we got to the end, it was almost lunch, and there was a beautiful and deep waterhole for us to swim in and jump off a few rocks. I loved doing this walk and seeing all the different shifting landscapes as they unfolded. So cool!

Back at camp we made some potatoes with cheese and pickles for lunch (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it) and had a quick read before one last swim and a short drive home. On the way back to Alice Springs we stopped in at the Ochre Pits which is a sacred womens site, and a place where lots of yellow and white ochre was collected for ceremony. In the car as we drove east, Sam said that her heart was really full. And I couldn’t have agreed any more.

Anyway, here are some pretty wildflowers to end the post. I’ve become obsessed with wildflowers.