Dingo at Alice Springs Desert Park
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Simpson Desert Trip June 2019 – prep

ByGeoff

Saturday 15 June 2019
The adventure begins. We are off to the Simpson Desert for a 14 day trip glamping trip with Outback Spirit. We’ve done quite a lot of prep (as you might imagine). Mainly reading to get a good background. More on this later.

Today, we had a 4:30am alarm for a 5:10 lift to the airport (thank you  Rob and Jill) for a 6:30 flight to Sydney (on time, no fog); then a 9:25 flight to alice Springs. 4:30 is a touch early.

Reading. I was impressed with three books.

  1. ‘Dark Emu‘ by Bruce Pascoe describes aboriginal settlement of Australia before white settlement in 1788. Descriptions are from early explorers’ and settlers’ records. Townships (with houses – timber with ‘thatched’ roofs – for up to 5,000 people); agriculture (cultivating grass crops, ploughing, dams & tanks for storing water); aquaculture (fish traps & fish farms); storage of excess crops (in containers, bins and storerooms). Most of these infrastructure elements were pillaged and destroyed immediately by arriving early settlers and shepherds – houses burnt, crops eaten and stored food looted. A very interesting story.
  2. The second book is ‘Songlines‘ by Bruce Chatwin in which he is exploring ancient nomadic peoples across the world and in this book looks at the music and rhythm of aboriginal songlines – how a single part of the songline story will be in the keeping of an individual who has a single phrase of the whole story. These fragments, combined in the correct order, give the songline through that family’s territory. Adjoining territories continue the story, each with its own part of the rhythm and language. The underlying rhythm remains the same even as the language changes. An interesting book.
  3. The third book is ‘The Cattle King‘ by Ion Idriess which describes Sidney Kidman’s life from

    when he ran away from home as a penniless, uneducated 13 year old who in a series of jobs (looking after goats & horses, droving horses and cattle, owning a butcher shop, owning and driving a bullock team, owning a stagecoach business), Sid Kidman learnt what ‘good country’ was and how to look after it. He coveted, and eventually bought, country that received flood waters from the ‘three rivers’ (Cooper Creek, Diamantina & Georgina Rivers) that are mostly dry but occasionally run with flood water from heavy rain in far north Queensland and NT. These flood waters can wet a lot of country and form vast wetlands with good food (saltbush and forbes) for stock. Kidman managed to buy a huge amount of it (see map) and sent huge herds of horses and cattle off to market from them. The interconnected properties meant that they could help each other. Seldom were all properties in drought at the same time. Properties damaged by overstocking and pests could be rested to ‘come good’. Strangely, the SA government criticised Kidman for not overstocking his properties. Idriess ends with descriptions of the damage done by rabbits and overstocking and the significant reduction in  carrying capacity that has resulted – during Kidman’s lifetime, he thought that carrying capacity had reduced to 10% of the original. Some of our journey will be through Kidman country – a couple of properties anyway.

The second flight today left Sydney 50 mins late and packed with several large school groups on their way to netball comps. Flying over the red, red, red country that we were about to drive through was spectacular: now, cut by flooding rivers from rain in Qld 5 months ago; water flowing into hollows and lakes; thousands of parallel sand ridges running approx. N-S; rivers ending abruptly in sand and temporary wetlands that Sid Kidman coveted a hundred years ago.
In Alice, we hired a car (from Avis) and drove to our accommodation – Alice Lodge Backpackers – basic, but with young people to talk to. We immediately drove to the Alice Springs Reptile Centre to have a look around and catch the 3:30 show. Quite a big crowd. I got to handle the Olive python again which is why I wanted to go. They have a very good collection of poisonous and non-poisonous snakes, lizards, geckos and a saltwater crocodile (who was asleep in the sun). While we were in the Reptile Centre it rained and the temp dropped about 10ºC. A bit cool now. Kebab for a feed at 4:30. Back to the backpackers. Parked the car inside the locked gates – could be a tricky area at night.
Sunday 16 June 2019.
Earlyish start to get to Alice Springs Desert Park where we spent the morning. Highlights: dingo talk (solitary wolves, very good apex predators); free flying birds – barn owl, black-breasted buzzard (smashed emu egg), magpie, whistling kite (a local black kite butted in for a free feed), hobby; walk through nocturnal house – betong, bilby, superfast mice, ghost bats; aboriginal food and life with Doug. This last was the best talk of the day especially when he got to skin and kinship groups and who can marry who. We plan to go back tomorrow.
Monday 17 June 2019.
A pleasant morning of sitting in the sun and reading in the excellent back yard area of Alice Lodge Backpackers. Basically, the backyard forms a square; kitchen and two dongers on one side (we are in one); pool on the opposite side with laundry and two vans; office and two dorms at the front and two old vans at the back. About half is paved and has chairs and tables, and half is grass with hammocks. Very restful. We are not far from the Todd River with swarms of Galahs.

For lunch, we found a Thai place and then back to the Desert Park again. Vastly put off by the first tour (with a herd of ignorant – “the only good animal is a dead one, cooked and on my plate!”) We recouped our waa in the large free flying aviary where we sat by ourselves surrounded by birds for about 3/4 of an hour. A few highlights: chiming wedgebill (that could be heard from a long way off), Eyrean grasswren (bigger than I expected); orange cat (yellower than orange).

Drove down back to town to find the Red Kangaroo Bookshop where we bought five ‘grandmother books’. A very good bookshop.
Tuesday 18 June 2019.
A day of meet and greet and not much else. We join the tour today. Helen put a load of washing through at the backpackers. Quite cold initially but warmed to an excellent morning for sitting and reading in the sun. At noon, we took the car back to the airport and waited for our 12:50 meeting with Outback Spirit who drove us back to Alice where we are all at the Mercure (next to our backpackers). We immediately begin the task of repacking our belongings for the trip into a duffel sports bag each. Our suitcase is to stay here at the Mercure to where we come back in 14 days. The Outback Spirit crew appear to be concerned that we have sufficient gear for cold weather. We met at 6pm for drinks and a diner.

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