East of Alice

As a fun sidetrip, we went East of Alice on a dirt road through the Macdonnell ranges to Hale River Homestead.

Here we rested with the occasional walk to the drying dam, then flopped into the soothing cool of the pool which had been shipped in one container from Queensland by rail to Adelaide then by road.

A cavernous shed, known as the Workshop, is full of bush memorabilia, a comfy sofa, and a bush bar. The shed, a Sidney Williams prefab, had been relocated from a station. It was one of many thousands in the Territory erected as temporary army accommodation or storesheds in WWII.

In the evening, we watched the sun go down behind the windvane and the swimming pool as the stars appeared.

On the way back from Hale River Homestead, we visited cemeteries, the old police station complete with its jail and ruins of the gold mining town of Arltunga. The bush has grown back, the stamping batteries are silent, birds trill in the trees, nature carries on.