4 Stray Katz: Our second tow truck in a week -car troubles in Alice

Alice Springs, NT

Monday 16^th – Friday 20^th October

We made it across the Tanami Track without any dramas, then, when Daniel and Jackson were doing some shopping, the car broke down in the Coles carpark in Alice Springs! We are so lucky, if it had have happened a few days prior the situation would have been so much more difficult. Once again we had some lovely people help us out, including a lady who worked at Pizza Hut who dropped Jackson back to the caravan park so he didn’t have to hang around and wait for the tow truck. He loved being ‘delivered’ back to the park in a pizza delivery car!

Once the car was towed to the mechanic (luckily we have RACV Total Car so that was covered) they worked out that we needed a new alternator, and lucky for us there was one available in Alice. We picked the car up after a couple of days and we were ready to leave Alice Springs and go to Palm Valley but then the car wouldn’t start when Daniel went to reverse it onto the caravan. Turns out both batteries were also kaput! The lovely mechanics came to the rescue again, but we still ended up having to stay another night in the caravan park in order to get everything fixed. This turned out to be a blessing, as that afternoon I got a phone call from NT National Parks to say that Palm Valley campground was being evacuated and all camping was on hold as there was a bushfire- if the car had have started we would have driven all that way only to be evacuated. So it all turned out in the end 😊.

Over the 4 days we spent at Alice Springs most of our time was spent in the caravan park, organising things for the caravan insurance claim and sorting out getting the car fixed. The kids didn’t mind this at all as there are 3 awesome pools and a waterslide at the park. They spent so much time in the pool that their faces got so dry and cracked from the chlorine- they were having so much fun though so they didn’t want to stop.

While the car was getting fixed we hired a car and went to explore some of the nearby natural wonders- Emily’s Gap, Jessie’s Gap and Simpsons Gap. They were all equally stunning and a great first taste of the beauty of the Red Centre.

A highlight for us all during our time at Alice Springs was the star gazing session at the caravan park. The incredibly passionate Andrew, also known locally as the ‘Starman’, explained all the constellations you can see at the moment then he let us all look through the huge telescope in the park. He had it focussed on Saturn, which is visible at the moment. It was such an amazing surprise to see Saturn so clearly through the telescope. We all left the talk very impressed.

Although we had to stay in Alice Springs longer than expected we met some wonderful people and we had a very nice time at one of the best caravan parks we’ve stayed at.