Day 57 Alice Springs, Arltunga and Ross River

Today we drove out to the Ross River “Resort”, it’s 70 kms east of Alice on bitumen but we did a side trip on rough dirt road to Arltunga which was a booming goldmining town until about 1918 though the Police Station only closed in 1944. The old gaol is intact and has an impressive inspection hatch. There is a camping area near the Arltunga Hotel but campers won’t get any beer there, it doesn’t look as though it’s operated for years.

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The countryside wouldn’t make for an easy life, the hills are rocky, the creeks all dry and it’s hard to imagine people trying to create a life out there without modern machinery etc. The geographical forms are impressive though, there are long stretches of hills with bands of different coloured rock another section was like a series of humps and many sections of hills have a “pie crust” edge to them. Corroboree Rock stands out by itself.

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Along the way we passed two lonely graves, one is from 1998, a motorcyclist was killed while out riding his bike. The other grave is old and holds the body of a stockman who died of injuries after falling from his horse.

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The old Ross River Homestead is fascinating and is used as the Office for the Resort and also has dining facilities and a Bar. The bar stools were custom made but I don’t think the craftsperson tested them out because they look as though they were made for hours of comfortable sitting.

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We enjoyed lunch sitting outside watching Zebra Finches come down to a dish of water but whenever any big wasps arrived the birds took off. There were also some slender birds, maybe White-naped Honeyeaters, in the trees nearby and at another water container.

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