We’re still in Alice Springs and still working! Whilst the jobs have served their purpose, it’s not what we want to do and after 15 months, it’s a bit of a shock to the system getting back into full time work mode! We’ve both enjoyed our jobs, but will be glad when we’re finished and back on the road again. We also probably picked the wrong time of the year to work as it’s freezing here in the mornings, and a 7 or 7:30am start is not good!
We still really like Alice Springs. There’s always something going on here – from the Beanie Festival a couple of weekends ago, to the Alice Springs Show last weekend, and the Camel Cup and a Moto Cross event is on this weekend. The fun never stops! I’ve been really slack with taking photos, but I’ll try to add some to the website soon. I took some photo’s of some beautiful cattle at the show last week, so I’ve gotta post them. I love the Brahman cattle.
I had my first close up taste of the local wildlife this week – at work of all places. I had to run off some labels, and pulled the printer out so I could access the manual feed on the top. All of a sudden there were dozens of teeny tiny little spiders scurrying everywhere – so I’m thinking babies, and I’ve obviously disturbed a nest, so where’s the mother? Well, after a bit of searching I found a white ball in the back of the printer where the power plugs in, and it was surrounded by lots of cobwebs. Not knowing much about spiders, and they generally don’t bother me, I just thought they were a bunch of some sort of house (or maybe money) spiders. I showed it to the cleaner when he came in and he told me he thought it was a redback nest, although he wasn’t sure. After talking to another couple of people in the office I found out Alice Springs is Redback City and it was definitely a redback nest. Okay, that was it – Harry (the cleaner) was given clear instructions that he had to suck it/them up in the vacuum cleaner – there was no way I wanted them there when I got in the followng day. Redbacks are one spider I’m not keen on. Well, the next morning I got in to work and Graeme the cable guy was working on some cabling under my desk and he told me he’d found 2 more redback nests (which he’d thankfully gotten rid of for me)! Like I said, spiders don’t generally bother me, although I’m not keen on them either, but last night and all day today, I’ve felt like something was crawling on me. And I still haven’t found the mother! Wish I’d taken photos. Forgot I now have a camera mobile phone!
Other than spiders, there is some beautiful wildlife in Alice Springs, especially birds. I’ll try to take some photos of the birds in the caravan park this week and post them before we leave.
We’ve had beautiful days in Alice Springs, but have I mentioned how bloody freezing it is at night and morning??