POSTCARD FROM PALM VALLEY

Can you believe it....we're back in Alice Springs for the third time! This time we have come specifically to enable Dennis to watch the final day of the Masters Golf (couldn't find a TV anywhere else - and I am an extremely understanding woman!).

This is just a quicky to share our last couple of days in Palm Valley about 120k from Alice. Gloriously beautiful and can be reached via 4WD only, so despite being close to Alice it's pretty isolated. It's called Palm Valley because (surprise, surprise) it's full of palm trees. But of course, this actually is a surprise as you don't usually get palm trees in a place this dry. These "red cabbage palms" are unique to this area and have somehow managed to cling to life thousands of years after they first arrived to a much wetter landscape. So you get this extremely wierd experience of "tropical" vegetation in an otherwise desolate arid land.

As luck would have it there was a small water hole right beside our camp, so each night we were able to sit with our beer/gin&tonic and watch a private bird show. On a somewhat more disturbing, but equally exhilarating note, we were also awoken by the sound of dingoes wailing into the night. A lonely, spooky sound.

I need to report also that we did alot of cooking at Palm Springs - cooked up a storm so we would have ready made dishes when we start the long drive to Perth. Having trouble believing this myself, but I'm really enjoying cooking. We've invested in a camp oven so much of our cooking is over an open fire - even hotter than a kitchen, but more interesting. Dennis has now developed a system where if he licks the plate I know the meal was good enough to serve again. (Shane, do you think we should put him on report?) I'm pleased to report that Dennis has been licking his plate alot. What's becoming of me?? I used to be a modern woman who thought that cooking and f**king were cities in China...now I'm worrying about whether or not "my man" will enjoy my latest creation.


Well, enough about me. By the time you receive this we will have left Alice, hopefully for the last time (at least for this month).