Hey everyone..

Here are a few interesting things I have seen recently, mostly at Alice Springs.

Before I left for Alice I stayed at Leyburn (south of Toowoomba) for several days at the back of the home of Les & Peggy Hill-Allen who were my employer when I was an apprentice Motor Mechanic.  Looking at the picture below, they are to the left of me and the other people were promotional people for the Golden Fleece brand, the guy to the right was called Henry ... don't remember who his sidekick was.  Les and Peggy had this old photo so I scanned it.

When I stayed at Leyburn, Dianne was with me and she decided to show her friends a picture of her car, towing the van! ... not likely!

This is what you see most of the way to Alice Springs, generally there is plenty of road kill to steer around when you get tired of just going straight ahead.

This was interesting, it is called Devil's Marbles and it is about 400k before you get to Alice, the rocks got their name because they superheat during the hottest days and they freeze during the coldest nights, causing a very loud noise when they crack or break from the stress.  I showed this to my brother Alan and he said he has a picture of the same rock before it broke in half.  I guess you need to be careful where you sit around these things ... there are hundreds of them just laying around in the middle of nowhere.  More Rocks

I have fond memories of my childhood when I lived in Barcaldine, my parents ran the Federal Hotel and when I called in there on my way to Alice, memories came flooding back even though I was only around 6 years old at the time.  My parents operated the place during the great depression, almost all of the hotels in Barcaldine have burnt down at one time or another, I guess the insurance companies had a bad time during bad times.

I was told Kurt Johannsen roamed around Alice and surrounding areas inventing and fixing things.  His car below is amazing, it apparently ran on steam towards the end of his life.  The car is at a truck Museum at Alice ... a very interesting place if you are interested in our pioneers who did it very hard.

There is a huge annual truck show in Alice and I just fluked being there for it, I'm glad I didn't have to tow this van around.  Click HERE for a few more pickies, I have around 300 shots but I only put a few here.

Please let me know if you need any information about Alice bill@thorp.info