For some reason despite my staying up later than I should have, I didn't sleep at all well on Saturday night, and wasn't particularly enthusiastic about getting up at half three on Sunday morning to get the bus. Nevertheless, there was little choice in the matter, so up I got and said goodbye to Brigitte and packed my stuff and carried it (it's heavy) to the bus station in the darkness of long before dawn. The bus arrived and unloaded the mail and news deliveries for Coober Pedy (it'd come up from Adelaide) and I got on and off we went. I slept or dozed or something for a while, and there was the odd rest stop. At one such stop a chap went into the bathroom to brush his teeth just before the drivers decided to head off, and then they miscounted the passengers and he was left behind, but he managed to get a message to the next rest area and a lift that far, so crisis averted. Sometime after one o'clock local time (clocks back an hour from South Australia time - it's daft) we pulled into Alice Springs.
First thing to do was let the folks in the Greyhound office know that I wouldn't be using my booked seat on the bus to Ayers Rock the following day, which I had foolishly purchased in the belief that that's where I'd be meeting mum (err, they both start with "A"). The lady there said I could get credit for the sixty-seven dollars, which was pretty cool and I'd only gone in to let them know that they could fill the seat if they wanted. So now I have a bit of Greyhound juice I can use in Queensland. Next thing was to find somewhere to stay. There were no touts from local hostels around this time, probably because the bus was a bit late because of the guy who got forgotten, so the lady in the Greyhound office rang Ossie's at my request, that being the place where I'd stayed before. The bloke came out in the bus and brought me there, and I ditched my gear and walked into the town to hit the shops.
First thing was a place where they make swags that I wanted to see, out the far side of town (Alice Springs isn't really all that big though) but when I got there it was shut because it was Sunday. Then I tried a barbecue equipment selling place because barbecue equipment is a pretty good souvenir of Australia I reckon, but it'd closed at two. Then I tried an army surplus and camping type of shop that my guidebook says is good but it was closed. Bloody Sunday, as they say. I climbed Anzac Hill and got a view of the town (unspectacular) and climbed down again - well, hopped down the steps is more accurate, and returned to the hostel via the supermarket for dinner, which I cooked on the barbecue. I spent the evening reading a bit and backing up my photos again, which is rather a lengthly process although fortunately requiring little input on my part.
The bloke from the hostel does a run into town in the bus in the mornings and I'd requested to be on it, because the Crowne Plaza where mum had booked us in was south of where we were, and because the roads don't run directly there a walk would mean crossing back and forth over the river and would be pretty confusing and meandering, so I figured going from the town centre might be slightly shorter. But then I had a bright idea, informed the folks that I wouldn't be needing their services after all, applied my gear to my back (it's heavy) and walked down to the Todd River, along which Alice Springs is built. Apparently it even covers the road when it's in flood, but it's not in flood at the moment - it is in fact completely 100% dry. So I jumped in there, turned south, and hiked along its sandy bottom (fnar fnar) for a kilometre and a half or two. Eventually the Crowne Plaza hove into view off my larboard bow, so I climbed out of the river and trudged into the foyer. Mum had not checked in yet, it appeared, so I left my gear on one of those nifty hotel baggage trolleys to be put into storage and walked into town to get that shopping done before mum would show up at about lunchtime.
The swag place was open, and I got some prices but I don't know why. It was a warehouse with some swags by the entrance and a chick with a sewing machine doing stuff in the background. The barbecue place was open but didn't have what I wanted (they usually do and will get them in the next restock, next week when I'm in Queensland). The camping shop was open and was indeed pretty good, but it had nothing I needed of course (because I don't need any of that stuff). There was a second-hand bookshop next to it though, and I had a look in there and came out with the novel of The Postman, upon which the notoriously own-eye-gouge-outingly dreadful Kevin Costner movie is based (I bet I'd love the movie but I haven't had the opportunity to see it yet) and a novel which looks pretty abysmal based on the TV series based on the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Timecop, where the hero battles pirates and time-travelling Nazis (cool!). At some stage I also found myself wandering past the Alice Springs base of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which I'd wanted to see, so I went in and looked in the museum and did the guided tour and it was reasonably interesting. Time had moved along by this stage so I made my way back toward the Crowne Plaza, checking out hat shops and second-hand bookshops along the way (I also found a Cure CD that I bought because I had previously decided that any cheap The Cure or Faith No More CDs to cross my path will be purchased).
Mum had indeed checked in by the time I got there, so I got my keycard and hauled my trolley up to room 386 (like a computer, although the guy at the desk didn't seem to get it) where I found my mother, sporting short hair and pearl ear-studs that are new to me. She's just come from a couple of days in Sydney which she absolutely loved (apparently the weather there now is lovely, most unlike my own wintertime experience). She not having spoken to anybody except as a customer for two days, and me not having met anybody I knew for months (before Tasmania, if you remember back that far) we stood about chatting for quite a while, until eventually the stink from my t-shirt became too much for her and she ordered me into the shower (yes mother). She had mentioned in passing in an email that this would be a good chance to catch up on my washing, and because Brigitte had no washing machine and I NEARLY had enough underwear to keep me going until I got here I'd fallen pretty far into filth - I'll spare the keyboard the details on the underwear front, but I was four pairs into my sock collection's second consecutive run. I felt much more presentable once I was showered and into a loud shirt and my travelling-and-gear-(it's heavy)-carrying t-shirt was consigned to pre-laundry purgatory.
To my surprise, mum had not planned what to do with every single second of every day of her trip, and booked it all months in advance, so today was a day to be played by ear. We started off with lunch in the restaurant downstairs, which amused me with my Caesar salad costing enough to feed me for at least two days in a hostel, if I was eating well (as in three squares a day). Fed and rested, mum felt up to the walk into town to look at some shops and stuff, so in we wandered. The afternoon passed in postcard-purchasing and hat-ogling and tourist-information-obtaining, and then we went for a drink and dinner in a zany saloon with fun decorations like boots nailed to the fake ceiling made of corrugated iron, and a skeleton on a motorbike, and the seats were all made of leather that still had the hair around the edges. I had the camel pie (unremarkable) and mum had the jumbuck stew (typical tourists).
To be perfectly frank, I'd been somewhat banking on mum merrily taking leave of me carrying my diving bag stuffed with things I don't need, so I can travel light move fast in Japan (hitching with all that gear in Tasmania where people often drive utes or large cars was bad enough), but she's weighed down and at her baggage limit as it is. Fortunately, she is planning on sending a box homeward, so anything I want to ship that I can put in there I can put in there, and anything I can't put in there or that I'll need more immediately when I get home I can put in her bags in the space freed up by putting stuff in the box. Neato! That'll give us something to do tomorrow night. Tonight I did my washing, and truly I'm looking forward to clean socks on the morrow, not to mention undies and trousers. Being filthy in Coober Pedy is one thing (people who aren't filthy stand out as obvious tourists) but Alice Springs is a higher class of town, or so I'm assuming from the hotel I'm staying in anyway.