Rolling to the Rock: Day 19

The east coast has the ‘race that stops the nation’, the Melbourne Cup, the top end the Australia Day cane toad races while Alice Springs, the ‘big smoke’ in the red centre, has the highly entertaining Camel Cup.

Held at a purpose-built, 500m-odd oval track at Blatherskite Park on the town’s outskirts, the annual race has been going since 1970 and is best described as a quirky cross between a country horse race meeting and school carnival.

This year the laid-back event included nine camel races, each one a whirlwind lap, but all of the 2000-plus crowd were focused on the ‘big one’, the XXXX Gold Lasseters Camel Cup, which had 10 brave starters this year.

While entertaining throughout, the best race action is undoubtedly at the start, as handlers struggle to get the snorting, spitting, cantankerous camels onto their knees. ??Finally, the starter’s gun fires and riders cling to the flailing beasts as they leap to their feet and tear around the sandy course in a blur of limbs, dust and general mayhem.

The organizers promote the spectacle as “temperamental, terribly unpredictable, very entertaining”, and they were spot on when in Race 3 one camel decided after about 100m to turn around and race back the other way!

But the fun doesn’t stop between races, with non-stop novelty events including rickshaw races, kids’ camel kapers, Fashions of the Field including the crowning of Mr and Miss Camel Cup, and bucking bull rides.

While in Alice Springs, we’ve been staying in relative luxury at the Big4 MacDonnel Range Holiday Park, without doubt the flashiest caravan park in town.

More self-contained village than a place to park your van for the night, the busy park features hundreds of immaculately presented powered sites, many on grass or mats to hide the dirt, accessed by wide bitumen roads and clear signposts.

Like most Big4 parks, there are security gates to keep out the free loaders and four spotless and well-equipped ablution blocks and camp kitchens.

Plus enough activities and facilities to keep the kids (and parents!) happy for days, including go-karts, TV and games rooms, jumping pillows, pools/spa, and a mini-mart.

There’s even things we’ve never seen before in a caravan park, like fuel pumps, family bathroom with bath and a strawberry dessert van.

To compensate for premium pricing (around $60 for a powered caravan site), there’s plenty of free daily entertainment from a pancake breakfast and cheese and wine night to talks by local authors, 4WD experts and astronomers. ??

However, the highlight for us was an entertaining and informative one-hour session by didgeridoo maestro Andrew Langford, who performs the legendary Sounds of Starlight show in town.

Our only gripe was paying $16 for four hours of sluggish wi-fi, before discovering free and much faster internet available just five minutes’ away at Lasseters casino and hotel.

Like Alice Springs itself, the manicured Big4 park also offers little of the ‘down and dusty’ appeal of most red centre campgrounds we’ve stayed at, partly because it allows neither dogs nor campfires.

Other highlights of our three days in Alice Springs included the National Road Transport Hall of Fame, with its wonderful collection of old trucks; the fascinating Desert Park for all the nocturnal critters we missed on our walks and just-opened dingo enclosure, and excellent art galleries (including a very colourful Beanie Festival display) and natural history museum at the Araluen Cultural Precinct.

But the comical and chaotic Camel Cup was a fitting end to our Red Centre adventures, as we embark on the long drive back to Melbourne. But not before a stop-off at another unique Aussie town, Coober Pedy…