Pat Callinan's 4x4 Adventures filming blog 16- Alice Springs Wrap Up(Mrs 4x4)

Hello everybody, hello, hello, hello!

Apologies this was meant to go up before the show yesterday....

I am LOVING Alice ! Not only does this town have taps with running water and toilets - beautiful, beautiful toilets but I went shopping the other day and the first store I went into was playing Brookes and Dunn and the second had Brad Paisley getting "a little mud on the tyres"....happy Kaz. Once I got the grin off my face about the music I bumped into some people we met at Wolfe Creek. Makes you feel like a local when you meet people you know up the street. The weather is beautiful - so much cooler then the Canning.

We stayed at the Stuart Caravan Park in cabins for a few days to give the crew a break and start scripting and planning for the next leg of the trip. It's just lovely and once again I am giving the rows of washing machines a good work out. Pat and I flat out getting the cars cleaned out and serviced while keeping the business running. That was the longest stretch we've ever done without range so the in-boxes are full and there are lots of things that need attending to. Not so much fun for the kids but we have ways of multi-tasking.....for example some may think the car wash is only for washing cars. No way man. You blast a high pressure cleaning hose off the top of a Patrol - instant pool party for the kids!

Mark, Abby, Aidan and Mia are here at the moment which is great to have some company for a while. We all took the kids for a camel ride today (yes they did want to go, it wasn't just for me). They were so gentle and so tame. Gusso said "this is more fun than the rollercoaster at Movieworld." Awesome son, wish you'd mentioned that before we forked out $'000s on that trip to the Gold Coast. They were all grins from ear to ear. We were making conversation with the lady running the rides and turns out she walked the Canning last year with her 3 camels! Having just got off the Canning I can tell you this chick is hard core! She walked for an average of 25kms a day cross country using a GPS and stopping at wells that she knew had decent water. Her stories were remarkable - Pat's hoping to interview her for the show on Monday. I think she needs a doco of her own. Anyway, turns out they had some free baby camels - I wonder if Blue Mountains Council would have a problem with one on a domestic block ?

Bill, Gus and Charlotte are going well. In may ways they travel better than the grown ups. They're looking forward to hitting the reptile park tomorrow. Still really missing their friends - constant talk of Harry, Tom, Julian and Emma. School work has been more difficult to manage than expected - mainly because of the heat. School of distance ed awesome with the packages they send.

As we came off the Tanami the other night I was so pleased to get back to facilites, lights and a proper shower and now just a couple of days later I am ready to go again. I have the bags sorted so tomorrow is grocery shopping and loading the Cub before we head out filming again on Monday. I'm really looking forward to this leg - we're hitting some familiar places but lots of new ones to.


Take care,

Kaz

Pat Callinan's 4x4 Adventures Business Member: My Profile  My Blog