Driving to Alice Springs

On the way up the Lasseter Highway taking us from Yulara to the Stuart Highway and one to Alice Springs, we stopped for a look at Mt Cooper. This is much different from Uluru. It looks to be a regular mesa in the desert.



The Stuart Highway is mostly flat in this region. What is significant is that the clouds you see on the horizon are pink! Where have you ever seen pink clouds before? This turns out to be more common that you might imagine here in the Northern Territory. My theory is that it is either a reflection of the red soil on the ground or that the winds carry the red dust up to form an outer layer on the cloud.

There is certainly plenty of red dirt here in the "red center" of the country.

Here's another view of the pink clouds that is perhaps a bit more convincing. One things is certain, this is an empty land.

There are sections of the road with a fence running along parallel. This attests to the fact that someone is using this place to put cattle out. Now, I ask you to have a good look at this place. Does this look like a place that would support cattle? Well, it does. the population density is quite low, but there are cattle out there. Farther north (north of Alice Springs), there are still cattle but no fences and we find the occasional dead cow along the road.