Erlduna Roadhouse

June 28,     2002

This is a road train.  Along the Stuart Highway and in some other remote highways in Australia they can run trailer combinations of up to 53.3 meters long or 178 feet.  This road train only had 3 trailers but some have as many as 4 trailers.  I had to take this picture of one parked because they zipped past our coach so fast and they are so big I just couldn't get a photo from the bus.










The Erlduna Road house sits at the cross roads to Ayers Rock.  The inside a fairly big building we found what I called a truly disgusting find.  It looked like these giant creatures were once grand floats in a street parade.  However, the layers of dust, decay, and tapestries of cob webs this parade must have been quite some time ago.  The spiked thing is an Echidna.  You can see Nina cowering in the doorway at the sight of these things.  The taller redder one is a Frilled Lizard.  Both must have been mighty in their day.  So great in fact that this building was built to preserve these things.  The road house, restaurant, store and fuel pumps are to the left of this museum.







To the right I saw an emu and a tree full of gala birds.  The gala bird is mostly white with a red belly and black tail.  There are huge flocks of these birds flying around down here.  The locals on the bus were telling stories about how stupid these birds are.  One lady said she saw a gala sitting on the road.  As the car came barreling down on it, the bird took off to get out of the way.  Forgot where it was going and flew right back into the grill of the on coming car.  Another person told me that a flock of gala  flew onto the guy wires of a telephone pole.  The birds then succumb to the power of gravity and slid down to the ground.  When a bird hit the ground it would fly back up the the top of the wire and slide down again.  The only respect people have for these birds down here is their numbers.


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