SUPERMARKETS - SUPPLIES

If you are travelling by camper van or by caravan you will need to get supplies. Alice Springs is a larger town with a full range of shops and services. KMart, Coles & Woolworths Supermarkets are here. Woolworths Supermarket also has Liquor sales, but note that in Alice Springs you can't buy cask wine until after 6pm and then only in a 2 litre cask. Any alcohol sale require photo ID to be presented no matter your age or race. Also note there are time restrictions on the sale of alcohol. See attached photo. Stock up on beer in Alice Springs if you intend going to Kings Canyon. A slab (24 cans or stubbies of beer) costs about $45 in Alice Springs, in Kings Canyon it is $80.
Uluru has an IGA Supermarket with a smaller range than the bigger supermarkets in Alice Springs. Fruit & veges in Uluru looked poorer in quality than at Alice Springs and it wasn't until the IGA Supermarket in Coober Pedy that we found excellent quality fruit & veges. Most likely due to the closer trucking distance from Adelaide.
At Uluru if you intend buying meat for a BBQ dinner, do so in the morning. We found that in the afternoon the selection was pretty poor with only a few pieces of meat left from which to choose.
Most Road Houses & larger petrol stations also stock food / alcohol / supplies but you will pay a premium price for this convenience.

FLIES

The Flies are real friendly and seem to ignore most fly repellants. The only way to stop them from buzzing around your face is a net that fits over or under a hat. These Nets can be purchased cheaply at most Road Houses. You may think these are not really a fashion statement & that you look a dork, but don't worry as a lot of people wear them when out on a walk, so you won't be on your own. Plus they work!

MOBILE PHONES

Mobile Phones - basically you are not going to have any mobile coverage service apart from in and around main towns. Telstra have the best coverage but it didn't take too far out of Uluru to loose coverage, no coverage at The Olgas for instance. Might explain the emergency radio stations around the Park. If traveling in a convoy portable UHF radios are handy for communication between vehicles. If you are using the main sealed roads, don't worry about no coverage, if you break down you won't be left too long before another vehicle comes past.

PETROL

Petrol / Diesel is readily available anywhere along the sealed highways. Not usually any more than about 350 kms between Road Houses / Petrol Stations, often less.
Beware of fuel contamination and only fill up at the larger Petrol Stations. Cost of the fuel can vary markedly from the price in Alice Springs. Kings Canyon was the dearest fuel stop we found at approx 60c / litre more expensive than Alice Springs. Surprisingly, we found the fuel cost at Uluru to be reasonable.
Opal Brand is the local fuel seen at many stops. Opal is a variety of low-aromatic 91 RON unleaded petrol that was developed to combat the rising use of petrol as an inhalant in remote indigenous Australian communities.

CASH

Cash is King. Everywhere we went throughout Central Australia, EFTPOS & Credit Card facilities abound. However note that the whole of Uluru, plus other remote communities I would imagine, are kept in touch with the outside world by microwave link. You see a landline phone at the shops, but it is linked back via wireless technology. And this is where you must carry a cash reserve with you.
In Uluru, the microwave link was down for almost 1 day when we were there.
Judging by the pre-made signs that appeared in shop windows & at cash registers, I suspect that this is not an isolated problem.
No mobile phones, no land line phones, no EFTPOS, no Credit Cards, no ATM's. Can get embarrasing if you fill up with petrol, only to discover that Cash is the only form of payment.
A Cash Reserve comes in handy for times like this.

WHAT THEY DON'T TELL YOU

Starting out - Maybe the Blog should be renamed - What They Don't Tell You!
Having just arrived back home from a road trip from Alice Springs, Kings Canyon, Uluru, Coober Pedy back to Melbourne via Flinders Ranges, I thought I would put down some information for the traveller that we found wasn't readily available on the Net.
We did as much planning as we could with reading blogs, travel forums, researching web sites, obtaining brochures etc, but found out stuff on the way that they didn't tell you about.
If we had known about these things we would have been better prepared for our trip.
By committing this info to this Blog (before I forget) then there will be a record for my next trip through the Red Centre and it may even help some other traveller.