The Alice

And the story continues....

After the Great Ocean Road we enjoyed a long morning at Jens' house. I was still jet lagged and he had just driven all day and all night, we both needed sleep. In the afternoon we took the train into Melbourne and enjoyed an evening in the city. We walked through the city a bit and Jens played tour guide. We took the street car to St. Kilda Beach where we ate some dinner and just enjoyed a nice evening. Then we took the bus out to the airport (we were flying in the morning) and spent the night in a cheap hotel there. Good thing we were so close to the airport because we both woke up late the next morning and had to RUN to the terminal. Just to keep things interesting :D Anyway, we made it there in plenty of time. No worries.

Our flight took us to Alice Springs "The Alice" or simply "Alice", a small city near the middle of Australia. Here I saw the red desert Australia that I had pictured in my mind. And the heat!! Air conditioning was definitely a necessity here. Walking around you will maybe see a few groups of Aborigines but you won't find anyone else until you get to the shopping mall where everyone is taking refuge from the heat. In Alice we went to "Rex's Reptile Zoo" where we heard, and held, some of Australia's reptiles. They even had a Python which you could "hold" but I wasn't about to put that guy around my neck!! Jens and I also went for and evening camel ride. Apparently Australia has a very, large population of wild camels. They were brought to Australia to be used as pack animals and they have thrived. Camel fact: there are only two kinds of plants which camels cannot eat.

From The Alice we took a tour out to Uluru and Kata-Juta. We left at 6am in a big tour bus with a very nice group of only about a dozen, and our two tour guides. The drive was about 5 hours one way and as we drove we also past the Finke River which is thought to be the oldest river in the world, and which rarely actually has water running through it. Along our way, we also passed through Erldunda, the closest town to the center of Australia. These are just some of the facts and information we were given throughout the day by our tour guides. They had lots to tell us about Australia, the wildlife and the vegetation. Some were interesting and some not so. For instance, The Alice only gets 2-3 days of rain in one year, approximately 110 inches, 9-10 of which evaporates. We happened to be experiencing one of those 2-3 days of rain.

Before we actually reached Uluru we stopped and the Culture Center to read a bit about the Aborigines and to eat our lunch. Then onward to Uluru and Kata-Juta. We made many stops for photo opportunities all afternoon as one of the spectacular things about Uluru is the way it changes color and the daylight changes. We also had opportunities to walk around Uluru and Kata-Juta both. We kept an eye out for snakes though while we were walking, Jens was hoping to find one and I was hoping not to!! Interesting fact about Uluru: it is actually turned on its side (the rock layers run vertical) and you only see approximately 4/5ths of the rock while the rest is buried underground.

Our day at Uluru ended with a delicious meal prepared by our tour guides, complete with wine and champagne. We ate there all together with Uluru as our view watching the sun go down. We didn't quite get the perfect sunset photo that you might find on the postcards, but it was beautiful.

Christmas Day in Alice Springs was quiet. That's an understatement actually. Of course because it is Christmas Day everyone should be at home with their families. I've never thought much about it because I've always been at home with my family, but when you're staying in a hostel over Christmas and you would like to go out and eat something somewhere, don't go to Alice. After walking all over the town and finding absolutely nothing open we finally found one little cafe where we could eat. They had a lot of business that day, being the only place open.

From Alice we traveled on to Sydney!!!