Alice Springs

After leaving Erldunda we drove north to Alice Springs, stopping at Stuarts Well (home of Dinky the singing Dingo) on the way to give the girls a surprise camel ride! They loved it, and really enjoyed patting the big camels and the cute baby one. At Alice we looked around the Araluen Cultural centre with its Aviation Museum, gems, fossils, and animal Museum with some interesting meteorite crater history, and also took in the wonderful paintings of Albert Namatjira and other indigenous artists. Had a lovely day out driving and exploring the amazing Standley Chasm, Simpsons Gap, the old Telegraph Station and even took a drive out Hatt Rd to Pine Gap, well, within about 200 metres of the entrance which has all these ominous looking signs saying "turn around now!" and $7000.00 fines etc. We then drove into a nearby recreation reserve to get some pics and video of the locusts (big ones) and as we left, the Federal police (from Pine Gap) had followed us and wanted to see our licences (to make sure we weren't terrorists, or spies, or????? who knows?). Needless to say, we didn't get a guided tour of the Top Secret US defence facility. One thing you do notice in Alice is the groups of indigenous people sitting around with nothing to do and no purpose in life, very sad...

Tony