Gettin' High over Alice Springs

I am so knackered it's untrue! We've had a really packed last couple of days in Alice Springs, trying to fit everything in which we wanted to do. And we've spent an appalling amount of money.

Yesterday was the one day we would have a chance to have a lie-in for a long time, but out of habit we woke up about 7am, which was annoying for a few minutes, but then we realised it meant we wouldn't be wasting our day. Woo hoo. We walked into town to do some much needed food shopping, and on spotting some strawberries we decided to indulge and get them to have with some cream for after tea! We had a brief stroll around the main shopping area of the town, then came back to make a packed lunch.

At about 11.30 we trekked 3km in the blazing sun along a "comfortable shady bush walk" - whatever! - to Alice Springs Telegraph Station, the reason for the appearance of the town in the first place. It was built in 1872 to act as a booster station for messages going along the Adelaide to Darwin telegraph lines, and with it's construction came the ability for Australia to receive messages from Europe in a few hours, rather than a few months by sea. We sat outside the visitors centre to eat our packed lunch, and got attacked by the local birdlife! There was one bird that was really cheeky and kept perching on the table next to me, and it just wouldn't shut up either! Tweet-tweet! Tweet-tweet! for the whole time we were sat there. The station was nice and peaceful though, until a coach-full of American tourists turned up! There was one guy with a video camera doing his own commentary, and every time I walked past him I had to dodge out of shot, like he had no perception of anyone else who might be trying to enjoy this bit of history! Honestly. We got back to the visitors centre around 2.45 and enquired about bus services, as the walk back wasn't very appealing by this point, to discover that there was no bus, unless we wanted to attempt to hitch a ride with the Americans. So we toyed with the idea of being really lazy and calling a taxi, when the lady behind the counter said: "Well I'm going to town now to pick my son up from school, if you want a ride?" How kind!

She dropped us off at ANZAC Hill, a large mound just outside of the main shopping area that takes about 2 minutes to walk up, and where a memorial stands to commemorate the bravery of past Australian and Kiwi soldiers. The views from the top were truly surreal - from up high you can see the surrounding desert of Alice and it's isolation becomes really clear. It really is a large town slap-bang in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Walking around the town, you don't really sense it, but from up there it gets quite scary just how remote Alice really is.

When we came back from the hostel and made some tea, I was browsing the book exchange shelf, and came across a book entitled "A Guide to Good English in the 1980s". It's absoutely hilarious. I would write you an extract if I had more time. The guy who writes it is just so dry, you can't possibly take it seriously, but I get the feeling that it might just be, like a guide to silly English words for foreigners. It's quite an enjoyable read anyway. I also enjoyed my strawberries and cream then rang Nanny and had an earlyish night.

This morning we got up at 4am, because we had booked a Hot Air Balloon Flight! (Extravagant I know, but I'm going to be going into my overdraft in a couple of days anyway so in for a fiver in for a special, that's what I always say!). Our pilot, Charile, had the bushiest beard I've ever seen in my life. We drove along a long gravel dirt track past the airport to get to our take-off site, and there were loads of kangaroos that kept leaping in front of the bus. I was praying that we wouldn't run into one, and we didn't, but it was really nerve-wrecking. Here most people are more bothered about the damage in does to their cars, it happens so often. Once we got there, there were about three other balloons setting up. We had to tip the basket over, and me and a Canadian girl had to hold the balloon open while a really powerful fan blew air into it. When they let the gas go (after we'd let go of the balloon of course!) we all jumped, it was so loud! Then we had to crouch into our compartments in the basket whilst it was still on it's side to prepare for take-off. They let the gas go and it was really hot, and eventually the air was hot enough to pull the balloon and the basket up. When we started to rise I didn't even notice until I looked at the floor and it was moving! It was so smooth you couldn't feel the movement! We eventually rose to about 7-800ft. It was a lot of fun and very enjoyable, but unfortunately we'd picked a really hazy, dusty day - we didn't even see the sun rise through the dust, never mind the mountains or the town in the distance. We did, however, see a lot of trees and sand! And an oil refinery. Landing was a bit bumpy, and the basket slowly tipped over as we did so (which I think is expected).

We also had to pack the balloon up, and in doing so we got chatting to a couple of the girls off the flight. They turned out to be 13 and 14 on a school exchange trip. How jammy! Then we went for a truly bizaare yet delicious breakfast at the Heavitree Gap Outback Lodge. This consisted of fruit, hot bread and butter, a croissant with ham and melted cheese in it, a chicken leg (?), champagne, coffee, and a blueberry muffin with squirty cream, chocolate chips and a cherry. Hmm.

When we arrived back at the hostel, it was only 8.40, and the plans for the day were to buy some hiking boots (as we're going to be doing some 'challenging walks' in the next couple of weeks so we needed some really), visit the School of the Air and then the Desert Park. So plenty of time, or so we thought. We've pretty much been non-stop all day! We asked the guy at the hostel reception where was the best place to get some boots for a reasonable price, and he suggested K-Mart, on the other side of town. Well, I don't think women in Alice Springs are particularly reknowned for their hiking because K-Mart did not stock ladies hiking boots, nor did any of the other shoe shops in Alice Springs! So we had to go to a proper camping shop and ended up shedding out about 40 quid for some. So it wasn't even 10 o'clock and I'd spent $300. It was so depressing.

We thought that with all the trapsing around looking for shoes we would be running late with the rest of the day, but we got back in enough time to catch a cab to ASSOA, or Alice Springs School of the Air. This was a smaller building than I imagined, but a truly remarkable institution, set up in 1951. It is basically a school in the style of a radio station, which broadcasts lessons to children across the outback who live on cattle stations or other remote locations. They have a broadcast range of 1.3 million square kilometres, and at the moment there's about 12 children to each grade. They also organise one week a term where the kids come into Alice Springs and meet each other, have sports days and swimming lessons and stuff. Unfortunately, we'd arrived on one such week (we do pick our days!) so we didn't get to see a teacher broadcast a lesson. The staff were really friendly and informative though, and they say that some third world countries are developing their own schools of the air, which I think is a grand idea. At the moment though the system is unique to Australia. We saw a map while we were there actually, which shows that you can fit the UK, Ireland, Germany, Texas, Japan and New Zealand into Australia, and still have loads of room to spare, so it just goes to show how necessary a school such as this is when some of the pupils live over 1000km away.

After catching the bus back to town and making some dinner at the hostel, we go the shuttle bus to Alice Springs Desert Park. This was more of a reserve than a zoo really; based at the base of the West Macdonnell Ranges Mountains it recreates different desert habitats and lets you take a look at the different flora and fauna that inhabit the desert. I didn't actually think there was much living in the desert but it turns out there is! They split it into three different habitats - Desert River, Sand Country and Woodland Habitat. There were all sorts of birds there, and we went to see the Birds of Prey presentation in the afternoon which was pretty cool. They also had a waterhole habitat where there sat a fake guy in half a pick up truck called Leo, and once you pressed his button he rambled on for hours about waterhole wildlife. Boring! They had a fantastic diurnal and nocturnal house though, where loads of little rodents, geckos, reptiles, snakes, bats and insects were displayed, and they even had a Thorny Devil, a little lizard with thorns on it's skin that I've been dying to see. They also had a kangaroo and emu enclosure that you colud walk around in, which made my day!

So there's my time in Alice Springs. And even that's in a nutshell! Tonight the plan is tea at Melankas (so I can use my free meal voucher!) and then an early night with a bar of chocolate. I probably won't be posting for the next few days, cos we're staying in really remote places and I don't know if they'll have internet. So my next post could be from Adelaide. We'll be in the following places:

Tomorrow (Friday): Kings Canyon - lots of walking and mountainous terrain!
Saturday: Uluru - aka Ayers Rock
Sunday: Coober Pedy - opal mining town which is predominantly underground, as is our hostel for that night!
Monday: Rawnsley Park - more walking I think, as it's in the Flinders Ranges
Tuesday: Parachilna - pop. 5, or 3 in school term as 2 of the kids go off to boarding school, so really out in the sticks!
Wednesday: Adelaide - church capital of Australia!

I'm going to go and have a cold shower now, cos this room has no air-con and I'm sweating buckets! Hope everyone is ok at home, take care!