Stuart Lodge Ywca Alice Springs

... and violin skills. Someday they will probably be great street entertainers but not today. A young girl likewise will someday be a great chanteuse but today she just had a nice little girl voice. Still, I couldn't do what they were doing so I admire them for trying and getting out in the public to practice their skills. A few guitars along the mall and a digeridoo. Also for sale were bags, hats ...

... spent a couple of hours doing our own laundry and then had to take a taxi back to the hotel to drop off the clean clothes. Ah, the years of experience and more money is certainly a nice passage of time. Clean clothes are wonderful as well. And extra nice to be able to laugh about the prior laundry episodes. I wonder if my daughter laughs about our Rome laundry dance yet. Maybe I won't check.

... up and around the canyon rim, in amongst the domes, and down into the canyon where palms grew in a little sheltered oasis around a freezing waterhole at the bottom of the sheer sandstone cliffs.

Of course, we couldn’t visit the red centre without visiting Uluru or Ayers Rock, a huge monolith that rises up out of the flat desert plains, visible from miles away and looming high overhead when up close. Being only bare ...

... nothing else around them.

Onto Watarrka (Kings Canyon) National Park to do the canyon rim walk. After a steep climb up a 100 metre high cliff face, we skirted the canyon's rim for some great views of the canyon, the cliff faces and layer after layer of rock formations, that looked like stacks of pancakes. We then walked on to the Garden of Eden and a rockpool which has prehistoric cycads around it. The final section of the walk, we winded our way ...

... le bus), on arrive à notre lieu où nous allons coucher pour les deux prochaines nuits. Après un diner fajitas (remplis de n’importe quoi comme des betteraves et des pois - ça doit être une version australienne), nous avons pris la direction de la montage « The Dutchmen Stern» qui fait partie du Flinders Range National Park pour un hicking d’une dizaine de kilomètres. Assez abrupte comme petite côte, mais intéressante par son « wildlife » tout au long du ...

... and semiarid landscapes but water is never far away. Animals such as kangaroos can dig a few feet down, wait a couple of minutes and water will fill the hole. So why would they dig a hole when small lakes are nearby you ask...a pack of dingos can corner them at the lakes and these small holes can be dug behind cover with 365 degree escape routes. An aquifer under this entire vast area feeds all the plants and wildlife. In fact ...

... extend it right on up there. Eventually he ran off, too, since these miniature kangaroo like things don't particularly like humans I am told. Yeah, he was all brave at a distance but couldn't handle the heat when I told him I was giong to snap that paw off in a second. My journey was just awesome A list stuff the past 24 hours...French Delight at 4am, some Scottish drama at tea time, and the bird from a wallabee. If that's not the perfect ...

... can hear is you heart beat in your ears! The next thing you think is that it’s hot! Then you say WOW to the views – this is before you even get to the highest point. From then on the walk became easier – well there were a few exceptions, but the views became even more amazing. All in all we walked about 4 hours in the sun, and the total path was about 5km. You can look at the Facebook pictures to see for yourselves.

We stayed in the ...

... leaving at 6am and my friend had kindly offered to give me a lift – which she did - in her pyjamas – hope she didn’t break down on the way back!

And so to Alice Springs in the red centre of Australia where I had booked to go on a 5 day camping trip – no tents just sleeping under the stars in swag bags so that was going to be different from anything so far.

Flight went via Melbourne and all went well and on time. I had a window seat but I ...

Nico's working all the hours god sends at the moment, which is great coz we've got some good money coming in and he enjoys the work, but he's getting soooo tired with having to get up at 3am to work on the hot air balloons, then at 9am til 5pm he goes to work at his boss' house to help demolish and restore it, and then he comes to the Desert Park at 6pm to work behind ...