Alice in Flyland

Trip Start May 22, 2005
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Trip End Jan 22, 2006


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Flag of Australia  ,
Sunday, December 11, 2005

From the Gold Coast we boarded a plane to fly to the centre of Australia.  84% of the Australian population live on 1% of the continent.  As we made our way from the coast to the centre we could tell why--a large portion of the continent consists of harsh red desert.
 
We arrived in Alice Springs--or Alice as it is affectionately called by the locals.  Alice was historically a city built on the telegraph line and then became an important military base.  Now it appears to be a sparsely populated small town that survives on tourism.  To be honest Alice, was a little depressing.   The locals seem to shuffle around in the heat without much purpose and alcoholism is apparently a widespread problem among the citizenry.
 
In Alice we picked up our rental car for our road trip through the Red Centre.  We haven't driven for months and in Australia you drive on the other side of the road.  Suffice it to say there were some hairy turns and attempts at parking on that first day tooting around Alice.  After spending about five minutes seeing the centre of Alice we made our way to Anzac Hill which we climbed in short order for some nice views of Alice and the nearby MacDonnell Ranges.  We then stocked up for our road trip and went to bed early in order to prepare for our drive to Kings Canyon.
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