effundo

Alice Springs

Hello all

well i currently in Alice Springs which is in the Northern Territory.  We flew out on friday morning and picked up a rental and booked in, and from then on it has been non-stop

we have three nights in Alice, on our first day we booked into motel, then headed out to a place called Simpsons gap, which was very funky, lots of walking and lots of photos but was really nice.  Its about 60km out of town, to the east.  Alice is real flat but surround my lots of mountains (sorry about the lack of usual detail but time is money and this is on the go!

After that we then drove round town to get our bearing which was nice and then climbed anzac hill in town.  After a long day we decided to crash out, but before we did we booked oursleves on a hot air balloon flight for sunday.

Saturday morning we headed out to the Alice Springs Desert Park where we spend a long period of the day, watched a live bird show, had a bunch of guides talk to us about snakes, aborginal history and survival, plant life and watched a long film (so i'm not really selling it, but it was a park it went around the various deseret climates which are found in central australia, was alot of fun, yes i am a geek!)

then that afternooon more walking and we headed over to stanleys chasm, which is an awesome chasm through a mountain, its vey indiana jones esq, but less sand, more rocks and more hills to walk up.  Some friends recommended we headed out here and i did enjoy it! We both did i should say! Once again we took lots of pic but haven't been able to post any up (sorry they will follow!)

saturday evening we headed out to a local resturant (the name i forget) but both amelia and I tried Kangaroo steaks, the tour guide from the park recommended that if you ever have kangaroo to eat it meduim, as anything more is like chrewing on boots! But have to say it was cooked really well, and we both like it!

So today (sunday morning) we both had an early start 5:15am we were pciked up from outside our accomidation and we drove out about 30mins out of town and have an hours flight in a hot air balloon followed by breakfast!  And i have to say that it was AWESOME.  First thing it was bittetrly cold (about 2oC) and sun rise was around 7ish, which we were in the balloon for! The weather was perfect, clear skies and only not too heavy winds.  Wasn;t sure what to expect but was so very gentle and peace ful (expect for when they used the burners but you soon got use to it!) they were big 8 person + pilot balloons, and to see sun rise and just all the wildlife out in the bush at 2000ft was a great experience I do recommend it!

After that we headed into to town and walked round the market and shops 'doing the tourist shopping!'

not sure what our plan is tonight but we are off to uluru in the morning as we only have 2 nights there we planing on starting early and hopefully on the road by 6am!

we have a dinner under the stars booked, amelia wants to walk the base. And i would like to climb the rock (if we allowed) also may take a ride on a camel but i hear they spit......

sorry this is a bit rushed but the cash is running out, hopefully when back in Sydney have a chance to post in more detail plus pics!!

take care and love to all!

--
Jon Garner: Human Kinetics with great gluets

posted by Jon @ Sunday, August 13, 2006