Home Away from Home

Our camping spot

Here we are at the Transport Hall of Fame camp ground.  Yes, it's dry and baron on the ground but incredibly we are parked under a gum tree!! I had no idea there would be so many gums in the arid part of Australia. As the ranger explained they are able to adapt by growing well during periods of rain then they can drop limbs when droughts cause them issues.  (Hopefully not while we are parked under them!)  And of course we aren't that far from a major river bed which is where the trees grow.  It's quite spectacular to look down across a landscape and see the trees winding their way seemingly randomly but then of course you realise they are following a river course that just happens to be currently dry.  It's also fascinated me how much the landscape is affected by the power of the water when it does flow.  This was really apparent as we traveled the Ernest Giles Road.  Some times you would see deep ruts created by the long gone fast flowing waters and other times you drove through deep spots of sand. 

Our Ernest Giles Safety Inspection No.1

View of blue moon from our camp spot

Last evening I took this shot of the full moon from just beyond our 'back door'. Alice Springs fascinates me as a town. Today as we stood on Anzac Hill it gave us a much better sense of the town, a spread out area surrounded by rocky hills with a massive dry creek bed running along the edge - not like anything else I've seen before.  As you fly into both Cairns and Dempasar you fly over a range just before landing but both of those are lush and tropical.  Not so, Alice Springs.  However the temperature is warm, the people friendly and there are new sights every day. When you look hard you see plenty of color thanks to the amazing array of Australian flowering plants.  And our ears today rang with constant bird calls as we wandered through Desert Park animal sanctuary.  The nocturnal animal house was a highlight for both of us.  It was great to see the Mala, an animal we'd been told about by the ranger at Uluru.  And we managed to arrive at feeding time for the Thorny Devils - two tins of ants, yum yum!