The Vacation Day 6 - Alice Springs


The next day in town my folks took us out to some of their favorite places. First the Desert Park.
It was packed full of different exhibits, native animals, and birds. You simply cannot believe the huge variety of birds that in Australia. Big, small, most of them brightly colored. And birds of prey. Huge Golden Eagle, small, quick Hobbies. I remember watching a documentary on the Disney channel when I was younger about the wide variety of life in the desert. It's not a joke.

After the park we went to Standley Chasm for some lunch and a nice hike. All I can say is that it was a beautiful and relaxing place. And that when you order chicken tenders there, you need to tell them how many tenders you want. Otherwise you just get one.

Next back in to town for my favorite bit. Shopping. We went to several places, including a souvenier stand where I picked up some Vegemite (more about that later), and then off to The Gem Cave. The Gem Cave is a local store in Alice that specializes in opals. Now opals aren't particularly popular here in America, other than for folks with October birthdays. After having seen the opals in Australia, I think I've figured out why. Such a huge variety of colors, sizes, shapes. It was truly amazing. And amazingly expensive. Opals are extremely good in Australia. They also extremely popular. Maybe in South Africa diamonds are incredibly expensive as well. I thought the closer you got to a source, the cheaper it would be. No such luck. But, thanks to sweet, wonderful, kind, good, loving, (is that enough dear?) Andy, I got a lovely pair of earrings, that everyone here seems to think are turquoises. Since that's the color of the opals I got.

Returning back to the house we rested and cleaned up and then got on the way out the door back in to town for a Didjeridoo show. First dinner out, at an Italian place naturally. Then to the Moonlight Dreaming Theatre where we watched a local (now a friend of my Dad's) play about 20 different types of Didjs. Incredible just about covers it.

A few things I forgot to mention about our first night in Alice:
We went to a hotel/campground that backed to a large hill. On the hill lived a large colony of Rock Wallabies. The hotel sells bags of alfalfa pellets that you can then use to feed the wallbies. So we did. It took a little convincing to get them down off the hill, but once they came up and grabbed hold of your hand with their paw, they weren't about to let that food get away. Paws with surprisingly long claws I might add.

Also that night we drove out of town off road, away from the city light (what little there was). Out there we saw the stars. Not like you see them here in DC. I mean we same them big bright and in person. There is definitely a Milky Way up there folks and it is gorgeous.