Saturday 4th of June
Two family birthdays today. Happy Birthday to Jack, the big 10. Hope you had a great day mate. Wow double figures already!!! and also Happy Birthday to Christel’s Mum Riet, the big ??? Without giving too much away, let’s just say you are only 60 years older than Jack. Hope you had a great day also.
This morning we went into town to get a new battery for the computer. It had to be ordered from Melbourne or somewhere. Anyhow it arrived OK and only cost $160. Ouch!!! Then we had a walk around town and a look in a few shops. Boy, are they geared up for the tourists here. ALICE is a lovely town where everything looks new. We looked in several book shops for Talking Books for Cameron but didn’t find anything we wanted. Then we bought a few groceries before heading back to the camp for lunch.
After lunch we wandered across the road to the aviation museum which was part of the Cultural and Arts Centre we had visited earlier. They had about half a dozen planes housed in a couple of hangers, most of them to do with Connallan Airways, which was the original Airline based at Alice Springs.
After that we spent a few relaxing hours back at the caravan before tea.
Sunday 5th June
After a session of School Work we headed out to the Australian Transport Hall Of Fame on the southern outskirts of town. This is basically a museum dedicated to the trucks that helped establish inland Australia, and is the biggest collection of trucks in Australia. It was huge, with a great collection of trucks of all sizes and ages.
They had several trucks of which only one or two were ever made. One of these was the Russian Designed but British Built Rotinoff Viscount. These were purpose built for the Vestey Family, who at the time owned huge cattle stations in Western Australia. Only two models of this truck were ever built.
Once again there was smoke coming out of Cameron’s camera, and lots of “Far out, look at the size of this monster”. After an hour or so Christel was getting a bit ‘Trucked Off’, so she went and had a cuppa while Cameron and I continued taking photos. They had one huge shed dedicated to Kenworth Trucks, with some beautiful examples of this famous make of truck.
As we drove away from the museum we came across an earlier form of transport coming along the road. Wouldn’t this be a great way to see Australia?
After lunch back at the caravan, we headed out to the Alice Springs Desert Park, which had been listed as a must see. The park occupies about 25 hectares of desert about 5 km out of Alice. At reception we were given earphones and a radio, and at various points around the park it gave us an informative talk about the different aspects of life in the desert, and how the various animals and plants adapted to the environment in order to survive. There were also several enclosures with birds and wildlife that normally live in the different areas of the desert. It was very interesting and informative.
At the end of the walk we were entertained by a free flying show of the different birds of prey that live in the desert. It was absolutely incredible as these birds flew in and swooped around our heads before getting titbits of food from the lady doing the presentation. An incredible educational experience, accompanied by lots of oohs and ahhs from all of us.
Then it was back to camp for tea and to plan tomorrow’s trip. After 5 days in Alice Springs it was time to move on towards ULURU.
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