A Town Called Alice

We left Melbourne and headed to Alice Springs which is located almost in the dead center of the continent. Once there, we headed straight out to an “Outback Dreamtime Tour”. We had lunch in the Outback and were given a great over view of the Aborigines history and culture both historically and today.

The tour finished with a group of Aborigines women who sat and painted original artwork. There they were sitting on the ground, painting away. Pretty cool! Pictures were only allowed if you purchased a painting with the artist to show authenticity. (of course we purchased.. really neat!)

Interesting thing about the Outback…there are small flys (like our house flys, but smaller) that hover around your head. (Yes we were given head nets to wear, but we didn’t wear them) Luckily, they don’t bite, but just go at your ears, nose, eyes and mouth. The reason they do this is because of the moisture. Australia is the 2nd driest continent on Earth (after Antarctica).

Water is scarce and mostly found only underground. In fact, every year, they have a boat race in the Todd River here in Alice Springs which consists of people who have boats with the bottom cut out and they run along the river bed in a race. In 1995, the race was cancelled because it rained and there was water in the river! (Yes, we listened to our tour guide) 

We then visited the Alice Springs Desert Reserve where we saw a live Birds of Prey show that had all kinds of hawks fly around outside (never could figure how they made them do all those things as it was completely outside) We saw several kangaroo’s just lounging around. We got pretty close to the point we could almost pet them.

We finished the day at an Outback Barbeque in the middle of the Outback sitting under an outdoor canopy. They made fresh bread, served several types of meat including Kangaroo (yes, we tried it… not bad, just a little tough). They played many Australian songs (sounded a lot like Irish songs) that made the night fun.

There was an astronomer amongst them that took us for a short walk in the “bush” so we could see the star filled sky. It was amazing. The Milky Way was so prominent. He explained a lot about the stars and planets from an Australian view. The East Star stays low on their horizon so it is rarely seen; just as the Southern Cross sits too low on our horizon to really see it. There was no North Star or little/big dipper as it’s not in view from here.

What a fantastic day!  Thank you, Lord!