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January 22, 2005

Alice Springs

In the Alice Springs K-Mart the tannoy announced two minutes left on the plastic Christmas tree discount sale. It was the end of January in the middle of the desert and shoppers were piling them into their trolleys. My mind boggled until I stepped outside into the 40 degree heat and then all I could think about was getting to the next air-conditioned place. I felt like I was being slowly roasted alive. I don't understand how anyone could live in a place where for much of the year it's too hot to walk anywhere, where if you got lost without enough water you could dehydrate and die in a matter of hours. To each their own, I suppose. But it wasn't for me.

Bettina and I had a look around the town - which is quite frankly a hole - and then sat around by the pool. We stayed at a hostel called Annie's Place, which had a great cheap restaurant. I visited the Desert Park, which I'd heard praised by everyone from our train driver to David Attenborough. It was good to see rare nocturnal creatures like bilbies, and interesting to have the variety of desert landscapes pointed out, but I found it a bit overpriced. Or maybe I was just cranky from the heat.

I'd intended to explore "the Red Centre" under my own steam, but again, it proved impossible to visit the places I wanted to see as the Greyhound doesn't run to Kings Canyon or Kata Tjuta and only goes as far as Yulara. So I booked myself on another tour - three days around the Centre and then three down to Adelaide. As part of the deal I was given a free night at the Heavitree Lodge just out of town. I took a shuttle bus there and spent the day lounging by the pool with Petra, who was in my room and booked on the same tour. I met a guy called Dave in the laundromat who'd won the MTV reality show "Road Rules," and was travelling off the returns he'd made from his investments with the prize money. We watched the rock wallabies and kangaroos come down from the mountains at night and went for a beer in an empty bar. When they started stacking the chairs and hoovering around us, we figured it was time to go.

Posted by Rowena on January 22, 2005 11:59 AM
Category: Australia
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