Alice Springs

I'm glad to say we made it to the Northern Territory.

We also made it to Finke River for a free nights stay before driving to Alice Springs, it's a great little stop over, plenty of water, heaps of space (because it does get busy) and one hole in the ground.

                                       

It only took a couple of hours to get to Alice and we were glad we got up early, most of the caravan parks book out here by about 2 p.m.

We headed to the visitors centre first to try and get a grasp of the place, it was a bit bigger than the little places we had stopped on the way, I mean it has a Coles and a Woolworths!

There were a heap of people at the visitors centre and whilst it was a great place for pamphlets on just about every subject you could imagine, although the people who worked there weren't full of the information one would hope when entering a visitors centre. 

We grabbed a list of caravan parks and before driving around gave them all a call to check prices, we also didn't want to stay too far out of town just in case we found work.

There were three or four near the Todd river just past the Gap, even though close together, the prices were extremely different at each park.

We decided to stay at the Heavitree Gap Resort which is the closest to the gap and town and is also a fair bit cheaper than the others alongside it at $28 per night for a powered sight, all the amenities are really good here as well, lots of hot water and a good little laundry.

We got a great place under the tree's and set up our little home.

Above are some of the pictures we took just outside the caravan park at the Todd river.

We have been here over a week now and are starting to get used to it, we do have some noisy neighbours though, as the Todd river is a sacred sight to the Aboriginals and it seems on weekends mainly that they like to spend the night screaming at one another. 

It keeps us amused and they are usually done by 11p.m and don't start again until about 3 p.m, but like I said it's mainly on weekends.

The town of Alice is the second largest town in the Northern Territory and is on the Northern side of the MacDonnell Ranges and seems to be getting to busy for it's own good.

Brenton gets frustrated driving around as it's always busy and you can never find a park. We have realised it's better to park slightly out of the main town area, you can pretty much walk everywhere in about 20 minutes so it's better for us anyway. It's about 4kms into town on our bikes from the caravan park which is also a bonus.

These pictures are taken from the top of Anzac Hill, we are staying straight down that road at the very far end where you and see the gap between the ranges.

Every night at sunset at our caravan park you can go up the back and feed the rock wallabies that come down expecting a nibble.

The caravan park also has a tavern out the back that has $10 meal nights, we had the fish and chips which comes with a salad, such a bargain and it was the best fish and chips we have had since we left home!

There is plenty to do around Alice Springs for tourists, lots of walks and sight seeing.

We headed up to the telegraph station which marks the original site of the first European settlement in Alice. 

There are plenty of walks that leave from here, short half hour walks and even a 2 or 3 day walk on the famous Larapinta trail.

We chose to do the 4km Bradshaw walk through the rocky shrub-lands, it was a really nice day perfect for a stroll, and we even spotted a Kangaroo, not that it stayed around for long!

You can just see the roo at the bottom in this picture.

And here he is hopping away!

It was a great first week and to top it off I got a job, so we will be here for a few weeks saving a bit more money, not that Priceline pays all that well, but its better than nothing! 

Brenton is still looking but no doubt he will enjoy his alone time or hate it and annoy me at Priceline every five minutes!

We are off to Ayers Rock for a few days before I start though so the next blog should be a bit more exciting.

xxxxxxx