Monday, 26 February -- Perth to Alice Springs

We were up very early and off to the airport for our 6:05am flight. Alice Springs Airport is pretty and easy to navigate. We found the hotel shuttle, driven by Gavin who entertained us all the way into town, and soon were at the Aurora hotel. It's very well-situated, near the downtown, so we went for a walk and found a place to have an outdoor lunch. It's very hot here in the outback, and the flies are seriously annoying.
An aboriginal movie company was filming in front of one store, so we stopped to watch for a bit.
Back at the hotel, we had a very annoying 3-hour wait for our room to be ready. We kept being told "housekeeping is in there now, it'll just be a few more minutes", and  meanwhile 2 busloads of tourists arrived and were instantly given rooms, presumably the ones we'd been promised. Finally, someone new came on duty and immediately gave us a room. It definitely had deficiencies, but by then we didn't care. After a short rest, we went out and bought a few groceries and beer. That was dinner in our room.
Our evening at the desert park verged on magical. Four of us with two guides walked in the dark through the part of the park where the nocturnal animals live, wearing red head lamps. We saw many animals, some right up at our feet. Most common was the Echidna that is reminiscent of a porcupine and reminds me of something to clean mud off boots, not that I would clean my feet on an animal of course. There were also a couple kinds of wallabies, two types of bettongs, bilbies, bandicoots, and stick-nest rats.
The other two guests gave us a lift back to town.
More Photos of Alice Springs and the Night Desert Tour

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