If you don’t believe us about snow in the desert with the temperature at 106° just look at the pictures. After stopping to view Mt. Connor, a huge Mesa, we hiked a sand dune and there it was…. A pristine snowfield. Actually a dry salt seabed as central Australia used to have a giant inland sea millions of years ago.
We drove over 250 miles in the desert today from Ayers Rock to Alice Springs. In addition to the Honky Tonk rest stops, billed as resorts, we were approached by an Emu and saw wild camels roaming the desert. Yes there are over a million of them here and the Aussies are not all that pleased about it. Otherwise the landscape was pretty barren and we went for miles and miles without seeing another vehicle. They do have “road trains” down under though. These are trucks towing up to 4 full sized trailers behind them fully loaded. Passing them was an adventure on this one lane high speed highway.
Arriving in Alice Springs the topography is more that of an oasis, although the town seems to have a lot of aboriginal poverty. We went to the Museum of The Royal Doctors Flying Service. Basically this service serves all of the outback (millions of square miles) and is the only medical care available. It is headquartered here. Saw incredible birds all over town including Cockateals and Parrots. For dinner we went to a local grill and after prawns on the Barbie appetizer Cheryl and I shared a bush mans plate…kangaroo, camel sausage and locally grown accompaniments. It was delicious.
Back to civilization tomorrow as we fly to Melbourne.
FANTASTIC!!!!
After nearly 11,000 hours of command flight time I’ve never seen such an unusual parking job of an aircraft. HOW DEY DO DAT???
Fred
Easy after a few beers at the pub. When we return we will show u how!