Living next door to Alice...Alice Springs!

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Hi all,
So we survived another long train journey - only 25 and a half hours this time but seemed longer than that what with being woken up at 1am by a screaming baby two rows behind! Besides that though was another great journey and we woke up this morning (after getting back to sleep when the baby finally shut up!) to the Real Outback. But it wasn't the red desert we expected - apparently they have had abnormal rain fall in the past couple of weeks leaving the landscape the most green it has been in ten years (according to our train speaker woman). Still some great views though! And we had lots of fun trying to find big rocks out of the window and pointing them out as being Uluru.
Arrived in Alice Springs this lunchtime and got our free shuttle to the hostel, which is really nice in actual fact and even has two swimming pools. And also, apprantly, an alien landed here in October 1996. Whether or not it was ET is yet to be confirmed but there was no sign of any bicycle so maybe not.
Took a walk into the centre of Alice and bought some authentic australian hats :D didn't take long to walk there despite being on the outskirts of town because the whole "city" is in fact no bigger than Penkridge, and there are a lot of Aboriginal people who live here too. Very sweet little place.
One of our highlights is tomorrow when we go to see Uluru/Ayers Rock, can't wait!
Love to all,
The Bears xxxx

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Photos

Outback from our window
Greener than it's been in 10 years!