Blogs from Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia, Oceania - page 14

Well as I sit in bed writing this blog, it’s FINALLY raining! Not just a spit & a promise like usual, but REAL rain! I’ve flung open all the doors, and the smell is amazing. After 200+ days of dry, hot, baking weather (we’ve had many days over 40 in the past few weeks), the parched earth, dry sandy riverbed and baked concrete & dust are finally getting a soak. Bring it on! And luckily for me it’s arrived on a day I have off work so too can soak up the event….I’ll just keep an eye on those obvious water marks on Molly’s ceiling, all things pointing to a bit of a leak here & there. As you can probably guess, Jeff & I have been living in Molly’s house (now Phil’s house, must get ... read more

ALICE SPRINGS Hope everyone is ok I know, I know you have missed reading what we have been getting up to in the outback but unfortunately I could not update you as yes you guessed it we were in the outback. So here goes on the outback adventure to see Uluru (Ayres Rock to us Poms). Just to give you a bit of background on this trip first to set the scene (hey, I am getting good at this writing thingy - next I could be writing best sellers) I booked this tour over the internet and then realised it said it is mainly backpackers who go on this trip up to the age of 45 - Yes you guessed it we are a lot older than 45. So I e-mailed the tour company and explained ... read more

Geo: -23.7004, 133.881Spent my last hours with Alice before I had to say: "Goodbye" to her ;) In the afternoon I packed my bags to travel with Ghan for the next 20 hours. The Ghan (formerly known as The Afghan Express) is actually a transcontinental passenger train, named in honor of the Afghan Camel Drivers of the 19th century who helped to find a way through the country's unexplored interior. Verbrachte meine letzten Stunden mit Alice bevor es Zeit war: "Auf Wiedersehen" zu ihr sagen ;) Am Nachmittag packte ich meine sieben Sachen um fuer die naechsten 20 Stunden mit Ghan zu reisen. The Ghan (ehemals The Afghan Express) ist eigentlich ein transkontinentaler Personenzug, benannt nach den Afghanischen Kameltreibern die im 19. Jahrhundert halfen, einen Weg durch das unerforschte Innere Australiens zu finden.... read more

In typical style it has been WAY too long between blogs! This one finds us settled down in Alice Springs, working our tushies off and saving some dough to continue our adventures. But first we should tell you about our journey down from Mataranka to this beaut town of Alice. Firstly we have been absolutely amazed by the amount of thermal activity in the top end of Australia. By this we mean natural hotsprings, thermal pools, basically pockets of hot water just popping up out of the ground. As you probably guessed we fell in love with Douglas Hotsprings south of Darwin, so we were thrilled to discover there were 2 more thermals to explore around Mataranka. We stayed at a caravan park at Bitter Springs , camped right on the river with a fireplace and ... read more

Alice Springs has always been somewhere I wanted to see. When I was little, I used to love the old TV shows like “The Flying Doctor” and of course, “A Town like Alice”. Usually the problem with having a romantic notion of a destination is that it never quite lives up to expectation. In the case of Alice Springs I feared that would be the case when I first arrived, however by the time I left I was captivated by the harsh rugged landscape and marvelling at the stunning scenery. With a small population of around 25,000 residents, the town centre is fairly small. From my hotel, it was around a twenty minute walk to town, along the bank of the Todd River. This sounds very scenic and pretty, however at this time of year is ... read more