Ailce Springs (Simpson's Gap and Owen Springs)

DAY 15 – ALICE SPRINGS                                                                               Sunday, 17^th July

Sunday morning pancakes!!  Beautiful!!  The kids loved it!  They cook up about 700 pancakes every Sunday morning as an encouragement for everyone to “meet and greet”.  It is so nice to meet people from all over Australia and hear their stories and especially pick up any hints on where to go, or more importantly, where not to go!!

We said farewell to the Parsons (they have damn well hidden the “bad luck charm” somewhere in our van or car and we can’t find it!).  We will miss them.  It has been great being able to share good times with them and the kids have just loved the Parsons kids!  They are off up north to Darwin and we probably won’t catch up again as they are doing the trip slightly quicker than us.

Off to Simpsons Gap for us which was a short ranger guided walk – very interesting.  Then we meandered around the Gap ourselves, trying to find rock wallabies.  The River Red Gums are absolutely stunning, arising out of the dry river bed.  The colour of the rock in central Australia is so interesting.  It is actually a grey colour but what you see on the outside is a magnificent red colour which comes because of the high iron content in the rock, mixed with the water and oxygen, forms a rust-like exterior.  I don’t think my photos are going to do the colour justice at all!

After Simpson’s Gap, we went down to Owen Springs where the very first cattle station lease was granted in the 1870s.  There is not much left of the original homestead now, but my husband was so excited to do his first bit of four-wheel driving.  We did about 50 kms through the West MacDonnell Ranges including creek crossings (OK, so there wasn’t much water – but we still didn’t get bogged in the sand!!).  Hubby was in his element.  He even let the wife drive for some of the way – I think it was a bit of a turn on!!

After coming back to Alice we had a walk through the Todd Mall and then the caravan park had a man playing and teaching the didgeridoo which was fantastic.  Off to the Youth Mass at 5:30pm where we saw Fr. Elio Capra!  Such a small world.  Kids were absolutely exhausted today.  Too much partying with the Parsons, I suspect!  We need to have about a week of early nights!!  Off to Hermannsburg tomorrow!