On our first morning
in Alice Springs we had a relaxing buffet breakfast, then quickly went to pick
up some groceries to make lunch before we met Leanna and Daniel for our local
tour of the area at 11am. It was great
to see Leanna (friend from my last synchro team) for the second time while in
Australia.
Our first stop of
the day was Ellery Creek Big Hole, about an hour west of Alice in the
Macdonnell mountain ranges. I had been
really excited about going for a swim in the outback, until we got in the water
and it was freezing cold! Despite that I
was determined, so off we went through the cliffs for a beautiful private
swim. Our timing was perfect because
once we got out the sky got cloudy and about 15 people showed up.
My first international double ballet leg! Thanks Leanna! |
Next we went to
Simpson Gap, which looked similar to Ellery Creek Big Hole but had almost no
water.
In the later
afternoon we walked up a hill in Alice near Daniel's house in search of
kangaroos. We had no luck with that
which was unusual, but the views were beautiful.
Our last stop was to
feed the rock wallabies at 5pm. They
were wild, but quite tame and knew they would always get fed at sunset so they
come off the rocks and entertain the tourists.
Quite a few of them had joeys in their pouches, so we got a few glimpses
of the babies.
Not feeling too
adventurous, we decided to eat another amazing dinner at the hotel because we
knew it would be great. Not surprisingly
we had another early night, but our excuse was that Daniel had planned a
sunrise hike for us.
The alarm went off
at 5am the next morning and we headed down for breakfast at 5:30. Unfortunately we misread the time and it
didn't open until 6am. We also forgot
our key in our room, and the hike got cancelled because of lightning. We waited for breakfast to open since we were
already awake, then went back to bed until 10am in hopes that a second try at
the day would be more successful.
Ryan and I did some
window shopping at the Todd Street pedestrian mall, and I think now we both
have a better understanding and appreciation for some aboriginal art. I always love going to art galleries with
Ryan because it's fun to compare our favourite pieces and see what we both
like. After a much needed cup of tea on
a rainy day we met Leanna and Daniel for lunch at a nice pub (that Daniel used
to work at...oops).
Our indoor
entertainment for the afternoon was the little local reptile museum, which was
far cooler than we expected it to be. We
got up close to a massive crocodile, then we got kisses from a blue-tongued
skink, hugs from a python, and had fun with Jessie the bearded dragon.
It really did give kisses, but no matter how hard I tried, or how many kisses it gave Ryan, I couldn't get the blue tongue in the picture. |
We said goodbye to
Leanna (who is visiting us in Adelaide again this week) and went back to the
hotel for another glorious dinner. We
knew the menu back to front by this time, so this was the ultimate meal. In yet another food coma we watched a
documentary about the Big Bang theory, and they kept showing clips from the
Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, which was both neat and nostalgic.
For our last buffet
breakfast I was really looking forward to indulging in some pancakes, but as it
turned out they only had those on weekends.
I was very disappointed and had to gorge on chocolate mini muffins instead. What a shame!
Before our flight we
went back to the Todd Street mall to see some stores that were closed the day
before, then headed to the airport to conclude a wonderful trip to Australia's
Red Centre.
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