1 November 2011 - G’Day Mate Tourist Park, Alice Springs, Northern Territory

With the caravan still shut up after the cold rain last night, we slept even later than the morning before. This does not bode well with the few rules we have set for our retirement. Without routine and some self-discipline one’s life is just chaos and is certainly not indicative of how our life has been to get where we are today.

Having said that, with the temperature still in the teens, it was indeed very pleasant to rise and breakfast later than normal. Puddles still lay about on the roadways within the park but the flood waters lying about the caravan last night had drained away. All around us, fellow campers were busy drying their tents and awnings. We felt very lucky to have the shelter of this lovely caravan.

We decided to make the most of the improved weather and head for the Alice Springs Desert Park, a tourist attraction well recommended in publications, by fellow travellers and by David Attenborough himself. This is situated just a few kilometres west of Alice Springs on the road through the West McDonnell ranges.

It was just before 11 am when we arrived and just minutes before a special presentation entitled Aboriginal Survival in the Desert. A lovely part aboriginal young woman showed us some of the plant products that can be gathered from the desert and the tools and utensils that were in use in more traditional times. We were disappointed that she was not of more local Arrente heritage instead of her mother being of the east coast tribes, because she used hearsay in much of the instruction rather than personal experience, but we did enjoy her presentation immensely.

We spent over five hours at the Park and enjoyed every minute. The park is divided up into sections; the Woodlands, the Sand Country and Desert Rivers. Throughout the park are aviaries full of wonderful birds. One particularly delighted us; a Chiming Wedgebill who had the most melodious song, but we did agree that if it were outside one’s bedroom window in the morning, it could seriously risk being exterminated.

Southern Boobook Owl

The Nocturnal House was just amazing; full of lizards, dragons, snakes, goannas, bilbies, bandicoots, bettongs, western quolls, bats, hopping rats and a host of other small critters. The light was arranged as moonlight. It was the best collection of nocturnal I have ever seen.

From there we were in time to enjoy a wonderful display in the amphitheatre where the staff spoke about and handled gallahs, a brown harrier, a southern boobook owl and a black kite. These birds flew over the audience of forty or so before returning to their trainers. It was all very impressive and a wonderful opportunity to see these birds closeup.

We spent the last twenty minutes watching an excellent film shown on a huge screen which rolled back at the end to reveal the rocky range; the back drop to the park.

We were back in time to bake the meat loaf I had prepared this morning, pay for an extra couple of days and prepare our picnic for tomorrow’s expedition.