Central Australia- Alice Springs part 1

We flew into Alice Springs after stopping in Melbourne overnight, courtesy of Qantas.
It was an amazing week, and I still pinch myself to think that we have been to this awesome place. Firstly we were surprised by the green landscape –we were expecting a red dust bowl. One of the airline hosts told us that the residents needed to buy lawn mowers, and after using them only 3 times they are sick of them.
Secondly, It was around 28-30 Celsius. Pretty comfy, nice temperature for us Aussies. I thought to myself, this is easy to cope with.
So we hit the ground running, trying to fit in as much as we could in every day we had in this outback place. So we needed invested the help of The tourist info for some very helpful advice. We viewed the Alice from Anzac Hill and could see the West & East MacDonnell ranges. Massive. We were asked by the hire car company, not to drive on dirt roads, so it meant lots of roads were unavailable to us. We just would not risk the insurance, if something happened.
It was suggested to us to drive through the East of ranges first, as we only had the afternoon. Amazing dry riverbeds was where- the gorges had their backdrop.
Next day, we took the Lippinjita Way and drove for about an hour or more, to reach the furthest Water gorge, Emmersiton, that way we could drive back slowly and see each sight, knowing we were driving toward our destination. It made sense at the time.

Before we did this, we needed to get food supplies, so while the other family attended to this, we chose to see the School of the Air. It was very interesting and the staff where very helpful. As most Aussies are aware, it was set up using the radio, by a nurse working for the Flying Doctors, now it is all done via internet satellite dishes now. The teachers have 138 students all throughout Central Australia, including 3 aboriginal communities. The students get private teacher time, class time and tutorial times on the air. I am so glad we took the time to see this.

The waterholes were full as it had rained in the last few months. It was cold and deep, but did it stop us lot, NO. Dermot & brid had a ball in the water, with rocks edging into the water. We saw an Ochre supply- where the Aboriginals got there ochre for their ceremonies to paint themselves with. There are so many different colours. We were asked not to take any from the walls, but there was some on a concrete path, so I dipped by finger to the dusty surface and pressed in into Brids' nature journal.