Day three - Alice Springs

Day Three – Alice Springs

Afternoon! We’re off to Ayers Rock, or Uluru as it’s also own, in just a few minutes. We’re in a hotel in Alice Springs at the moment, and both of my parents, as well as my brother, are taking a nap. We saw a kangaroo on the way to Alice Springs, and it was huge! But that didn’t make it any less cute; it was completely adorable. It was standing still on a green meadow, with a baby kangaroo in its pouch. I’m hoping to see more of them on our way to Ayers Rock, as well as animals such as the wombat.

I found a computer at the hotel, so I took the liberty to find out some more information about Ayers Rock, since I couldn’t sleep. I found out that it was created over 600 million years ago, and that the Aborigines have been in the area for the last 10 000 years, if not even longer. The name, Ayers Rock, was given after Henry Ayers by William Gosse in 1873, although it is more known by its Aboriginal name Uluru. Ayers Rock is, surprisingly, not the biggest monolith in the world, even though it’s 3,6kms long and 1,9kms wide. It is Mount Augustus in the territory Western Australia that holds that title.

We’re planning to come back to Alice Springs just in time to take the private tourism train, The Ghan, up to Darwin. It was the man we met back at the Snowy Mountains that told us about it, he even told us that the train transports hired cars and bikes. It is supposed to be a tourism train from Adelaide to Darwin, but apparently it stops at Alice Springs as well. It isn’t quite like we planned, but it’s quite okay since we’ll be able to rest in the train and at the same time save up time so we can stay with the Aborigines longer.  

 

It is rumoured that you can look up and see the stars at night in Alice Springs, because it is a city located in the biggest area in the world without lights. Hopefully I’ll be able to see them when I look up from the train, as we’ll still be quite close to Alice Springs when the night falls.  

It is also rumoured that Darwin, which is the Northern Territory’s capital, is the only capital in Australia where you can cross the main street blindfolded at any time. I love remote cities so I can’t wait until we arrive at Darwin, from what I’ve seen so far Alice Springs isn’t as remote as I thought. It’s quite overpopulated really compared to a small city like Tumba, which is about one quarter of Alice Spring’s size.

The inhabitants of Darwin are known for drinking a lot of beer, which is quite acceptable since it does get quite hot in the outback. They are on the other hand also more open-minded and are known to speak what’s on their mind. Since Darwin is such a small town, big parts of it can be discovered without having to drive a bike or car. Which is why we’ll probably take long walks throughout the city, with the Aborigines of course. It might actually even be one of the easiest cities in the world to get around in!