Australia #6 - The Red Centre - Alice Springs, Northern Territory

After a few days in Perth we flew Qantas to Alice Springs, a small Boeing B-717-200, essentially a commuter flight with no amenities like entertainment! Our flight is only 3 hours but it continues on to Darwin, and the passengers with experience flying this route have laptops loaded with movies or other entertainment to keep them amused.

Todd River, after a 15 minute walk in the early morning heat. If you see water in it 3 times, you qualify as a resident! Notice the water level marker - because the ground is so dry substantial rain, when it does occur, can result in flash flooding!

Elevated walkway, also to cater for flash floods. The start of the main part of town can be seen at the end of the road.

When brightonbonnie asks where the cutlery is to eat our wonderful lunch of chicken, sun-dried tomato and leek pie the flight attendant shows us how to open the cardboard box and eat it like you would a hamburger. Initially the flight attendant must have been thinking 'Canadian tourists are so odd', but when things quieted down she came back to ask us about our trip and Canada, which her Mom wants to visit. And near the end of our flight, when the pilot announced that winds had unusually taken us over Uluru, she took us to an empty row in business class where we could see The Rock from 30,000 feet - absolutely amazing!

Todd Tavern, originally the Riverside Hotel, was designed by the famous Northern Territory architect Beni Burnett, as were many other buildings, in the l940s.

The rather bland, very small and very hot pedestrian precinct. There are some other interesting buildings in Alice and a self-guide tour is recommended. We were glad, due to the heat, to find Todd Mall, a reasonably large indoor mall with, thankfully, AC! Although there are a few aboriginals in this shot you should avoid taking their picture - due to their beliefs street photos of them and close-ups in particular will not be welcomed.

Alice Motor Inn - from the 1950s!

We had booked a day tour to Uluru with a highly recommended tour company, Emu Run Experience, and they included accommodation at the Alice Motor Inn, an older motel. Our initial impressions were not good! Like most rented accommodation the air conditioning isn't on if the room isn't occupied, and it was 40 Celsius when we got off the plane, almost that much in our room! We turned on the air and went down the street for a few hours to drink very cold beer, and when we returned the room was slightly cooler - we survived that first night because brightonbonnie realized the bed was on wheels, and there was enough room to move it so we were directly in the AC airflow.

Our bus, half-way to Uluru.

Ultimately we enjoyed our stay at Alice Motor Inn, run by a wonderful couple who are renovating it in stages, particularly since Tony the owner turned out to be one of the tour driver/guides, and James, the other driver/guide, has been 'adopted' by Marilyn, Tony's wife, who looks after him very well indeed! But if you want up-scale, there are plenty of hotels in Alice Springs to choose from - we are happy we got to experience the way it must have been back in the day.

Mount Ebenezer Roadhouse on Lasseter Highway. According to our drivers 'the best espresso on Lasseter Highway, the only espresso on Lasseter Highway!'

And the only washrooms too! Both very welcome on the 5 hour drive out! But we start to encounter the flies that are so prevalent - they will only get worse at Uluru!

Typical Red Centre desert. We pass through 8 cattle stations, the largest 100 km square, or 100,000 acres, 10 acres required per cow.

Are we there yet? No - this is not Uluru, but Mount Connor. Still a couple of hours to go.

Join me for my next post - we will definitely continue our visit to Uluru!

Thanks to @benfenson for watching over my Oz posts!

!steemitworldmap -23.698230 lat 133.880580 long Alice Springs Australia d3scr