Surrounded by BATS!!!!!!???!!!!!***!!!!!!

 

Happy Australia Day !!! We arrived here on Friday night after being on a plane for four hours from Darwin, it's hot here but not too hot so it's just right. The first couple of nights we were here we stayed in a hotel room and from then onwards we've been staying at a friends house, they have two boys and live in an apartment with a huge pool. We have been into Chinatown which is very busy and Little India which is much calmer and quieter. To get to both of those places we rode the MRT which is an underground train. For meals we have been eating out most of the time and accasionally sitting at the table. I hope everyone is happy and having lots and lots of fun:). As for me well I'm stuck with my Mum and Dad for a year.

We had to leave Alice Springs but we all agreed that it had been a great 4 days there. We visited the Devils Marbles and continued North to Tennant Creek on another hot central Australian Summer's day.
Tennant Creek was friendly as we met some other guests at the motel and had a few drinks and a chat about Summer in the centre.
On from Tennant Creek we had a great day moving in to the Tropics, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn and having an awesome pub lunch at Daly Waters.
There are photos etc but technology got the beer of me yesterday so the photo page has my latest updates.
We arrived in Darwin and are staying with old neighbours from Canberra. They have the best DHA house I have ever seen with a great pool and all the mod-cons. Great hosts also so our Darwin visit has been very relaxing.
tomorrow we fly to Singapore and we all agree that we have a real feeling that the trip proper will start from there.

 

Leaving the Olgas behind we found a redder looking rock to view on our way back through and then headed for Erldunda and the Stuart Highway again. Once heading North we detoured to the Hendbury Meteorite craters, 4,000 year old craters formed by a meteorite (as the name suggests) that broke up on entering the Earth's atmosphere. Whilst the meteorite broke into bits no larger than a 44 gallon drum, at 40,oookm / hr they made a fair impact and it was worth the 30km detour to see them.
We crossed a very swollen Finke Rv and arrived in Alice Springs early afternoon. As with Coober Pedy there is a bit of a culture shock when arriving in a central Australian town. However unlike Coober Pedy, I think I could really enjoy living in the Alice. For Julia and I it seems to contain the lifestyle and characters that we experienced in PNG over 10 years ago when living in Lae.

Below there are a couple of pics of The Olgas and Molly in front of a camel. Eventually we worked out that behind the dune there were actually a lot more camels! 

After being fortunate enough to see it raining on the Rock, we got up early to see the Sun rise over the desert. This was a little less spectacular as there was some cloud cover again and ultimately the viewing areas at Yulara are the wrong side of the rock to see any effects of morning light on it. However it wasn't raining so our chances of seeing a red rock later in the day were good!
We drove out towards Kata Tjuta and along the way saw a wild Dingo that was at full speed running alongside and then away from us. Molly was very excited as it is her favourite animal! We were all impressed as it was very healthy looking with a nice pale red coat and had a look of excitement and joy on it's face.
Further along Molly somehow spotted a wild camel up on a sand dune so we stopped to watch it for a while. Then Julia noticed several heads poking over the dune from the far side.