Back at Alice Springs

How nice not to have to get up with a rush this morning.  After we were up, showered and ready to greet the day, we took ourselves off to the restaurant for a leisurely breakfast.  After paying an over the top price for breakfast in Uluru, we were happy to pay half the price here at Alice Springs.  (Note to self – stop eating the prunes!) 

View of the Hotel

We are spending the next couple of days here at Alice Springs, so have a little time to check out the teeming metropolis of Alice Springs before boarding the Ghan to continue on to Darwin.  Our first job was to find a chemist.  I had been suffering from a sore throat and barking like a seal for days, but am feeling a little better now.  But I had passed my germs on to Robin, who was feeling a little sick and miserable.  Now armed with Panadol, Strepsils, and a large box of tissues, we are all prepared. Feeling poorly on holiday is not new, and is known as “Leisure Sickness”, the germs are probably helped along by the air conditioned planes, trains  and coaches we have been travelling in.

There was a sign post in downtown Alice Springs.  Most of the signs were pointing one way, but our old home town of Wellington is off that-away by itself.

Show me the way home to Wellington

Alice Springs shopping centre is full of art and tourist shops, cafes, pubs, banks, an Info Centre, supermarket, Todd Mall shopping centre and lots of little shops tucked away down an alley or two.  The town seemed very busy, with crowds of people sipping on coffees outside in the sunshine.

Down town Alice Springs

With most of the hotels situated across the usually dry Todd River and a 20 minute walk away, we decided to to save our legs and take a taxi.  No sooner had we arrived back when the heavens opened.  Perhaps the Todd River has a little water in it now.  Does it often rain this hard in Alice Springs, we wondered?  We had always thought of it as a very dry place.

Hotel swimming pool glimpsed through the rainy window

Surprisingly, there is more to see in Alice Springs than we realised, so we have booked a half day tour for tomorrow.  Let’s hope the rain has stopped by then.