Australia Day 5 - Alice Springs

Frank and I were ready for breakfast at 6am, unfortunately the hotel restaurant didn’t open until 6:30 so we sat and watched the rain (again, more rain in the outback!), ate our breakfast (which we were disappointed to find out was the same fare as the previous hotel in Cairns), and picked up our bikes.  We had about a 7km ride to the Simpson’s Gap trail which was 16km to the gap.  As we rode out of town I was struck by the idea that Alice Springs could easily have been any reservation town in the American Southwest.  The Aboriginal people in Australia have been treated much like our Native Americans, a culture which can’t live like it used to but doesn’t live after the manner of its subjugators either, it lives somewhere in the middle to the detriment of both the memory of what it was and the what they could now be.  Sad.   It was overcast and rainy the whole way out there which was awesome; it was pleasantly cool and the flies were minimal.  About every 2km there were informational signs to read and rest at.  The gap was picturesque as the sun was just peeking out from behind the clouds and we started the return trip.  I thought up and put on some sunscreen on my arms for the ride back but totally neglected my legs, a mistake I paid for the entire next week.  That sun is brutal and my legs were really red!  The whole trip took us about 4 hours and even in spite of the sunburn, was totally worth it! 

After a delicious carb loaded lunch we met up with the rest of our group for a bus tour of Alice Springs.  We saw the Royal Flying Doctor’s museum, the ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) Memorial (which provided a great view of where we’d been earlier that day,  the School of the Air, and the Old Telegraph Station.  That night we dined on local game (kangaroo steak, camel sausage, crocodile bites, and barramundi filets) at the hotel restaurant where we again watched the rain come down.  A half a bottle of aloe vera gel and an Aleve before bed – I didn’t move until morning!