Australia Day 4 - Travel to Alice Springs

Frank and I took in another run along the Cairns Esplanade, enjoyed breakfast, and then headed to the airport with the rest of our group for the flight into the Outback.  What an amazing difference stepping off the plane.  We went from thick dense humidity to dry creosote scented air, I loved it.  We checked into our hotel in Alice Springs, which offered an hour of free WiFi, (WooHoo!) and then Frank and I set out to explore a little and figure out what we were going to do tomorrow morning while the rest of our group was at an optional excursion we opted out of.  Alice Springs is a town of about 30,000 people in the Outback of Australia and is the major hub for people exploring Uluru and the interior.  That basically means it is a small town and there really isn’t too much to do there unless you are really willing to look.  We went over to the tourist information building and told them we needed an activity to partake in the next day.  They suggested a site seeing tour of the town.  Sounds great except that our whole group was engaged in that very activity in the afternoon of the next day.  We needed something to do from about breakfast until 2pm.  We decided to rent bikes and see about taking them out to Simpson’s Gap (about 50km round trip).  After overcoming the English language barrier to discover that a sealed bike path means it is paved we figured we could tackle Simpson’s Gap the next day.  We squared everything with the rental company and then walked in the rain (yes, rain in the outback) around the shopping area of the town.  Overcame another language barrier but not in time to keep from looking foolish in front of the clerk who wanted me to “log in” my necklace to be repaired.  I finally figured out she wanted  me to put in on the books with them and leave it there overnight.  Sorry, couldn’t do that as our stay there would be short.  We found a bookstore and got a Waltzing Matilda book for the girls and discovered a whole range of Usborn “that’s not my…” books I’d never seen before.  I was tempted to buy them but opted to take a picture instead and then search for them later on Amazon.  That night we ate at Bojangles, a local pub with the rest of our group.  My pub burger had a fried egg on top of the meat, it was surprisingly tasty!