Our arrival in Alice Springs wasn't quite how we planned it. We actually ran out of petrol about 1km from the nearest petrol station on the edge of town, after only filling up what we thought was the exact amount of petrol we needed to get us to Alice at the last Roadhouse (C'mon! It was $2.12 a litre!).
Never the less, after an initial stumble, we found Alice Springs to be a nice little country town, with plenty of great Aboriginal art galleries, a bunch of coffee shops (Gloria Jeans, too!!), a few shopping centres and a cinema, where I dragged Luke to the Sex and the City movie (You can take the girl out of Sydney, but you can't... arh, you know the rest!). Oh and it had one of the best caravan parks that we have stayed at - the MacDonald Ranges Big 4. In the shadow of the MacDonald Ranges, it had a cool games room, roomy and grassy camping sites, great facilities and a free pancake breakfast on Sundays (even though we had to wear a daggy name badge and line up like school kids for our supper), this place was camping heaven.
The local markets are on every second weekend and are really worth a look. There's a mix of fresh food, crafts and a lot of the local Aboriginal artists sell their works directly to the public. It's in the Todd Mall, which is a paved pedestrian strip with a bunch of cafes and restaurants and shops that spill onto the sidewalk.
But my favourite place in the whole of Alice Springs was the Olive Pink Botanic Gardens. Founded in 1956 by Miss Olive Pink, an amazing woman who is still remembered in Alice for her community work. The Botanic Gardens aren't that big and contain a lot of desert plants, so they look a little bare and arid, but we were lucky enough to visit after a local outdoor sculpture exhibition had just opened, and it was fantastic! The artworks were all made out of recycled products and were so interesting. Such a highlight!
Yours in the great outdoors,
Odette
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