Our second stay in Alice is as busy as our first. This time around we visit the Royal Flying Doctors Service and School of the Air museums; take a day trip into the MacDonnell Ranges; attend a didgeridoo lesson that is so encouraging, we buy a didg for ourselves; tour the many galleries of aboriginal artwork (before snapping up a canvas from an artist exhibiting her wares on the sidewalk); Sam and Rikki enjoy another girls outing – this time cycling into town early one morning to stock up on fruit; and the Saturday Todd Mall Market and Sunday morning pancake breakfast both get an encore performance.
Meanwhile back the caravan park we treat ourselves to an ensuite site; treat Sam to a new premium juicer as a belated birthday gift; treat our tastebuds to the magic of using tempeh for meat-free spag bol and tacos; the kids – with their bulging wallets - treat their unsupervised selves to a few games too many down at the park’s Games’ Room (near-empty wallets henceforth confiscated by mum); and in what is arguably the greatest treat of all, Sam discovers an adult bath on site and manages to sneak away for a long, late night soak.
Less auspicious is time we lose Jack in the shopping mall - about which we won’t say much – and the time that Budge’s nasal congestion forces Sam to sleep in the car – about which we’ll say even less. Neither drama comes close to casting even the smallest shadow on our ace Alice experience.
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| Impromptu jam session at the end of our didgeridoo lesson. No prizes for guessing which Bihary student showed the most aptitude on the didg. |
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| At the Royal Flying Doctors Service museum. |
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| Every new kid we meet has their own shtick. This kid's mum was a facepainter. Terrific! Of course the kids tired of their new faces waaaay too quickly and snuck into our ensuite to wash themselves clean, leaving a grey, soggy mess of toilet paper, finger-prints and foot-prints in their wake. Not terrific in the slightest. |
