Saying good bye to Alice

Alas it was time to say good bye to Alice and we were all a bit sad to go including SV who sought solace from Richie. At the airport she enjoyed a babycino which is quickly becoming her drink of choice before a flight. SV's 41st flight went very smoothly with not even a cry. She managed to entertain herself and even catch a bit of a nap.

Hand feeding Rock Wallabies

There is a place in Alice Springs where wild Rock Wallabies come down from the hills in the dusk and allow themselves to be hand fed. On a recommendation from Mat and his friend Pauline we went to see for ourselves and sure enough there were quite a few of them feeding as well as one big Red Kangaroo. SV was excited to see them, and liked when other people hand fed the wallabies, but she was a bit scared. Towards the end she almost fed one from her hand, dropping the food at the last second. She had fun though.

Ellery Big Hole

On our return to Alice Springs we hung out with Uncle Mat who suggested that during the day we go to Ellery Big Hole for a cool dip in a natural waterhole which is a favourite among the locals. When we got there we had the place all to ourselves, but soon a car full of teenagers came. They ended up being ok and we all kept to ourselves. SV was not a hundred percent sure about it, but had fun playing in the water anyway. It was a pretty spectacular location and we enjoyed the swim. Plus it was only about an hour drive which was a nice change compared to 4+ hours some of the other days.

New Year's Eve at Kata Tjuta

After a nice nap we woke up and headed to Kata Tjuta for a sunset. We were not disappointed, the sun and clouds cooperated and gave us a nice show for the final sunset of the year. Of course there were still plenty of flies although luckily they didn't bother SV too much. You will probably have seen them in some of the photographs from the last couple of blog posts. We managed to make the most of it though. After getting back to our accommodation we put SV to bed and watched a film before heading outside to catch the fireworks and bring in the New Year with some bubbly.

Spiderman and other goofiness

After an great sunrise KT and Richie did a hike around Uluru which was a nice 10km walk, although it was really quite hot by the time they finished. TV and SV were originally going to do part of the walk but a certain kid fell asleep. Eventually they did a short walk but the sun was pretty strong so they decided to stay in the car and play with the fly nets. SV started calling them spiderman hats and had a great time with them. Eventually the two walkers made it back to the car, can you spot them in the fourth photograph? We all then went to the cultural centre to cool down and learn a few facts before heading back for lunch and a nap during the hottest part of the day.

Uluru sunrise

We woke up around 4:30 to go catch the sunrise at Uluru which is sort of the thing to do there. We managed to get there just in time to watch Uluru start to change colour and go through it's daily transformation. This is our third time and it still looks amazing. SV was interested for a while but eventually she got a bit tired of it and made her own fun. Of course as soon as the sun came up so did the temperature and we had to make a quick retreat to the shade for some snacks.

Sunset over Uluru

At least that was the plan. Unfortunately it was not as good as we hoped because the sun didn't break through the clouds to really light up the rock as normal. Didn't really matter though because we still had a fantastic time having a good laugh. All of us were in a good mood and made the most of it. We probably ended up with more photographs of SV than Uluru itself. After a while SV figured out that the sandy ground was like a giant sketch pad and she started drawing all over the ground. She even started making requests for such things as a triangle giraffe and a square hippo.