Touring Alice.

Today we decided to view some of Alice. 

We visited the School of the Air,RFDS, and the desert nature park. 

Very interesting and Michelle really understood the importance of both services to people of the outback. We did the night tour of the desert park to see the Bilby which we did get to see. It was great also.went back to the beanie fest for photos too.

Hello from the beanie fest. What a great event thought it would be bigger, but still great. I have attended 2 workshops. 1 st felting, then   2 nd surrealist tea cosy making. Both very interesting and fun. Today we did our bit of volunteering for the 3 rd time, bought another beanie for Michelle. Went out for tea with the other beanie volunteers and had a great time talking to Vivienne and Nicholas Ryan. Took most photos on the main camera so non to add here.

Alice Springs

The last 3 nights we have been out of phone range.

Travelled from Coober Pedy to Curtain Springs. 

 We went to see Ayers Rock but only did the short walk ,it was raining, the climb was closed, not that I was going to attempt it. 

Thursday michelle and I went to Kings Canyon and yes we walked the 6km rim walk which was hard work but so glad we did it. Michelle was a great help checking I was ok all the time . It took us about 3 1/2 hrs.

Today we arrived at Alice Springs. Very sore legs from yesterday's climb. Attended our first workshops at the beanie festival, great fun. 

Michelle made her 1st campfire  whilst free camping, toasted marshmallows too. 

I don't know why Michelle has to take pics side ways!!!

Day 4-Coober Pedy

Today was a good day! Today we went a lot of places. We went to two different church's they were both underground the name of the first one was Catacomb church. The name of the second one was Serbian church. After looking at the church's we made our way to the next thing that took our eyes this was noodling. Noodling isn't what you might think it is, noodling is when you search through big big piles of dirt and trying to find opal, opal is a crystal that comes through as many different colours but may look like one color. So during our finds we thought we may have found some (opals) so after we thought we had found some we took them to one of the opal shops. The man at the opal shop we had meet before so we thought yeah let's go back to him. But as we pulled up there were four aboriginals sitting in the car park. As we parked the car they started to walk toward the car. As they were about to open the car well intact as they were walking to the car my daughter Michelle started to yell "mum don't open the door, stay here don't get out!" So I started to start the car thinking now we will have to find somewhere else to go. So as we drove off they started yelling things at us, we drove to the next opal shop were the guy was very very nice! He checked over our opals for us to see if they are good and he said only two parts were opal. That was a bit disappointing but oh well. The man pulled out a opal to show us and as he did he gave it to Michelle to keep. I asked him if he could make it into a necklace for us so he did, we payed for it and he gave it to us! So despite all our troubles we ended up with a good thing then came home to have tea and shower. Tomorrow we are back on the road to airs rock! :) 

Day 3 heading to Coober Pedy

Left Port Pirie about 8.30am. We stopped at port Augusta for some shopping then the long road ahead. Km.s of scrub and nothing much else to see! Not even much wild life. Lunch at Pimba. We arrived on dark at Coober Pedy. Weather cool but fine no rain. Looking forward to a days rest tomorrow apart from looking around here.

 

Day 2-

Today we had a bit of a later start then what we wanted witch was about 9:30/10:00. We drove to the fruit quarantine place we were asked to hand over any fruit before crossing the boarder (we had no fruit). After that we keep driving before we had a stop for fuel were we came across these bikes that my sons Nick and Mark had rode when they were younger on a holiday. After all of that we keep driving and on our way we drove past a huge eagle! Michelle thought that was really cool. Also we came across a big silver sparkling horse. We were going to try and reach Port Augusta but we were getting very tired so we have stopped at Port Pirie for the night.

 

Day 1-yesterday

Yesterday we had a 8:30 leave from Euroa, we drove to Gunbower as our first stop for fuel and toilet. After that we made our way to keep driving to Mildura. On our way we had one more stop then keep going to Mildura. Once we reached Mildura we meet Les just about 10/15min from the place we were staying witch was at Reg and Fran place(Les and Lyns cousin).
When we got there Les and myself (Liz) parked the car and the van then connected to there power, got the heater going to warm up the van and then headed in to the warm house for some tea and coffee. 

Getting ready to go,

Van is almost packed,just a few last minute things to do. Michelle and I are getting excited now it is only 3 days away. 

I have done everything possible mechanically I cn do,so here's hoping nothing major goes wrong. 

We are the envoy of our friends to be doing what we are about to do.

AND SO THE CARAVAN ADVENTURE BEGINS !!!!!!!!!!