Alice Springs

We flew from Sydney to Alice Springs (4hrs). The Alice, is in the center of Australia. It is referred to as the Red Center as it is desert and very red sandy soil. The land was inhabited for 40,000 years by Aboriginals and was first visited by white men in the late 1800's. The town was set up as a single line telegraph station between Darwin(north) and Adelaide (south). the town is quite remote and has a population 25,000. We met many Americans as there is a military base communications base here, as well as many American tourists. The first night we went to a dinner to learn about aboriginal culture. We had Kangaroo, Emu and Crocodile for dinner. The men performed some of the traditional Aboriginal dances for us. We learned about the traditional tools, weapons and ways of life. It was very informative.
We hiked into the West McDonnel Ranges. Sam spotted a dingo on a dry river bed. And No--"the dingo did not eat my baby!"
We came to this surprise in the middle of the desert! Ellery's Big Hole was a very refreshing place to cool off. The kids swam and played in the water. It was 80 meters deep in the middle and quite cold. It was about 150 meters across-Sam swam it and was very surprised at the extreme cold in the middle.
We had a dinner planned where we were to ride a camel into the desert and have a bush tucker dinner. The camels are all lined up and tied in a row for our adventure. We are to ride tandem so Sam and I pair up. The guide chose Sam and I to mount first. The camels all sat down preparing for their "cargo." As Sam and I approach our camel, the guide says to just ignore her noises of protest--she is just a noisy camel--no worries mate! Sam put his foot in the stirrup and started to mount her and she started these horrific groaning noises. Sam is on and now it is my turn. The camel continued its loud protests. I got on the camel and now the camel has to stand up. In a very loud noisy way. The camel stands up with us leaning way back and then extreme forward as the camel gets completely upright. I am so happy to be in a normal sitting position and wait for the guide to adjust the stirrups as he promised. I notice all of the camels are beginning to get up with no passengers. Did you know camels don't like rain? Well, it started raining--in the desert--that is in extreme drought--I mean the worst drought in 50 years! And it rains as Sam and I are on a camel who does not like rain!! So all of the camels who are tied together--take off. I mean--stand up and start moving with out the guide fairly rapidly. I hear one of the other tourist yell--"Get the boy off of the camel!!!" The guide did get the lead camel and tie him to a fence. The remaining camels coiled around, with the camel Sam and I are on, in the center. So camels are all around us. Did I mention that when you sit on a camel you are really high off of the ground? No joke, we were 10 feet off of the ground. So we are high up surrounded by camels and a bit nervous. The guide quickly tied camel by camel to the fence with us being the last secured. He then had to get the camel to sit--which it did not want to do and protested quite loudly. Sam and I finally disembarked. The guide shared with John that he was worried we were going to be part of a camel race to the desert! He was obviously nervous. Needless to say --I do not care to get on another camel ever again. The tour ended abruptly for all and we had dinner in town. It took 3 Vodka tonics to get me to stop shaking. Sam, of course, was mad and wanted to go back and do it again!