Today we had to conquer only the last 25km of the corrugated dirt road. It was actually much less corrugated then the few hundred kilometers yesterday. I guess it is because there is a little mostly Aboriginal town few kilometers back and the road seems to be much more frequented – we have already seen 2 cars passing during the last two hours since we are camped.

Then finally came the continually sealed road again all the way to Alice Springs – what a feeling!! J

Alice Springs is a very pretty town in a beautiful setting of semi-desert and rocky hills. We descended into the town from the north, after the road from east that we were on joined the Stuart highway joining the North of Australia with its South. Once in the town you immediately notice that it is very touristy with lots of tourists from different countries in it. Third thing after the town beauty and tourist orientation that you notice is that there are lots of Aborigines sitting and shouting around. You can notice this more in the parks where the Aborigines are no doubt under the influence of alcohol. What a shame to see these people in such state. As with other native people around the world alcohol does them no good at all since they seem to be unable to handle it.

Anyway, we were planning to continue towards Uluru (Ayers Rock) still today, but we had lots of other agenda to take care off that we are actually currently camped in a very nice (beautiful, considering the price actually) camp just behind Alice (Heavytree Gap Outback camp, AUD7.5 per person per night for a tent [Laundromat, all the usual facilities, pool, supermarket, bar]). We did the laundry, shopping, and bank runs and we also sent a few things home after we deemed them unnecessary.

On the last photo here is the "river" going through Alice. (Yes, there is a tree straight in the middle of it.