Around 8am, we got picked up from our hotel and conveyed to the railway station. We checked our bags in and around 9am the Adelaide bound Ghan pulled in.
We joined the train’s passengers for their actives in Alice for the day as our train was not scheduled to leave until around 10pm.
The first activity was a visit to the Alice Springs Desert Park. We first had an amazing display by kestrels, owls and a buzzard. The latter was, in my mind, the star of the show . They had a fake emu egg made out of plaster, the buzzard spotting it, landed, picked up a nearby stone and smashed it open.
Next attraction was the nocturnal house where you could see a rather angry King Brown snake, very cute spinafex mice, bandicoots and a bilby. My favourite though were the Thorny Devils. They really looked and moved like a miniature of a character in a Japanese monster movie.
After lunch in the park we were bused into Alice and left on our own to roam the streets till 20 past four. About an hour before pick up time, having walked every street twice, we decided to walk back to the station. Eventually we got to our assigned cabin, put on all our warmest clothes, then we were bused out to the Old Telegraph Station for yet another outdoor outback meal in the freezing cold. Still it wasn’t too bad as it was a very interesting site, and the food was good and the wine flowed freely and the stars were magnificent, but it was still so very cold.
Hardys’ Travels 