28^th November (Monday)

We had an early start this morning with a taxi pick-up at 5:30am to catch a plane to Alice Springs.  The previous evening I had reorganised my luggage so that I could put my jacket into the case.  To ensure I didn’t exceed the 23kg load I had shifted my pack of electronics into my rucksack. Unfortunately I forgot that my Swiss pen knife was in the same bag. This didn’t surface as an issue until I went through the security check with no option to place the knife in my case. Thus I had to bequeath by pen knife to Darwin security staff.  Not the first time this has happened since the same situation arose in Cairns two years ago but on that occasion I became aware of the issue at the check in desk and even though my case had gone through I was able to off-load the knife to a passenger behind me in the queue.

When we landed in Alice Springs what struck us both was the amount of vegetation around, bushes and small trees, and much greener than we had imagined.  Alice Springs has an average rainfall of around 280 mm.

Sheila arrives at Alice Spring

The stopover in Alice Springs to Ayers Rock gave me time to peruse the shops – I found a couple of good front page cartoons on The Spectator and The Economist plus a snake bite kit. 

The Economist

I had purchased a similar type of snake bite kit back in 1969 on my way to America to address the chance of being bitten by a rattle snake – never saw a single one in the whole of 3 months traveling across the USA.  My 1969 kit was however much smaller, about the size of an egg, which split in two, and contained a scalpel, tourniquet, smelling salts and a bandage.

Snake bite kit

We were staying at the Desert Sands Hotel in Ayers Rock, which was very comfortable. In the evening we took part in the “Sound of Silence” event, which included a view of Uluru as the sun set, sparkling wine and canapés followed by a meal outside and a spectacular view of the stars and planets. 

Mike & Sheila at Sunset