First day in Northern Territory

First day in Northern Territory

Alice Springs, Australia, Australia

My trip to the Northern Territory started this morning with a 5am wakeup call to get the bus to the airport. I was flying with Tiger Airways, the worst low-budget airline ever, so of course I was delayed. At first it was just by an hour, and that ballooned to just over two hours without so much as an announcement. Nice. The good thing was that we weren’t cancelled like some other flights were, so we still got to fly today.

I watched the Hurt Locker on the plane and it was perfect for passing the 2.5 hour flight to Alice Springs. We ended up landing at about 1pm and I picked up my rental car from Thrifty and headed into town. I had been told before I came up here that I was going to see a lot of poor aboriginals all over the place, but for some reason I was still really surprised by how many there were. They are all just wandering around the “city”, not carrying anything or looking like they have anywhere to go. I think they do just wander all the time.

I checked in to my hostel and was lucky enough to get a bottom bunk in my room, and it looks like there’s only one other person sharing with me. That’s pretty much the backpacker’s jackpot. I dropped off my stuff and headed out on the road to see what was around Alice. It turns out, there’s not a lot. I went to see Emily Gap and Jessie Gap, which is just a gap in between two big rock faces. It was nice to see, but I was hoping you could walk around in the parks a little more. You are limited to only about 150 yards after walking through, and then you’re greeted by a nice barbed wire fence.

From here I went into town for lunch, which I then realized was the first thing I’d eaten all day. Not good. But I got done by about 4pm so I headed up to Anzac Hill to watch the sunset. I knew it wasn’t coming until 6pm, but I’m glad I went up earlier. The view from up there is excellent, but the sunset was really the pot of gold. It was absolutely spectacular! I took some decent pictures, but unfortunately I need a bit more practice with my new camera to capture it the way I saw it. These pictures don’t really do it justice.

Of course now I’m exhausted so I’m back at the hostel watching Vertical Limit in the courtyard and then I’m heading to bed. I’m up early tomorrow morning to head to King’s Canyon. It’s about a six hour drive and I don’t want to be doing that into the night, so I’m heading out early.

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