WALLABIES to the MILKY WAY

March 26

Saturday night brought a unique experience as we were able to feed rock wallabies from our hands.  They are like a small kangaroo only about 2 feet in height.  They come down from the rocks at sunset to feed.  (kind of reminiscent of watching bears at the local dump).   After we fed them, we had dinner at the local Alice Springs restaurant, Bojangles, where we sampled crocodile, buffalo, camel kabobs, venison sausages and of course kangaroo.  Each of us had a different favorite but we all agreed they were quite delicious but we don’t believe you will see any of these on the Mickey D menu anytime soon. 

We visited a Desert Park on Sunday morning.  Our visit began with a short film on the Australian Outback.  As the film ended, the screen lowered to reveal the beautiful scenery we were about to explore.  This magnificent ending was done in true Disney magic fashion but the scenery was real and natural. Walking throughout the park we saw an aviary show, red kangaroos, emus, and a large nocturnal house with displays of the snakes, rodents and marsupials that populate this area.  Really cool to see these animals up close and personal.  While they were behind a fence to keep them in place, we were too.  Had they been moving around we could have come face to face with them.  But alas it was a Sunday morning and most of the animals were in weekend mode.

We had free time this afternoon and caught up on email, as well as spending some time at the hotel pool.  We are at 23 degrees south latitude, the Tropic of Capricorn, so the sun was particularly hot.  A little red color adds some life to our skin tones. 

Tonight we were blown away with a fabulous optional experience.  This could remain as the highlight of the trip.  With a short bus ride we arrived in an abandoned quarry for a BBQ and informational show.  Denny began the evening with a demonstration of boomerangs, (Ho Hum) but the evening definitely went uphill from there.  Denny continued his portion of the evening talking about life on the cattle stations as he humorously made Damper (bread dough) from only flour and water and then cooked it over an open fire.  Don was next on the agenda and he enthralled us with some history and culture of Aboriginal life, as it was and it now.  Even with the delicious smell of our steaks cooking, we were a captive audience.  Dinner was a delicious assortment of steak, salad and baked potatoes. As we completed dinner, Jeff rounded out the program serenading us and leading us in sing-a-long with some traditional Aussie ballads.  Dessert was served as well as “billy” tea, referred to in Waltzing Matilda which I guarantee most of us never knew were the lyrics and definitely what they meant. The highlight of the night may have been when they turned out all of the lights and we explored the heavens on a perfectly clear night.  Don returned and identified many of the heavenly bodies that we seldom get to see in the Northern Hemisphere. And of course the stark darkness with no light pollution was an unusual experience for most of us.  The Milky Way was amazing and we saw the Southern Cross, as well as numerous other constellations, stars and suns.  This was one event that definitely ended too soon.