Uluru, aka Ayers Rock

Visiting Uluru, 300 kilometers from Alice Springs, with stops along the way including a camel ride.


Our camel ride. There are 300,000 wild camels in Australia





Wallaby





Salt Flats


Beware the local spiders at 2 inch plus


Flies are a problem near Uluru





Wonder light in late afternoon








Wall Paintings


Waiting for Sunset


Part of the gang


Sunset on Uluru

Alice Spings

Alice Springs, a semi arid region, was over 100 degrees at mid afternoon. Imagine opening your oven door while baking; it's a dry heat. Visited the Royal Flying Doctors Museum and the School of Air (which used radio communications, now the Internet); two ways locals handled essential services (health care and education) for people living in the vast outbacks where long distances make conventional method unpractical. During the heat of the day, look in the shady areas under the shrubs and trees and you may see wild life.





Downtown Alice Springs


Local colors


Indigenous people can often be seen sitting in the shade.


Royal Flying Doctors


School of Air


Don't want meet this on the road


Wallabies

Final Pictures from Melbourne

Some last pictures from Melbourne. With the tour group, our pace will be much quicker as we head for Alice Springs next. During our last days, we rented a tandem to ride the river bike path, met up with Kay's third cousin who took us to the Southbank Marketplace for brunch, and visited the Shrine of Remembrance along with other weekend activities.











Having beer along the riverfront after the ride.





Entertainment at the Southbank Marketplace





Shrine of Remembrance.

The National Gallery of Victoria

Featured artists at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne were Andy Warhol and Al Weiwei.

The Great Ocean Road

Touring the Great Ocean Road one hundred miles southwest of Melbourne to the famous Twelve Apostles, limestone stacks off shore, remnants of an eroding coastline. This area overlooking the Southern Ocean is the wettest in Victoria. Lucky for us, it was only a light drizzle.