Alice Springs part 1

It is difficult to describe the beauty of the red centre. JD took tons of photos, but they never communicate the scale. For instance, the land beyond our Alice Springs rental's backyard sweeps across a long stretch of dried tall grass dotted with trees and up the high ridge of the MacDonell Ranges and into an unbelieveably high cerulean blue sky. There is an old tub outside the yard, filled with water, drawing kangaroos, a dingo (we never did see), and every sort of bird. The galas descend on one of the trees off and on, grey crowned babbler nests crowd another, and a whistling kite lights on the spar of a dead tree to rest just beyond the fence. 

In the evening, after the sun goes down, the ridge is sillouetted with a soft pink glow as the sky darkens. We had a full moon last week, making one night's nocturnal tour of Desert Park less dark, full of shadows, but still starry enough for our guide to point out the southern cross and my constellation, Scorpio. We wore red light head bands and saw malas (tiny kangaroos, one a momma with an even tinier joey in her pouch), banicoots, echidnas (one that took a stroll among the group's feet) wallabies, sticknest rats, and bilbys.

The Aruluen Cultural Centre galleries are full of Aboriginal traditional and contemporary arts, the natural history museum is full of Australian fossils, and which is located at a women's sacred hill, women's dreaming, including a sacred 300 year-old corkwood tree. The range is the origin of caterpillars in Aborginal belief, represented by a contemporary sculptured walkthrough. Hard to describe. But we did see a ring-neck parrot telling his own stories in the corkwood tree, a long-nosed dragon (!) (tiny lizard), and a gigantic grasshopper. 

As for the birds, as mentioned above and so many more, they are spectatcular and everywhere to be seen. So I am in awe and JD is having a field day!