We had a rather late start, and went off to take a walk round the town and do some minor shopping. There are only about 4 streets of shops, though it took us quite a time to find them - our hotel is not central, so it is a 10 - 15 minute walk into town.
There was an interesting mural on the wall of one of the supermarkets illustrating some of the town's history - it was another town that grew from being a telegraph relay station, and also a rail stop, a stop on the Stuart Highway and an airport. The mural, which is very long and took me 3 separate photos to cover, illustrates all of these, as well as showing some of the pioneers (including women), the cameleers and the Aboriginal people. Only a few of these show on my picture.
There are hardly any old buildings, the oldest is the Town Gaol, built in 1908, but I rather liked the original Hospital, built in 1928, and now housing a Museum called Adelaide House, giving information on John Flynn's vision of the flying Doctor Service.
After shopping, we went to the Visitors' Centre where we booked a bus to take us out to the Desert Park. The bus picks you up from your hotel, so we went back there, stopping only for an ice cream - banana and chocolate in my case, one of the most wonderful ice creams I have ever eaten!
The Desert Park combines various different habitats with aviaries of indigenous birds, many of which the visitor can walk through. The Desert River is a habitat I had not imagined, it can be quite fertile even when the river dries up during the dry season, because there is often water underground.
There were many birds in the associated aviary, including this rather beautiful kingfisher.
He was sitting on a branch with a number of green budgerigars, but it was hard to get them all in the same photo. At least I was able to get a photograph of them through the window. In the walk through aviaries, the birds mostly flew around you far to fast to be photographed.
In the aviary associated with a waterholes, it was possible to photograph a number of birds who seemed to have no fear of humans, including this handsome heron.
We went to see a stunning display of different birds flying to lures. The galahs were very funny, swooping low over the heads of the audience. The magpie did some amazing flying, taking insects thrown up to it, and rarely missing. There was a very handsome owl, who preferred to catch things on the ground.
The kites too caught things in the air. All of these birds are quite free, they do it for the reward.
There were animals too. The kangaroos were lying about under bushes looking rather like thugs, though I managed some more traditional photos too.
There were also emus, and a whole Nocturnal House full of animals I had never even heard of - large and small leaping things all going hippity hoppity in the gloom of their small enclosures, but no photos were possible. There were also reptiles and several large spiders but I didn't look at the latter - I don't like spiders!
When it closed at 6, the bus took us back to the hotel. It has to be early bed again tonight, as it's up at 5.15 tomorrow for the 6.15 pickup to set off towards Uluru.
We're going to be in the wilderness again for a few days, so I'm not sure when I can next post anything. We are sleeping out under the stars in a swag tomorrow!
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