It reminded us of the Cape York trip we did 2 years ago & there was no way we were puttting our van through that! Car would have survived & if we had of taken it REALLY slowly our van would have maybe have been ok, but not worth the risk. So, it was the sealed road for us, the long way around. It was about 500kms & took us about 6hours!
Anyway, we made it to Alice Springs!
We checked into the Big4 caravan park in Alice. Great park, a little more on the expensive side but awsome facilities for us & the kids! We had a bit of a clean up after the rough road we attempted & watched the Cats play (but we won't talk about the result!). The kids had a wonderful time playing at the park & on the jumping pillows while I got dinner organised & then it was showers & bed time.
We spent Monday morning driving around & having a look at the town. We found the info. Centre & made some plans. The kids had a treat of Maccas for lunch which they enjoyed! In the afternoon we went out to ANZAC lookout, this is what we saw.
In this one you can see at the very end of the road & trees that there is a gap in between the rocks, this is the Macdonnell Ranges, east & west. The caravan park we are staying at is just behind the east side (or your left side looking at this pic).
After the lookout we went to the Central Australia Aviation Museum. It was free to visit & it was fantastic! So much history on how it all got started up here (flying that is!) & why etc... Some great old planes to look at, a DVD to watch sitting inside an old plane & there was even a memorial for the kookaburra plane that was forced to make an emergency landing in the tanami desert. Really good story & if you don't know of it, you should google it! Too long for me to explain it all here, or come & see it for yourself in Alice one day!
The next place we went to was the Alice Springs Desert Park. We were treated to a movie presentation on how the aussie desert was formed to where it is today. At the end of the movie the screen comes down & outside the massive glass window is the Macdonnell Ranges! It was rather impressive. We then went to a birds of prey free flying show, it was pretty good too. And the other thing that was really great there was the Nocturnal house. The kids & us had much delight in looking at all the enclosures and trying to spot all the animals that were in the enclosures.
The kids loved this little guy in the Nocturnal House, so we took a pic!
That ended our day & we then made plans to stay another night because there were still a few things that we wanted to see.
Today was full of things to see & do. We spent most of the morning at the National Road Transport Hall of Fame. Soooo interesting about transport within central Australia. They had millions of dollars worth of donated trucks and other memorabilia. There was the Kenworth Museum, this was brilliant. This place is run by volunteers, mostly people who need a place to stay while they are travelling around aus. They get accom in return for doing a certain amount of hours each week work there.
So after a really good time there we then went and visited Alice Springs School of the Air. This place is AMAZING! It was first day back at school for the kids and teachers so we went on a really great day. We got to see 3 different classes in action. They gave a talk & showed a DVD presentation that all explained how it all works. Everyone should visit his place. We had the opportunity to donate a book to the schools library & we got to write in it so that the kids who borrow the book know where/who it came from. When I asked Pheobe at the end of our visit if she could do school like that she said NO! I think if you know no different it would be very normal for you. I did say to Trent though that if our kids ever had to do schooling this way that we would be hiring a tutor, it wouldn't be me!!! Some families do & some don't. We would!!! The kids have a chance to see each other in person 4 times a year, tutors get together at the start of the year with the teachers (but have on going support all year through), & teachers will visit each student individually once a year! Currently they have about 140 students enrolled at this school. Kids get new workbooks every 2 weeks & have 2 half hour sessions with their teachers each day that they must log on for. They also get one on one sessions if/when they need it. They even have PE sessions. What a wonderful organisation this is!
A teacher in action with her class. We could see the students logged on from a screen that is set up for visitors. The teachers decide who is seen & who isn't. They can also mute the kids!!!
This is a map of where all the students are roughly located. It tells you their names & what yr level they are in. They are all colour coded so that whe you look at the timetable you can see what class is being taught.
After a full on day filling ourselves with info & history we needed to go & do some groceries & then it was back to the caravan park for more fun for the kids whilst I unpacked the shopping and got the washing in & cooked dinner.
Everyone is now resting their little bodies so that we can take off in the morning for another long day of travelling. We are hoping to reach Tennant Creek.
Catch you all soon xo
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