Day 07 - Alice Springs

Our second day in Alice ended with an amazing 'bird show'.

Although the Thai restaurant was too busy for last night's dinner, we had an excellent meal in the pub. It's walking distance from the resort so no great problem.

Marg and I walked into town again along the Todd River. This river has no water (!) except when it rains heavily. Rest of the time it's full of sand, with majestic river red gums growing along it.

There are even proper bridges...

The people like it here - the First Australians camp on it all year round. People even have 'boat races' on the Todd (the boats are bottomless and the competitors 'inside the boat' stand on the sand and run!)

In the afternoon we visited the Alice Springs Desert Park where plants and animals of the desert are extremely well looked after. Desert vegetation along with emus and wallabies in their natural habitat, there is a large range of birds and small ground-dwellers (snakes, mice etc.)

A verry impressive site. Emu in the wild...

A most impressive 'bird show' takes place regularly where the ringmaster invites native birds to the arena where they arrive on cue and  'perform'. Although the magpie, barn owl and the curlew (that kept walking behind the 'ring master'), the highlight of the show was the buzzard that demonstrated how it could open an emu egg using a stone as a tool (Marg's video)

Friendly and obedient curlew walked around behind the ringmaster! The barn owl came as soon as its presence was requested.

... and then the buzzard.

A good end to the day!