,
John and I decided to go to the Todd Tavern in Alice Springs for a roast meal . We had been told by quite a few visitors to the park it was very tasty and that we must go and check it out. We made friends with Judith and Glen who parked their caravan next to ours . So the four of us went on Sunday night . The meal cost $13.50 each and a couple of glasses of cider each made a lovely evening. 
Glen Schmidt Margaret John Judith Steed
John getting stuck into his roast of Pork and heaps of veggies and don't forget the crackle
27th August
Tonight was the Alice Springs Todd Mall night market. Both John and I thought it was about time we had a few hours away from the park.
Lovely bright hammocks for sale
This weekend brought a extra 10,000 plus people into Alice Springs. It was the 40th Anniversary of the Hall of Fame Truck Museum. It is a museum full of Kenworth truck plus many others.
There was a street parade this morning from 9.30 to around 1.00. We were lucky today to be given the day off due to Allan going away next week for a few days. Below are many photos we took just down from our caravan park on the Stuart Highway.
After the parade we decided to go out to Rainbow Valley which is south of Alice Springs for a drive.
We have talked about it for a while now , so with the weather fine and not to hot it was a good day to go.
A lovely view from the look out at one of rainbow valley lakes
The dirt road in and out of Rainbow Valley
Paddy Melons growing on the side of the dirt track. When cut they smell like watermelons
This evening we had the opportunity to go The Didgeridoo Show Outback. Wow what a fantastic show. Andrew Langford is a internationally acclaimed didgeridoo player and storyteller. The show was over 2 hours with Andrew telling us and playing cultural dream time stories, and demonstrating how to breath and play a didgeridoo for those that want to try and play one. We ended up buying a unpainted didgeridoo so that I can paint a design on it sometimes hopefully with Anne around to help me. Plus a cd , great for meditation.
This weekend in Alice Springs is the Red Center Nats. This is where owners of Hot Rods and other old cars gather at the show grounds to show off there paint jobs and how loud a noise the car can make. . The street parade was at 5.30 with over 200 making loud noises and the horns were classical fog horns of many tunes. Photos below:
The beautiful photo is of a daughter that died in a fire in 2009 with her 3 children . The car is in her memory .
This small caravan is towed behind the blue vehicle above
This little beauty came into the park and stayed for a week. The owner is 6'3" and sleeps in it . The back opens up to a small shelf where he does all his cooking . Very compact but does the job .
8th September
Today was our day off. After cleaning the toilets and showers plus one cabin and 3 ensuites. Yah coffee time. John wanted to finish putting sealerant around the hot water system and a few other spots on the caravan. I went up and got rid of all our cans and bottles we had collected over the last month. $37.00 adds to our pocket money . Plus shopping for a few groceries.
On my way back I visited the Alice Springs School of Air. (ASSOA). This was established in 1951.
This is a very interesting place to visit and see how children have school lessons over the air via computers. It is the largest classroom in the world of 1,300,00 sq km, 10 times the size of England.
Children may enrol in pre-school at the age of 4 1/2 years . They have 4 terms a year . The closet students are located approx. 80 kms from Alice Springs and the further soy is 1300kms away.
Most bush communities in Central Australia have a school house where the children attend classes with a qualified teacher employed by the government .
Entrance to the school
Teacher teaching students on the Air
This map shows where all the students in the Northern Territory live that attend The School of Air.
How the School of Air Technolgy used to be.
Art work each student had to complete with there family to complete these quilts
Friends we me when in Shepperton surprised us with a visit whilst on there way to Dawin. It was a great surprise and a good catch up time with them. We went to our local Heavitree tavern for a meal. Chicken parmagamana was the special wow what a feed. 
Christine and Ray Hall with John and Marg enjoying our meal
16th September,
John is starting the countdown to when we leave Alice Springs, 32 days . We were going to leave our caravan and fly out from here in October , but have now decided to to leave here around the 19th October and drive down to Adelaide , where we are going to leave our van and ute with friends Glen and Judith . We will fly out to Sydney from here then fly home on the 31 st October. John is having some work done in the caravan so we can up grade it to 3 ton instead of being overweight as it is now.
Today in the park we had a group of 45 college student stay for 2 nights. They were so well behaved and quiet. Here is photo of the tenting arrangement .
Interesting to see the tent pole in the middle of these tents. Theses tents must be quite old.
Then 2 days later we had another group of over 100 students . Very noisy, they are staying for 3 nights. They to stayed in tents the same as the first group must be a school things. They sure know how to make things dirty.
19th September
Tonight we had a BBQ to farewell Chris and Mark Nolan a couple that have been living in the park for 5 1/2 years. Chris has just retired so she is going back home to Brisbane while the summer is here and returning for a short time in the cooler season to see Mark whilst he finishes his contract out with Dept of Corrective Services. A wonderful evening was had by all.
Thought I had better get a photo of John doing a wonderful job of cleaning.
It is very interesting here in Alice Springs some day the Internet service is great others bloody terrible .
I have spent the last three afternoon sitting in the library knitting and crocheting tea towels whilst trying to up load to ICloud on our mobile phones and I pad. Still have another 10 hours to go on one phone. Mined you in saying that we have not uploaded since we have been in Alice . Optus net work has not been very good here but in saying that even people in the park that use Telstra are complaining.
22nd September
We sent off to Apple our 3 rd replacement IPhone to get replaced. Optus would not follow up our problem with it. Thanks to Apple direct they said they would replace it finally with a new one. So looking forward to receiving it and hopefully this one will last longer than a week or a month. Hopefully 3 or 4 years .
After cleaning 1 cabin and 3 ensuites plus the main 2 toilet blocks it was time for us to have the day off. Yah .
We went to the Olive Pink Botanic gardens here in Alice Springs . It was a private garden until 1985 then it was opened to the public in remberence of a local lady Olive Pink. It now has over 600 Central Australian plants represented in the Garden .
Alice Springs suburb
The township of Alice Springs from the Botanical gardens lookout.
25th September
Tonight is one of the semi finals games of league between the Broncos and Roosters. The Broncos won 31-12.
A good decision was to have pizza for tea before the game. Our next door neighbour Nick & Jo had been to La Casalinga and said the pizza there were lovely and very filling. So the four of us went for tea there and then came back to watch the league.
Mexican pizza large. $27.00 for John. Very tasty
Both of us came away comfortable full.
27 September
I met this lovely lady Paddy Flynn who came to stay at the caravan park for two nights, she is 87 years old . She was telling me that she drove from Melbourne to Alice Springs by herself . It took her 6 days . She has no fear of driving by herself and loves the country side and meeting people on her way. She was telling me she is driving to Dawrin to see her daughter and spend time with her up there. Then will drive back to Melbourne via Katharine, Cooktown , Atherton tableland , Coast and then to Longreach . Her family were concerned about her doing this big trip, her answer to that was I'm bored I have to do something so why not go for a drive north. Paddy keeps in touch with her family every night on Facebook and messenger with her iPad around 8 o'clock. If they try to ring her sooner they may not get her as she is always visiting places she was telling me. We had quite a few laugh. This will be her last big trip with 16 great children to keep her busy visitng. The message I got from Paddÿ was keep travelling and have fun see your bucket list and don't let your age stop you .
Today we took the opportunity to see the Ghan train pass through Alice Springs at lunch time. It was making its way to Adelaide . There were 30 carriages. To go on this train you are looking at around $3000 for a full sleeper.
We recently went to the Todd Mall market and decided to buy a painting from a local artist in memory of our wonderful stay here in Alice Sorings .
This is another one we brought for $15.00 It is called Medicine flowers by Trenia a local indigenous .
The watering has begin in the park now it's starting to get quiet with only a few caravans coming in every day.
Margaret cleaning a cabin at GDay Mate
