ALICE the Queen of the Desert...Part Two

Alice Springs continued.....
One crazy thing about Alice Springs is they keep the wine  casks behind glass and all the good wine on shelves...Plus you can only buy  one 2 litre cask per person, it must be after 6pm and  you have to have your driver's license scanned. WOW! Not to mention there is always a policeman outside each bottleo.

Now most of our work is finished at Alice Springs, so we can start site seeing and enjoying this place

First stop was my asian fix at a great Vietnamese restaurant out of town where they have a market garden as well, so the salad and veggies were so fresh, met up with some friends Tina  & Steve , who we'd met on the road.

Next day off to Road Transport Hall of Fame, I didn't think this would be my cup of tea but it was actually very interesting with some great photos and exhibits there. I think Steve could have stayed there all day!

Check this out It's a machine gun quad bike!??

Boys will be boys!!

Of course what's a transport museum without an emu made from truck parts

 Then off to the Telegraph Station where all the old buildings have been wonderfully restored. Only problem here I pulled a muscle in my back and could hardly walk around it.

That night we watched the State of Origin much to our disgust with the result, still maybe next series...
On Thursday we left for the 100kms trip to Rainbow Valley but instead of it taking an hour and a half it took about 6 hours!!! Another flat tyre  60kms out of Alice. This time it near blew so Steve unhitched the caravan and took off for the return trip leaving me in the van on the side of the road. At least I had all the food and plenty of reading matter.
We finally made it to Rainbow Valley and a great big thanks to my cousin, Ros for telling me about this gem.


The sunset on the rock walls was just amazing!


I just couldn't stop taking photos...

This one looks like red paint has run down
 the cliff face.

The next day we rode around it and on to the clay pan --You're not supposed to go on the claypan but we have to be rebels some time and it was just fantastic, it's so hard we hardly left a tyre track, so what's the problem.. we even got some rock souvenirs.

This shows just how large the claypan is.

We over indulged on our last night at this wonderful spot, starting off with Tequila cocktails, roast pork on the spit, a few beers and finishing off with too many red wines. Which made for my first hangover of the trip. Anyway we took off for a lay day at Stewart Wells Camel farm and on the way we saw our first wild camels!

They're pretty cute but we didn't bother having a ride, just had a look around and then went to bed to sleep off last night!!

A few more photos of Rainbow Valley... then back to Alice Springs to get Steve's car serviced while we check out a couple of more museums and then we'll be visiting the East McDonald Ranges. Bye for now, I'll clock in in another week or so when we once again have reception.