G'Day from the iconic Australian Outback Town of Alice Springs.

We arrived in Alice Springs very tired after our 21Hour bus journey up through South Australia. We decided to skip the stopover in Coober Peedy as was an added expense and were both not too fussed about stopping so ended up just doing the bus non stop. We left Adelaide at 6pm and arrived in Alice Springs around 3pm the next day, fair hike :).

First night we were quite tired after our long journey so just checked into Hostel and bought some food for the night. Hostel we stayed at was probably worst we have stayed in, the rooms were ok but the kitchen area was just a dive so glad we were only staying there for 2nights. Our second day we went out and checked out down-town Alice Springs which to be honest was quite baron. Lots of Aboriginal's sitting around (as to be expected) in the very dry heat. Walked around the centre checking out some Aboriginal Artwork which was for sale at quite an extortionate price so hopefully when we get up to Darwin there may be something more in our price range we can buy as a memento. All the Abo paintings tell a story and are painted in dots, some of them really are stunning but $5000 is a bit much for a painting of dot to dot haha.

Around Mid-day we went to Starlight Theatres in the main street for a free lesson in playing the Aboriginal native instrument; The Didgeridoo. The guy who took the lesson was amazing at playing it but has been playing for the past 30years. Was just us two in the lesson so was able to teach us the techniques quite personally. It is not easy but by the end we were both almost making a full sound so hopefully practise makes perfect. Practise i say because we actually bought a hand-made Didgeriedoo from the centre. The guy is mailing the DOO back home for us so we will be able to Awe you all with our teckers hopefully when we do eventually get home... The instrument itself is beautifully decorated with Aboriginal style paintings which actually tells quite a nice story.

We headed back to the hostel around 3pm to chill before heading out to see the sun set over Alice Springs from Anzac Hill. When we got back we met 3 of our room-mates, a couple from Italia Gianlucca and Julia and a South Korean fella called Owen. All were very nice and found out Owen was actually on our same 3day tour of the Outback so would be seeing more of him the next 3days. Owen came with us to see the sunset and immediately we knew we were going to like him. Really friendly guy that writing this know after our tour has finished i can tell you he is one of the best people we have met travelling. Anyway you will hear more about him in our Yulara/Outback Tour blog so what was i speaking about... oh yeh Sunset. We headed up Anzac hill which was 5min walk from our Hostel and watched the sunset across the McDonnell ranges which really was beautiful. It is just so relaxing watching the sun set on the horizon and know we both couldn't wait to see it set over the Big Red Rock, Uluru.

Once the sun had set we headed back to the Hostel where we ate/shared some beautiful pasta that i (Jonny) cooked up with our fellow roomies and remainder of night we played some card games. Owen had a card game that was very different, too hard to explain on here but made us all laugh so much playing it. Went to bed around 10pm as had early pick up the next day at 6am for our 3day/2night outback tour around Uluru.

Alice Springs is def worth the stop. Totally feels like you are in the heart of the Outback but can see why it gets a little bit of a bad name by the look of the Aboriginal Locals. Really looking forward to our tour now and seeing probably the most famous Australian Icon Uluru or Ayers Rock as its more commonly known (Which is by the way offensive to call infront of the Abos).

Cherrio Alice Springs, next stop The Outback and Uluru.

Jonny and Shay.