21/02/09

Woken up at 0545 by Burns alarm. Got up and stashed everything away in the bag, there was a mass panic to decide what foods we could take on the plane and what we had to leave. Beans were being distributed to whoever had space, Burns managed to save his pasta meal for 1, but the cheese and eggs had to go, along with an entire tub of marge that for some reason we had bought yesterday. We got a taxi to the airport and attempted to use the self check-in machine, partially successfully. we all managed to get on the flight, the in-flight entertainment was and episode of My Family and a film with Vince Vaughn where he visits his 4 different sides of his family on christmas day, not the best film but it certainly passed the time. My ears were going crazy the entire flight due to my cold, they were making fart noises in my head constantly which hurt like mad. It was still the best flight ever though because, even though we weren't expecting it, they dished out breakfast consisting of Weet-Bix, a bun, slices of apple, juice and tea/coffee, they later came around with pretzle snacks as well! When we landed in Alice Springs they informed us that there was a 30 minute time difference as we were now in Northern Teritory, I thought time zones only changed in hours at a time. We were waiting in the Toddy's Bus at the airport for an hour before another flight landed so they could pick them up at the same time even though when we left the hostel was only 5 minutes down the road.

Once we'd checked in we went for a wander in to town. You can't move 10 feet around here without being swarmed by flies, its crazy, they just dart straight for any moisture on your head. Their favourite spots seem to be the eyes, lips, nose and ears. So we were all walking down the road in the intense heat waving our arms around like right t*** trying to swat flies from our faces. Walked around some shops, Burns bought another new T-shirt, fair play to him though, it was a goodun. It was so hot, even the girls had de-shirted, as we walked in to the plaza a police woman told us we had to put on some tops if we wanted to enter, anyone would think we were back in Malaysia. Helen was even shouted at by a bunch of kids for walking around in a bikini top. We went into Woolies and bought 18 litres of water as instructed, thats 3 each with some to spare, as well as other bits and bobs for dinner and lunch.

We got back to the room and met a guy that is training to be a tour guide, he told us that if we were bothered by the flies earlier that we would definately have to buy a fly net for the tour. Off we went again, 20 minute walk back in to town, in the heat again, it must have been over 40. On the way Rich found a dead Gecko which had had its eyes eaten out, he wanted to keep it as a souvenier, but saw the light eventually. We were all sweating by the time we got to the hat shop which turned out to be shut so we wandered back to the hostel getting an ice lolly on the way which was dripping before I even got it out of the wrapper, and turned out to just be an annoyance to eat, I ended up freezing my stomach trying to eat it before it melted and struggling to keep the flies off it.

When we got back Rich, Pat and I jumped in the pool and had dried out within 2 minutes of getting out again. We went back to the room and found that someone had left a turd in the toilet so we promptly flushed it away and then packed our thing for the morning and had an early night.