It's been a few days since I last updated here, so whilst I'm sitting here having a rare 15 minutes to myself and uploading photos from the camera to my laptop, and Anthony & the boys have headed down to the hot springs for a dip (I will join them shortly!) I thought I'd also share the activities of the past few days. Day 4 proved to be incident free and after having a relatively smooth day of travelling from Coober Pedy to Alice Springs, we were able to spend a night re grouping and planning our day of being tourists! Tourist day in Alice Springs proved to be nearly as full on as travelling! We started the day at the Royal Flying Doctors Museum and display which was absolutely amazing and the holographic film they have put together to tell the story of how RFDS came to be was sensational! To see how far this service has come from offering medical and missionary type services via camels, this service obtained Royal patronage in the early 50's (from memory) and has thrived since. It's status as a 'flying' service came about after a very large bequest that was left to the mission in the early days and even to this day, it is only funded 60% by the government and the remaining 40% is made up via donations, fundraising and other bequests. The service now operates Australia wide, has 61 aircrafts and is also a big part of the organ donation program. Needless to say we felt that the admission fee was not sufficient and kicked in another donation in the hope that the service continues to flourish AND that we NEVER need it! Starting at the RFDS proved to be fortuitous as we then went on to the school of the air in Alice Springs which as it turns out actually originally piggy backed on the radio systems that were put in place by the RFDS in order to deliver education to children living in remote areas across Australia. Whilst a number of School of the Airs now exist, Alice Springs was home to the very first and we were able to watch a very informative video presentation that featured students who benefit from the service and understand more about the way in which the school works and how it is now a generational means of educating a wide variety of children who live in the outback. The boys were shown 'work packs' that get sent to the children and after seeing how much work is dispatched to children in grades 3 & 4 to cover off a two to three week period and learning how little contact time is actually involved for the students with their teachers (all now delivered via satellite internet connections at a cost of $10 to $15 thousand per setup) the boys were both very grateful to be receiving their education in a classroom environment!! Big shout out here to both Carmel & Cathy and all the teachers at Lumen Christi. The School of the Air is funded in the same way as all other public schools and as such, it was the parents of these children who came up with the idea to setup the information session so that they had a viable means of generating additional funds for the school (as you can imagine, when you're 100's of km away from your nearest fellow students, arranging a school fete or lamington drive is a bit of an impossibility!) The school also operates a library where students can arrange to 'borrow' books which are then posted out to them to read. My heart melted a little when James decided that he wanted to 'buy' a book for students his age and he spent much time selecting a book from those on offer that he then added to their library. That was money from his savings stash that he's been working on for a year and I am hard put to think of a more meaningful way of spending this…… From here we moved on to the Old Telegraph Station, this destination was more for my benefit having always been a huge lover of Australian history and seeing the Station so well preserved and fit out to truly depict how hard life was back in the Australian pioneering days was very moving. It was also fascinating and somewhat heartbreaking to learn that over it's lifespan, the station was also used as a 'barracks' type arrangement for the 'stolen generation'. A quick trip back to the caravan park (or home - wherever the van 'Mal' is currently housed) for lunch and then we set out to the Transport Hall of Fame. This place is HUGE!!!! As is a MUST SEE for anyone who heads up this way…. We spent a good couple of hours walking through the truck & bus side of this place and I'm sure we still didn't see it all! It was especially lovely to be able to see Mal & Nancy Bakon, the parents of one of my uncles, recognised for their contributions to the trucking industry in the hall of fame there. I'm certain that one of the trucks used in this display was the very same truck I had a ride in for my birthday, the year my parents took my sisters and I on our epic trip! One of the highlights so far was definitely meeting the lovely Jean Gormon who by luck pulled in to the caravan park and booked herself a cabin next to us on our last night in Alice. Jean was 93 years old and had driven up from Brighton to Alice Springs with a friend who left the park shortly after they arrived. We spent the evening with Jean talking about various things and she shared with us much of her life including the fact that her and her late husband Bob had always been avid outback travellers and to this day, staying in a caravan park cabin was a bit out of the norm for her as she usually camps in her tent. She told us how she still remembers her old friend Alex Wood who used to work out at Katherine Gorge and was the person responsible for establishing many of the walking tracks that are still in use there today. She then explained how her and Bob were also the first to canoe all the way up to the 13th Gorge…. It's been an amazing couple of days and we are not even a week in! We are glad to have picked up the extra extra day and to have spent it being tourists in Alice Springs and after a further epic drive yesterday (well, not that EPIC - but 768km in one day from Alice Springs to Elliott is a fair ask for any young kid, but they both did it well) we have now pulled in at Mataranka - our 'starting point' for what we consider to be the rest of our trip. It's so nice to return here once again and to see the excitement on the boys faces (and Anthony) to know that we have now completed the line we started drawing a few years ago when we flew in to Darwin, hired a mobile home and drove down this far… How things have changed… Two years ago, I would have thought that having the two of them in the back seat for more than 500km in one day would have been a suicidal type thought, but they are doing so incredibly well that it has meant that we are now starting to think we may be able to stretch out the days in the warmth as we will be able to get home in less days when we get down south…. Well, I'm off now to join the boys in the hot springs (yes, even this girl is willing to disconnect her pump and go for a splash!)