After many, many years of waiting, it was finally time for Eileen‘s visit Down Under. After a few days of exploring Sydney, the Snook and I set off with her for Australia’s red centre. Qantas fly direct to Alice Springs, but it worked out much cheaper to fly Jetstar to Adelaide, get a hotel for the night, and then fly Tiger to Alice Springs. So off we flew to Adelaide…

Our hotel in Adelaide was the Country Comfort, which – to our surprise – turned out to be a motel. Huh. It was serviceable, if a little run-down. We headed off on a walking tour of the city. Rundle Mall is the main shopping district, and that’s where we found the “Mall’s Balls.” It’s a famous sculpture of two silver balls on end. Here we are pulling faces in the reflection.

We were advised by several folks on Twitter to check out the Botanic Gardens. It was a cool and rainy day, but we still had a good time looking at the flowers and exhibits. Here’s the Snook looking at some massive Amazon water lilies.

One one point it started pouring, so we took shelter under this tree while we planned our next move.

Of course, we decided to go to the pub. Here we are in Hindley Street, sharing a pint.

We next hiked up to Light’s Vision, a lookout above the city. Here’s a self-portrait of me walking past the Adelaide Cricket Oval.

The next day we caught our flight to Alice Springs. We were gratified by the sunshine and warmth after the cold and rain of Sydney and Adelaide. The airport is small, and we ended up waiting quite a bit for a taxi. Eventually we made it to our accommodation, the Heavitree Outback Lodge. It was PERFECT. Just what you imagine an outback lodge to be. Here’s another self-portrait of me with the view outside our room’s patio. Look at that sky!

We immediately checked out the Heavitree Gap tavern. It was pretty rough. We repaired ot the “beer garden” (aka a couple tables outside).

We caught a shuttle to town and hiked to the top of ANZAC Hill, a lookout over the city. Here’s me and the Snook.

We decided to go tourist-y for dinner, so we headed to Bo’s Saloon. It was pretty fun. Snookums and Eileen shared the “Outback Mixed Grill,” which included emu, camel, buffalo, kangaroo, and crocodile. Very exciting!

Back at our hotel, we discovered several black-footed wallabies in the parking lot eating out of guests’ hands. They were so cute! One of them had a joey in its pouch.

We headed straight to bed, as we had a very early wake-up call the next day…

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