The rest of our time in Alice Springs was spent going to all the tourist attractions around town. We visited The Reptile Park where was home to a variety of reptiles. Venomous snakes, pythons, turtles, frogs, lizards, fresh water Crocodile and a salt water crocodile. We spent the morning walking around trying to find all the reptiles camouflaging in their enclosures and reading information on each reptile.

 

 

Thorny devil

Found throughout central Australia, WA and norther SA. They can grow up to 20cm in length and can live up to 20years. They feed exclusively on black pants and can eat up to 5000 a day. Being covered in thorn prevents them from being eaten by predators as they are too prickly to eat. They can also change their colours to blend in with natural surroundings.

 

 

Australian venomous snakes have remarkably smaller fangs to other venomous snakes around the world. This makes snake bites in Australia very avoidable if wearing enclosed shoes with socks while outside in areas snakes live as well as wearing gloves when gardening. If you ever encounter a snake bite in Australia the venom from its fangs wouldn’t be able to get through your shoes or gloves onto your skin and into your blood stream. If you are bitten by a snake in an uncovered area the appropriate first aid is to pressure bandage the area to the closest lymphoid Eg: if you were bitten on the bare foot you would pressure bandage up to the groin area where the lymphoid is.  Doing this can save life’s as it will stop the venom travelling fast to your lymphoid and spreading to the rest of the body.

If you were bitten by Australia’s most venomous snake the death adder you would have 20 minutes to get to the hospital for the anti-venom but if you pressure bandage the area it can give you up to 5 hours to reach the hospital. You should also not wipe the bitten area as this is used to identify the type of snake so you can be given the correct anti venom.

After our morning at the reptile centre we walked across the road to the Royal Flying Doctor Services tourist centre. The RFDS was the first air hospital started by John Flynn back in 1928. After working as a doctor in rural outback Australia he could see the everyday struggle for the people and wanted to provide health and emergency services to outback Australia. Before this service, you just didn’t have much of a chance of survival or health services in the outback if in need. Thanks to John Flynn he had a vision and created this service he is now pictured on the Australia $20 note.  These days there is now 68 Planes nationwide helping patients every 2 minutes of every day.

Our last full day in Alice springs to make the most of our time up here, we started the day by heading out to the national transport hall of fame which was a lot bigger than we expected. The hall of fame is located just out of Alice Springs and next door to the old Ghan museum. Walking through the front doors we were welcomed with displays of model car, trains, tractors and of course tucks, having a good look at those I notices a stair case with vintage cars and motor bikes,  being upstairs it gave us an advantage point looking over some of the other trucks they had on display. After looking around inside we went across the forecourt and walked in side a shed called them Kenworth hall of fame, this was full of trucks from all eras, from brand new to the first truck Kenworth had built and everything in between. After spending an hour or so just looking over these trucks we went back outside and had a wonder around the rest of the 8 acre yard, there was too much to look at.

Next door at the railway museum we could walk on the Old Ghan in its original state.

 

Our time in The Red Centre had come to an end as we headed back down the Stuart Hwy to Port Augusta. Here we just had a quick stop over, picking up our new solar panels, doing washing and the following morning we got our first car service. In the afternoon, we headed out to the Flinders Rangers. Arriving late in the afternoon we set up camp and enjoyed a night under the stars around the campfire.

We were up early to walk to the top of Mount Ohlssen. It took us 1 ½ hours to get to the top. Once reaching the top we were 923m above sea level and the tough walk up was well worth it as we enjoyed the 360 degree views of the Flinders Ranges.

After returning down we had some lunch, and gave our legs a rest for the afternoon driving  around to nearby gorges within the Flinders Rangers. This time of year, all the gorges we went to were dried up and some what disappointing but we did come across some Aboriginal carvings in the rocks in a sacred area.

We loved Alice Springs and The Flinders Ranges are an incredible place to visit offering a vast amount of walking trails and views of ranges as far as you can see.

	WEEK 7	TOTAL
Kilometres	1767km	9227km
Sunrises watched	2	16
Sunsets watched	2	17
Beaches visited	0	36
Fish caught	0	22

Follow next week as we head down the York Peninsula and towards Adelaide trying to dodge the inflated prices of Easter and the school holidays.