Day 9: The Ghan/Uluru/Darwin.

lt turns out that we had almost a whole day free in Alice before we had to hop back on the Ghan. When I was at the School of the Air, they told me to get to the Desert Park if I possibly could. David Attenborough has it on his top 5 parks of its type in the world and has been there twice:

The “of its type “ worried me slightly, but I took their advice, got there at 7;30 as soon as it opened and for an hour, at least, I had the park to myself.

I ended up staying for over 5 hours. It was fantastic.

There were 2 dingoes on display, a brother and sister pair. The park doesn’t want any more in the pack, because each pack has an alpha male and female that the pack get very defensive of, so more animals would mean much more danger for the keepers.

The park has just taken possession of another pair of dingo pups. They won’t run the two groups together, but will alternate between the pairs.

Every zoo I go to, I see one of these hanging around. My grandparents used to have a semi-tame one at Inverlock. He’d visit them every day.

The park isn’t just for animals. All of the plant life is from the local desert.

This is Stuart’s Desert Pea, the state symbol for South Australia. Funnily enough, I’ve never seen it in SA, only here in the Northern Territory.

Pretty, isn’t it?

A typical pathway.
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I decided to fill in time before the dingo talk with a visit to the big aviary. OH MY LORD! It was the best aviary I’ve ever been in.

As soon as I walked through the door, this cheeky little man flew over and perched on my head.

A view of the whole aviary.

Tons of Zebra Finches.

This guy was eyeing me suspiciously.

There were two black cockatoos and they were hard to miss. They were flying from one side of the aviary to the other.

It’s the same colour orange as the sand dune near the salt lake!

l tried so hard to get a picture of the budgies, but the light was never correct.
budgies are curious little folk. They stayed well out of reach, but they were chattering away between themselves the whole time I was there.

o

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At the dingo lecture, she showed us a photo of the Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger.

The dingoes drove them out of mainland Australia, and then the European settlers drove them to extinction in Tasmania.

I’ve probably taken this from the wrong angle, but the cliffs above are supposed to be a Thylacine, with the long muzzle, and the stripes along the back. One day, the Thylacine will rise up and start walking around. Until then, it’s lying there, keeping an eye open.

THIS thing! This aviary was one of those glass-fronted ones. When I walked in, the weirdest noise came out of this bird.

It’s called a Bustard.

Never heard of them before.

At around 10 o’clock, I could feel the heat starting to rise. I walked along the paths, hearing the sound of the gravel under my feet and the finches peeping around me. Occasionally, I’d look up and see a hawk floating silently above.

A small lizard skittered out of the bushes to my right and ran across the path, almost under my feet, to the other side, scared the living daylight out of me! I tried to look for it, but it was either too well camouflaged, or it was long gone.

This little guy is a Thorny Devil.

I wandered around the reptile house.

I raced off to see the Bird Show, and got there before the huge queue formed behind me.
it was good, but I’ve seen the ones at Healesville and Tooronga zoos and this was very similar.

It’s always spectacular to see hawks swoop in and fly right above your head, though.

Here he is, coming in for a landing.

This next bird was a little different to the usual hawks and owls that are the usual stars of these shows.

This is a Bush Stone Curlew, also known as the Murder Bird,. They got this name because of they sound like someone screaming. These poor things are ground dwellers and stand stock-still when in danger. This is effective with native predators, but of course it’s disastrous with feral cats, dogs and foxes.

And all the while, there was a tawny frogmouth perched high above us!

Then it was a gentle wander over to where the kangaroo talk was.

I learned that the quickest way to get a fire started is to use dry kangaroo dung, because it’s 75% grass.

Good to know.

When I felt I’d had enough, I bought a Christmas tree decoration on my way out, grabbed lunch and took a taxi back to the hotel to wait for my Ghan pick up.

While I was there, I wandered into a shop in the hotel foyer and they had some quilting fabric. At some stage in the future, I’ll be making myself a Central Australia quilt.

once back on the train, I was lucky enough to find another good group of people. The dining staff surprised me with a little birthday cake and the dining car sang “ Happy Birthday “. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that my birthday was DAYS ago.

Tomorrow is a quick visit to the famous Katherine Gorge and then Darwin,

Dad Joke of the day:

A book fell on me when I was working at my desk.

I only have my shelf to blame.