After months of planning, a three hour flight, and about 2500km we’re finally in Alice Springs and ready to explore Australia’s red centre. Our plan is to spend the day checking out the sights in Alice Springs and then move south to Kings Canyon and Uluru.

Stepping off the plane you’re immediately greeted by a dry heat – no complaints though, you can’t come to Alice Springs and not get hot

We drove around town a bit to check out the sights. This shot is taken from a lookout called Anzac Hill. As the name suggests it’s a monument to remember those who’ve lost their lives in war.

From Anzac Hill you can see a large part of Alice Springs. To be honest I was really suprised at just how big Alice Springs is… especially considering how far inland it is. Alice Springs was established in 1872 as a telegraph relay station but now it’s a thriving tourist town. The entire town is built on the desert and relies on bore water from the Artesian Basin.

Since we’re doing a lot of driving to some fairly remote parts of the world over the next few days we thought we’d visit the local supermarket and stock up on supplies. We grabbed snacks and waters from the Woolworths for the road trips ahead.

We also checked out the Todd Mall… it’s definitely built for the tourists. There’s plenty of places to wine and dine and buy some souvenirs. There’s also many places where you can purchase fine aboriginal art. I would’ve loved to have bought some but unfortunately the art was out of my price range

The other thing I was impressed with was the quality of the food outlets in Alice Springs. Your typical fast food outlets are represented there but there’s no shortage of restaurants that provide unique cuisine that often blends European and Asian recipes with local flavours