Day 13 : Fri 16th July : Alice Springs

Spent today in Alice trying to get ourselves sorted out. Dropped camper into repair place and spent an hour unloading some of our gear into an oily corner of their workshop, so the guys could access the bit that needed attention. Then went and got Josh re-Xrayed at the Alice Springs Hospital and confirmed that he has definitely fractuered the far end of his collarbone (distal end of R Clavicle). After all that we took off to do some sightseeing. We started with lunch in the Todd Mall at a place where I was pretty sure a scene from the movie "Sampson & Delilah" had been shot. We asked the chef and I was right! He told us a bit about the making of the movie which was great and his thoughts on the view of Aboriginal Alice Springs that it portrays. Then we visited the old telegraph station that once passed on all the world news to rest of Australia before being turned into a home for Aboriginal kids. This guy in the photo with the boys, Alec, shared his story with us of living as a 'half caste' kid in this home for removed Aboriginal kids. He was adamant that it had been for the best in his case. We discussed the difficulties for those from whom he'd been taken and the experiences he'd had of being moved around to several different missions as a kid including being separated from other kids he was related to and not being allowed to speak language. Amazing story and interesting to hear his perspective. After the old telegraph station we went to have a look around the School of the Air. This was really interesting and made the boys want to move to a cattle station to get the experience of joining a School of the Air class. They have about 133 pupils that live in NT, WA & SA within a certain radius of Alice and the teachers get to visit their pupils once or twice a year. Pete's Aunty June used to work for the School of the Air. Sounded like a great job.
After all that we headed back to pickup and repack our camper - all fixed up now thank goodness. On our way back to the campground we decided to make a completely spontaneous holiday purchase - 3 swags! We'd passed the swag factory on the way to pick up the camper and the guys from the workshop were raving about how good they were. We have been enviously eyeing off other campers along the way who've been sleeping under the stars so we thought seeing as though we are in swag country and will be for a while, what the heck. Needless to say the boys are in them tonight and have fallen in love with the idea of being under the moon & the milky way every night from now on.