Day Two - Alice Springs

Our first stop today was Alice Springs Desert Park. Martin, our guide, lived in The Alice for more than 20 years and really knows his stuff. During our guided walk Martin talked about the desert landscape, flora and fauna of central Australia.  Here are pictures of some of what we saw during our visit.

Our next stop was a visit to one of the Royal Flying Doctor Service. With 63 airplanes operating out of 21 bases, the service provides 24 hour  emergency service to residents in remote areas of the Australian Outback. The doctors are appointed and paid by the government. While doctors are not on all flights, they are available to diagnose and consult with the nurses who can stabilize and work with the pilot to transport the patients.

Pilots use 180 landing strips throughout the Outback, highways, airports, and anywhere else to reach patients. And they're busy, treating one patient every two minutes. Here's an electronic board which tracks all of the services aircraft and shows which ones are in the air.

Dinner began with a sampling of indegenous foods including bush tomatoes, bread with acacia seeds, feta cheese with lemon myrtle, quandong jam, and kangaroo. Even though the bush tomatoes are a delicacy, I didn't really like it.