Alice Springs Day 5

DISASTER! The car needs a new part and they do not have it in Alice Springs! The option was given to the part being delivered by road or by air. One would take twenty-four to forty eight hours, the other a minimum of four days. We chose the air freight option of course!

I rang RACV, thank goodness we have Total Cover to see what we were entitled to. We were able to get accommodation paid for the extra time in Alice Springs as well as a free hire car so that we were not stranded. It was expected to take about forty-eight hours and so we go the car, a ford falcon, (with Victorian number plates on it!) for this time. This covers the cost of this year’s membership, well worth it!

As you can imagine, we were not happy at all as this was not what we needed to happen to us, but what can you do, it is part of traveling. I have a friend who traveled overseas recently and was delayed because of aircraft connections, so it can happen anywhere to anyone.

We now have to make alternative plans for the next couple of days, could have been worse I guess, we could have been in the middle of no-where.

As you can guess, nothing much more happened for this day as I was not in any mood to do anything or go anywhere plus we had more time to just sit around and relax.

In the evening, Chels and I went to a talk at the caravan park about the moon stars and planets that we could see. I must admit to not being too excited at the start about this, but as the talk went on it did become more interesting. We did learn one major thing that may of you may know: How do you tell the difference between a star and a planet? Answer tomorrow. Only joking! The difference is that a star twinkles and a planet does not, it is a constant solid light! Did you know that?

We saw the moon through a telescope and was able to se the craters very clearly. We identified three planets and many stars and constellations. Oh and we saw a few satellites pass over. We were given a website, http://www.heavens-above.com/ (I think) that would tell us about any satellites that would pass over where we were that night.

After a bit more star gazing it was back to the van to ponder what had happened to us and what we were now going to do to fill in a couple of extra days here in Alice.