I was awoken by the usual kick in the kidneys by Sally, and dawn chorus of one very confused bird that clearly hadn't noticed that dawn was still 2 hours away and it was pitch dark. Breakfast was a subdued affair as usual and we rolled up our swags and ate our toast and jam in silence, though this time there was a degree of extra faffing cos we had to gather together our things for leaving the bus tomorrow. One Irish lass commented that she was bound to leave something behind because 'this has become my home' she said and gestured to her seat on the bus. I hadn't spotted that, but yes, denied of the personal space of a tent because the swags, we had all now taken our seats as our own and every one was unique, just as if we'd put up some wallpaper and laid down new carpet. Mine was identifiable by the two cushions, book jammed down the back, festering walking boots underneath and secret stash of diet coke down the side. Other people had jumpers, cd's, footballs, sarongs, all sorts.

We didn't have time to go to an official sunrise viewing spot today so instead, in true cheap ass backpacker style, pulled up at the side of the road close to sunrise, sprinted up a nearby dune and watch it from there. It was still a nice view, and the dune had been untouched prior to our arrival and was all covered in lizard tracks and things.

Then...then there was simply hours and hours of dry earth. Hours. Hours and hours. Dry. Earth. Hours. At least it allowed some quality time for catching up on the moBlog.

We said goodbye to Sally at Jim's Place (we had now ceased to be amazed by Dinky the singing Dingo). She was taking the bunch that joined us from The Ghan to Rainbow valley (after a quick nap in the shade in her swag under a tree), and the rest of us had to swap bus to be taken back to Alice the 'quick' way. This was another 1 hours drive and it was an odd experience because suddenly the bus was all clean again, we all went instinctively to the same seats we'd occupied on the old bus but somehow it didn't feel the right...and the driver wasn't Sally, he was all uptight and formal and had a neat uniform and used the tour guide headset mic to tell us crap about Alice instead of Sally who would randomly pull up at the side of the road and turn round to speak to us, and then abuse us for being bloody poms or something when we asked awkward questions. We slowly realised we had lost a good 'un in Sally, and the only way from here was down.

Thankfully we were back in Alice in a jiffy (where the term 'jiffy' is employed relatived speaking and still employed the odd 100km). We said our goodbyes as we all got dropped off at hotels (with most getting dropped off at Melenka's - a backpacker place described in the Lonely planet book as 'a good place if you just want to fall into your bunk after a hard night's partying') and I finally arrived at my quiet little motel just round the back of Todd Mall about 12 noon.

God I was tired. It still wasn't the afternoon yet and I'd already been up over 6 hours and travelled +400km. I wanted so much just to shower and fall into bed but I couldn't, I still had things to do. With an immense amount of effort I forced myself out of my room again and onto a desert park transfer bus which left every hour and a half from Todd Mall. It (not surprisingly) took you to the Desert Park experience (tm), a nature park dedicated to the arid wastes of the outback. You got one of those self-guide audio tour things and you wandered round three themed areas - Sandy desert, Dry river bed & Desert Woodland - while the audio tour tried desperately to persuade you that the outback was a great place really honest and you tried not to knock your headphones off as you battled with the flies.

I'm usually pretty forgiving, but for once the audio tour failed to convince me of the beauty and richness of the local area. It increased my respect for a number of species of shrub though, like the spineflex which seems to survive off fresh air and gets rid of competing neighbouring by catching fire itself (by dint of being full of lots of flammable resins), torching everything else, then regenerating itself from its ashes. I still think the outback is a terrible hot, dry, prickly, itchy, dusty, nasty place though and my respect goes out to anyone/anything that manages to tolerate the place. That said, I reckon the residents of Alice have turned the fly swatting action into an unconcious reflex action and I bet if you took one of them and matter transported them to the Arctic they'd still be flicking the air around their face every 3 secs without even noticing they are doing it.

I got back from the Desert Park about 5 ish slightly fried from the sun and frazzled from all the fly attention, then I quickly nipped to the local bottle shop in the mall. After that I spent some quality time in the guest laundry washing red dust out of all my clothes and supping lager. I ended the day with a room service feast of camel steaks and emu with a croc confit starter, and a 9pm coma from which I never rose from until my alarm shook me awake the following day...