The forecast for today had been for cloud and so the sunrise was not nearly as impressive as the day before.

Mark ventured out for a one hour bike ride and I headed out for a short walk before our 5 hour drive to Alice Springs.

We had breakfast at Carmichael’s and, I’m pleased to say, they do score highly on one thing: consistency. Breakfast was just as ordinary an affair as lunch and dinner!

For the drive to Alice Springs we were advised to take the sealed road which meant heading back, almost as far as to Uluru, before connecting with the Stuart Highway. We made one stop, at the halfway mark, to grab a bite to eat and that was all.

We made it to the Crowne Plaza Alice Springs just after 2 pm and settled in our room (3202) before heading back out to explore the various bars and restaurants at the hotel complex. I wasn’t aware that there was a casino in the hotel and this area made for some rather grim viewing; there was only a handful of people on the slot machines but they looked like people who could least afford to be sitting there.

We kept wandering until we ended up at the Juicy Rump. As luck would have it, there was an enormous screen at the outdoor section of the bar that was showing the AFL. After a long drive Mark was in his happy place; with a beer in front of the footy! This turned out to be quite fortuitous as well because the Swans were playing later in the afternoon and the image coming through the large TV in our room was highly pixelated. So Mark had to head back down to the Bar to finish watching the game there.

I had researched dinner options, before coming to Alice Springs, and had found a couple through the Good Food Guide. As it turned out, the one I had booked for tonight was actually located in our hotel: Tali.

We were soon to discover that there are only a couple of good restaurants in Alice Springs and they all seemed to be located in hotel complexes: either here at the Crowne Plaza or at the Hilton next door. At least we didn’t have far to travel!

Dinner ended up being okay although it wasn’t the Asian fusion experience I had thought we were going to enjoy. The menu had one page of modern Australian and one page of Asian inspired offerings . We ended up choosing from the contemporary Australia section but we did notice that the few diners around us tended to be ordering from the Asian section. We were wondering if they knew something we didn’t know? Maybe next time, if we were ever back here again, we should try be Asian side of the menu.