Off to Alice Springs - the Outback

Up early in Kakadu, a bit of coffee in the room, and time to luxuriate in the drop in room temp to 79 degrees. We have breakfast and drive back to Darwin in what Ron's named 'The Roo Killer", RK for short. Roo sightings en route back to Darwin: 4 live, 1 near-miss, 2 road kill. The animals have arough way to go on this road, and we now understand why the Utes (utility vehicles) have grates across their fronts. Sad! We get into Darwin and hava look see at the harbour. The Japanese bombed the town during WW II and we see where the Aussies built underground fuel storage tanks inot the hillsides in 1942. The town was subsequently destroyed tiwce by cyclones but has now recovered to a decent size. We take our only slightly damaged rental car back and settle in at the airport to await our flight to Alice Springs. Note: Ron was able to put back the grill and pullout the fender so that the only problems were a few scratches (which they don't care about) and one missing small plastic piece on the bumper. As with most things, it could have been worse. We fly into the Alice and note lots of red dust and scrub - a red Mohave Dsert. We got a car, Toyota Kruger, that thrills Ron. SUV witha black-up camera and other accessories he deems excellent. Good thing since we'll be driving almost 5 hours to Uluru tomorrow. The hotel is pleasant and has much-needed laundry facilities. We wash clothes and take a tour of the 3-block Central Business District where we are among a handful of Anglos. Many, many Aborigines line the sidewalks with native art spread out at their feet with almost no one paying any attention to anyone else. I would have purchased something, but the prices were the same as the store and I didn't feel comfortable looking too closely at their wares as I did not want to give false hope. The people have an extrememly distinct look and often a very pungent odor. They seem to lack any joy and rarely, if ever, made eye contact. I felt like I was intruding on them and that the whole business on the street was quite depressing. There seems to be such a huge schism between the races and cultures and very difficult to bring about any comingling.