Visitors from Sydney

We love having visitors and were delighted to have Maureen and Sofie stay for several days recently.

Both are nursing professionals from Sydney. Maureen works for the NSW Air Ambulance (a high flyer no less) and Sofie at a local hospital accident and emergency department. We've known Sofie since we were all young, single people in Hobart, partying every weekend as though there was no tomorrow, so it was extra special seeing her and we were delighted to make a new friend of Maureen.

For a while Robin had to cope with not one, but three nurses in the house.

I took this photo of Maureen and Sofie on ANZAC Hill overlooking Alice Springs. Almost everyone who visits The Alice drives up the only lookout in an almost flat landscape (excluding the MacDonnell Ranges seen in the background) and gets a great 360 degrees view of the township.

For anyone who considers themselves to be a mountain climber, you can get a better view from the MacDonnells, but they are steep and it's a hard slog climbing to the top. The only vehicle access is on a private road owned by telecommunications company, Telstra which leads to the communications towers at the top of the ranges. Unfortunately, travelling on that road is prohibited, so it's climb or nothing.

While here the ladies followed in the footsteps of Mike and Linda Fairhart and went on an Emu Run Tour of Ayres Rock and Kings Canyon to the west of Alice Springs. They appeared to have had a good time visiting.

After leaving here they flew to Darwin and planned to fly back to Sydney after a short stay.

Our next visitors are due in early July; Diane and Gerry from Al Ain Women's College will also be doing the Emu Run Tour (hopefully the tour company will send me a carton of booze for all the business I've been passing their way ... oh yeah, that's right).

Robin