“Mum how much longer is dad gonna take?” Isaac asked. “Not much longer”, replied Mum, “look, here he comes”. “We’re all sorted,” my dad said. “How much did it cost?” mum asked but dad just said he’d tell her later.

When we got to the campsite, all the kids decided to go exploring. We all wanted to find the playground and jumping pillow so I grabbed the map and led the way. We soon arrived at a playground but there was no jumping pillow. I double checked the map but all that did was prove we were in the wrong place. Since this made no sense we decided to go ask our parents for help. When we got there they were still setting up so we all helped them set up before we all went over. When we were ready, I showed my parents the map and they told me that there was another playground and we went to the closest one to us. With that knowledge we all started heading in the direction of the pool which was supposedly near the pillow. Once we got to the pool, we weren’t to sure where to go but luckily a park ranger came past and he showed us where to go.

Next day, we went to go have pancakes at the camp kitchen but the line was too long and we needed to get to mass so we decided to go get hotcakes instead and eat them at the park after church. After that, we went back to the campground so we could go swimming. The swimming pool at that campground was spectacular. It had four pools of different depths and it also had a water-slide. We spent a fair bit of time there, before heading back to our site for a shower before mum, Isaac and I went to a star gazing talk. At the talk we got to look through a special telescope that shows three of Jupiter’s moons. When we got back, we ate dinner and slowly climbed into bed.

On our second full day, we decided to go to ‘The Mega-Fauna Museum’ in Alice. Mega-Fauna are not dinosaurs but are other animals that lived on the earth millions of years ago, but after the dinosaurs. At the museum we saw lots of different mega-fauna and we compared our heights to them on a wall. We discovered a room that had a time elapse video and some blocks. There were also two bins with sand and bones in them and you had to uncover the bones with some brushes. We even got to meet a palaeontologist who had just come back from Alcoota which is where the bones are most commonly found. He had been in Alcoota for a little while and when he came back he discovered that the fridge where the specimens were kept had turned off so that there was a horrible smell wafting through the place. When we got back we changed for a swim and then going through the usual nighttime routine.

The third day we were in Alice we spent hanging around and we also spent some time doing schoolwork. Isaac was working with mum on a recount and Matisse was doing a recount while I was doing some maths. We also went to the pool and the jumping pillow on our bikes.

On the very last day of our stay in Alice Springs, we went to hire a go kart. Dad and I walked down together and we got one that seated four. On the way back, I drove and dad helped me peddle. Once on the way back, I took a particularly sharp turn which caused dad to bang his leg into the side of the kart. When we got back to the van, the kids all piled in and we had to organise ourselves so that we could get as much speed as possible. We ended up swapping spots quite a bit as everyone wanted a turn sitting next to someone else. Eventually we had all got a turn with each other and it was time to take it back. It ended up taking longer to return it than we had thought as we forgot to bring Tobias’ helmet and I had to walk all the way back again. But we soon had everything returned and we headed back to our campsite where we were already starting to pack up.

My parents decided that the day we left was going to be the day we went to the RFDS (Royal Flying Doctors Service). When we arrived we received a quick talk on what was happening and then we went to go have a look. There was a model plane which you could go into, a screen with colouring in and memory and also a few headsets which you could put on and see what the experience with the RFDS was like for different people. After we had a look at that we went to see a hologram of how RFDS started. After that Dad had to go and move the car while mum took us into the museum. As soon as we arrived there we caused mum a lot more stress than we should have by running wild. Fairly soon we were out of town and driving towards the next adventure!