These boots weren't made for walking: Alice Springs (Tuesday 2)

Another lovely day in Alice! My morning was filled with general pottering about the house and then driving Gaye and Andrew to the pool.
At lunch time, I went and met up with a friend. Sue helped me with some career counselling when I first had my accident, but since she is based in Alice, I hadn't seen her for about 3 years. We went to the Olive Pink Botanical Gardens and ate at the Bean Tree Cafe. I'm not sure what I was expecting from botanical gardens in the middle of the desert, but it wasn't what I got. It was a gorgeous collection of desert plants and flowers, many of which we saw in our Simpson Desert trek. I had a very yummy kangaroo and rocket salad and we ended up sitting there talking for a couple of hours.

Lexi

After lunch, I went to the Alice Springs Reptile Centre. I had been there in 2006 with my family, but it was still interesting to go back and have a look at all the different reptiles. I do find them all rather fascinating. They have a gecko cave, with a heap of different types of geckos (surprise!). Then there are two rooms with different snakes, lizards, turtles and frogs. They also had a monitor just wandering around on the floor in one room, sunning himself by the door. I had forgotten about him when I came back to look through the second room- he scared the living daylights out of me! They did a presentation not long after I got there, talking about the different types of lizards and how to handle them. She also did a bit of a talk about snakes. We have 18 of the 20 most poisonous snakes in the world, but only 1-2 of the 125,000 snake deaths each year occur in Australia. That's pretty good odds. They also have tiny fangs, which is why you should always wear jeans and boots in long grass- their fangs aren't actually big enough to get through either. Unlike a Gaboon Viper, who's fangs can get up to 5cm long! And if you do happen to get bitten, don't wash it- the hospitals have venom detection kits nowadays, so you won't need to bring in the snake.

Monitor

After our lesson on snakes, we got to do the fun bit and hold some. They had a blue tongue lizard, a bearded dragon (we saw dozens of those on the way to Birdsville) and a green olive python called Lexi. There were a couple of people who really upset holding Lexi. One guy looked like he was going to pass out, poor bloke. It didn't worry me at all, I was excited. I'm always surprised by how heavy they are. She was quite beautiful, and felt nice too. Like an expensive handbag, if you listen to the girl giving our talk.

Bearded dragon

After having to give Lexi back, I had a look outside at the outdoor lizards; shinglebacks, blue tongues, thorny devils, perenties. Terry the salt water croc also lives there, though he looked a lot less impressive after the big breeding crocs in Darwin.

Thorny devils

After the reptile centre I headed home again. The boys had practise again and Gaye made us all felafel's for tea. I gave mum a quick call to ask her a couple of questions about a conference we are attending next week. She ended up talking to Sandra for a good hour or so!