Today is our last day in the centre. I've really enjoyed this leg of the trip, the sense of independence and isolation has been very refreshing after all our touristy bits. Although Uluru is the most visited attraction in Australia, its size means it isn't crowded.

I wake up at 7am and can't sleep, so read in the common room. I'm reading Paul Theroux's "Riding the Iron Rooster", about travelling in China. It's great, but I wish I was reading an Australian travel book. Bill Bryson's "Down Under" is excellent, and when I get back I'll read "In The Land of Oz", by Howard Jacobson, which Iain recommends. The hostel "book exchange" system is fab; means we can swap books without carrying too much. We also bought Pamela Stephenson's book Billy, about her husband Billy Connelly; well worth a read.

We check out of the hostel at 9am, having had a lazy breakfast and taking time out to talk to people - always useful, and something we don't do often enough. We are probably the most anti-social backpackers in Australia. Partly due to time, and partly coupledom. There's a wealth of information and recommendations available just by starting up a conversation with a stranger. Backpackers are a sociable bunch, and keen to help. It's odd being back in this community, which we saw a little of four years ago around Europe. Comparatively we're older than most, but that makes me feel proud to still be adventurous!

[Snowy Owl]

[Falcon]

We're off to the Desert Park today. It's a flora/fauna park of the centre, with three "lands" showing ecology and environment in the desert, river valleys and in woodlands. There seem to be a few more lands planned, according to signs we see. It's a ten minute drive from the hostel, and set in a random bit of desert, with the MacDonnell Ranges as a stunning backdrop.

[Eagle]

[Eagles with attitude]

When we arrive, there's a bird of prey show about to start. I'm a bit sceptical about this, as I hate seeing birds tethered/clipped/caged, but we decide to give it a go. I'm so glad we did; it was amazing. The birds are mainly wild (some are tagged), and come in for food on cue! A barn owl swoops silently a couple of feet from my head, and the presenter is extremely knowledgeable about the birds. Black Kites and Wedge-Tailed Eagles glide over for meat. The ranger throws bits of chicken up into the air, and the birds swiftly grab it mid-flight. Some birds become territorial and a bit aggressive; we see eagles performing a 180deg flip onto their backs to bare their talons at intruders. The agility and speed is incredible. There are around 20 birds flying around during the show, some appear distantly from over the mountains.

[Perched Eagle]

[Red Kangaroo]

Next we go to a talk on bush tucker and medicine. An Aboriginal lady shows us the plants in the park, and what they're used for. We also see our first witchetty grub. Adult ones are up to four inches long. This is fascinating stuff. I'm really interested in Aboriginal culture and survival mechanisms.

We walk round and see red kangaroos and emus, but are blase about these now, having seen them wild!

[Stupid Americans[tm] annoy the emus]

[...which walk off]

[Thorny Devil]

The nocturnal house is amazing. It's huge, and has many endangered and rare species that you won't see wild. We see a thorny devil, which is a bizarre lizard (see photo), and lots of small bouncing marsupials.

Lunch is at the cafe, where I manage to explode a sauce bottle by squeezing it (it had the wrong lid on). In the UK there would've been an embarrassed silence, but here everyone laughs, it starts conversations with random people, and the staff are non-plussed. This is good, since it's all over the walls, windows, and floor. The sauce, incidentally, was sweet chilli - something we don't get in the UK much, but which is fabulous on potato wedges.

We have a wander round the lands, see some great birds, and some huge termite mounds (more about this in a couple of days), and a film about desert formation and history.

[Our home for the past week]

[Only joking. It was this one.]

We leave at 2.30pm for Britz, return the van, and the airport shuttle picks us up. Sometimes this travelling thing is too easy.

The bus driver is also a road train driver, which provokes interesting conversation. The road trains we've seen have been up to four trailers long (they're limited to 50m), but he drives seven trailers to Darwin and Sydney. Sydney is at least 3000km from here by road. He says the train line from Alice north to Darwin will be completed soon, and road trains will be redundant (more about this later, too). He thinks it's a "mug's game" driving now, with speed limits and targets to meet.

The flight's half an hour late, but we use the time to chill out - time at airports is appreciated as time to read/diarise/sleep. Alice Springs airport has around 8-12 planes a day. When we arrive, there are three shop assistants, about four security staff, three check-in people, and a dozen passengers milling. In the whole airport. Which isn't big, as you'd imagine. People arrive steadily, and a flight leaves just before ours. Our plane comes in from Perth, and is a fly-on to Darwin, so some people on it have come straight from international flights. A friend of ours did this once, it doesn't bear thinking about.

There used to be two national airlines; Ansett and Qantas. Ansett went bust, and Qantas (according to Australians we've spoken to) dramatically increased their prices. Virgin Blue now compete, with a limited schedule, but are awaiting a licence to fly into/out of Alice. Locals are outraged at Qantas prices to get anywhere from Alice.

Whilst we're in airports we sometimes catch up on the news. The headline in the Northern Territory News is "Tourists die in road accident". We're horrified to read that two Italians died on the Mereenie loop road yesterday; the day after we were on it. Three 4x4s crashed into each other and rolled, after the front driver in the convoy lost control adjusting his sun visor. Apparently that's 26 tourists who've died so far this year, on a par with last year. Let me clarify this; one person every week dies on this road. And you can hire a vehicle with no 4x4 experience, and not be given a rescue kit (rope, spade would be helpful to dig out of the sand), not even a second spare tyre.

[Random Northern Territory desert]

[Sunset over Australia]

We get a good view of the desert sunset from the plane, but it's hard to photograph as the camera can't see the colours. Qantas actually feed us, hallelujah. Usually we get a card box with 2 cakes/cookies, orange juice and coffee, and it stinks. Not expecting food, I didn't book a veggie meal, and they have none, so I quietly starve. Iain says the noodles are crap, but he might be trying to appease me.

We arrive at 8pm, pick up the tourist bus to the hostel and check in at 9pm, by which time we're pretty tired. The hostel is central, and has a nice pool. Darwin is small and on the north coast of Australia. Seems to be backpacker central; it's full of them, and geared to a nightlife, unlike some places we've been. Darwin was flattened (90%) on Christmas Day 1974, by Cyclone Tracy, was bombed in WWII, and hit by an earthquake earlier in the the twentieth century. There was a debate after the cyclone whether to bother rebuilding it. All the communications were destroyed; no-one in Australia knew what had happened to Darwin for a day and a half.

We felt the heat as we landed; it's 31 deg here during the day, and we're in the tropics now. Even after sundown it's stifling today. We book a tour to Litchfield National Park for tomorrow (there's only one company left with places), get a pizza, and go to bed at 10.30pm, unable to keep our eyes open. We're being picked up at 6.45am tomorrow.