An Afternoon In Alice Springs

As I flew out of the little airport at Uluru I was feeling ready to go back to Darwin, and looked forward to be able to unpack and settle in to the apartment for the remainder of my stay.
I was really glad I had stayed on at Uluru, it was just the perfect amount of time I had there, to see and experience pretty much everything it had to offer.
When we landed in Alice Springs I was almost tempted to just stay in the airport, it was cold and misty, but I felt I should at least go in to town and look around a bit, so I went over and hopped on the airport shuttle, and soon I was downtown Alice Springs.
The guys at the bus center were kind to let me leave my laptop and camera gear there, while I went out to explore. Since Jann and I had walked around a bit a week earlier when we were passing through, I felt like I knew my way around - and it really is not a big town, so there's the main street, and that's pretty much it! I checked out a couple of the art galleries, there was a little marked going on at the park area one block over, so I went over there to take a look, before I decided it was time to grab some lunch.
The service was extremely slow, so I had plenty of time to people watch. It was actually quite fun, it was a very eclectic group of people in the little Italian/New Age/Alice Springs café I had chosen. There were the "normal" folks, probably locals, then a group of young "punk rock/artsy" college aged kids, a few aboriginals milling around outside, and then a few tourists like me! When lunch finally arrived it was delicious, and after a nice hot latte I felt ready to get out into the chilly afternoon again.
I went by the bus center to drop off the books I had bought and pick up my camera, so I could take a couple of photos before it was time to leave. To my utter delight all of a sudden the Ring-necked Parrots I had seen briefly last week, came flying in as if on cue! I had been frustrated that I didn't get a photo then, and here they were! I was so uplifted by the parrots that I decided I had just enough time to wander down to the bone dry Todd River and get a few photos of the beautiful Red River Gum trees there. A perfect finale to my afternoon in Alice!