When purchasing an international Qantas flight from the US to Australia, one can purchase a, “walkabout pass,” which allows the traveler to purchase domestic flights at reduced rates. Today we flew from Perth to Alice Springs in the interior of Australia.
Perth’s airport was easy to use. No surprises except for maybe this faucet in the restroom. When I finished washing my hands, the air blowers on the faucet immediately came on. How efficient!
On our Qantas flight we got this:
and beverage service twice, a bottle of water, and cookies.
I commented to the flight attendant, “In the US we would get a soft drink and maybe pretzels or cookies. This is wonderful.” She said, “Well, this is such a long flight!” The flight was three hours. Still only pretzel-worthy in the US.
We flew over Ayers Rock (Which we will see up-close later) I admit, you’ll have to squint to see it in this picture.
The airport in Alice Springs is small. We walked out of our plane, down a roll-up, portable stairway, and through a metal fence directly into the airport.
Once again, friendly Australians were helpful every step of the way.
Our taxi fare was about $40 AUD to the Crowne Plaza Lasseters.
Our room was on the second floor, and we were in the building nearest the casino. 
I knew better. Every review I read said to request a room in a quiet location away from the casino. But no, I forgot to do that upon registration. It was noisy outside. Why people are yelling at 1:00-2:00 AM in the parking lot beats me. The windows must not be insulated at all. We found out the next morning that a film crew was filming all night outside the casino. The following night was much quieter. We could still hear some voices, but it wasn’t as bad as the night before.
The pool was inviting, but we declined the invitation. No need to bake in the brutal sun and put up with a sunburn in already hot weather. Instead, we just sat at one of the little tables in the shade and used the wifi to catch up on news from home as we waited for our room to be ready. 
Later, we took the complimentary hotel shuttle into downtown Alice Springs to look around and eat some lunch. The main downtown tourist street is 2-3 blocks. More people of Aboriginal descent are present in Alice Springs, and the town mirrors what I see in my mind when I think about a town in Australia: older buildings, mom-and-pop shops, and restaurants. 
My hubby and I like Outback Steak House and I was on a quest to find, “Alice Springs Chicken.” I think that is just a figment of Outback’s marketing imagination. While there was chicken to be found on the menu, the fish and chips looked better.
We walked a couple of blocks away from the main tourist drag and found a shopping area complete with a Target and a Woolworth’s grocery. 
Our tour tomorrow recommends that we each have a large bottled water, so it was better to spend seventy-five cents here than inflated hotel prices later.
I wish we could have had more time to tour Alice Springs a little more. We did not get to see the museum for the Royal Flying Doctors or the telegraph museum. Both of those would have been interesting. Instead, we needed to be back to the hotel to get ready for our sunset tour of the Kangaroo Sanctuary.