The Distinctive Tones of the Red Centre

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We’re a bit slow off the mark after our nearly 700 kms of driving yesterday, like nearly lunchtime type slow when we finally make our way out the door. I guess we must have needed the rest. We plan to spend what’s left of the day exploring the town.

First cab off the rank is Anzac Hill, where we get excellent panoramic views over the town and back towards the MacDonnell Ranges and Heavitree Gap. No surprise it’s called the Red Centre, the colours of the soil and rocks are an unmistakably distinctive dark reddish orange.

Next up is the Olive Pink Botanic Garden. I ask Issy what colour olive pink is, and she rolls her eyes. It seems I should have known better; Ms Olive Pink founded the garden back in 1956. We take a short hike up a hill for yet more panoramic town views. The Garden’s relatively small at only around 16 hectares, but contains an impressive and extensive collection of native arid zone plants.

We figure we should probably walk around the town itself, if for no other reason to be able to say we’ve been here. There’s not really a lot to see, and the whole place just feels a bit dead. There are very few people on the streets, and half the shops seem to be closed, which we suspect might have more than a bit to do with the recent unrest. We hear one indigenous man screaming about something, and bystanders urging him to go home, but other than that it all feels fairly peaceful and safe. The demographic looks like is an eclectic mix of indigenous, western, Asian and African.

We head a few kilometres out of town to the Alice Springs Desert Park, a 1,300 hectare wildlife reserve which we read opened back in 1997. We’re told we’ve come too late in the day to see the bird show, which is a bit disappointing; we’d been led to believe that was the highlight. We are however assured there’s plenty more to see, but whilst it’s a pleasant stroll through the landscape, it feels slightly dead here too. We’re sure there must be dingoes in the dingo enclosure …. somewhere … unless they’ve escaped while no one was looking. Hopefully not. The fence around it’s about twice as high as the short section of the 5,600 km long Dingo Fence I saw just outside Coober Pedy a couple of days ago. If the dingoes here really have jumped over the fence, they well they might as well tear down the Dingo Fence and sell it for scrap metal. The first section of the Nocturnal House is brightly lit, but the rest … well we can’t really see anything and constantly feel like we’re about to bump into the enclosures or each other. We can vaguely see a few presumably nocturnal creatures scampering around in the gloom, but most of the signs telling us what they are have been turned off, so we’ve got no idea what we’re looking at. Back in daylight again, and we get to walk through an aviary full of cute birds which don’t seem at all intimidated by us massive humans stomping around in amongst them. That was a bit better. Then there’s an enclosure with a solitary large bird in it, a Bustard. It’s standing stock still, twisting its head backwards and forwards and puffing its neck out. The signage tells us that if it’s doing this it’s trying to attract its partner so they can mate, which would be great, but it’s the only bird here. I wonder how long it’s going to keep the whole show going before it realises.

It’s nearly 6 o’clock, so we need to make it to a bottle shop before it closes. They sure do seem to be taking their alcohol restrictions here seriously. We need to show ID to an armed policemen as we go in, and then assure him that the beer we’re buying is for our own consumption. He then tells us to make sure we get all we need, as he says we’re only allowed to buy alcohol once a day. It seems the attendant will scan our ID, and if we try to buy more somewhere else the system will shut us out. The other initiative they seem to be pushing strongly here is making sure children go to school. We saw a sign at the entrance to one of the malls earlier in the day prohibiting anyone under 16 from entering during school hours unless they were accompanied by an adult. I hope all these measures are having some sort of positive impact.

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