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Published: April 27th 2007
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Sunrise from ANZAC Hill
These rightly belong with the last post, but, what the hey. Well, After the Grand Tour of Uluru, the rest of my time is, in tourism terms, a bit of a slow, soft let down.
I didn't leave the township much after that weekend. The evenings were taken up with various extracurriular activities with the rest of the hospital staff. On Thursdays, for instance, was Carvery: The local Memorial Club 9affectionately known as The Memo) put on a Carvery for $10, which was a fair amount of meat, and all you could eat of the associated vegetables. And good company. Fridays was Karaoke Night.
The following weekend, I'd had a big night of it on the Friday night, so woke after midday, and just did shopping and wandered about town. The sunday was Harmony Day. I woke, went to the Sunday Markets, doing lots of shopping (and buying-- good, cheaper aboriginal art), then went off to the Desert Park. It was its tenth anniversary, and, in commemoration, entry was free.
Normally entry was twenty dollars. I'm not sure that it was worth twenty dollars, but, for nothing, it was great value. It was set up with the three local habitats: being River-corridors, sandy deserts (with associated clay- and salt-pans),
Sunrise 2
By The Way Steve: Nyah! I did make it, after all! and bushlands. The habitat areas were convincing, given that the local area habitat is 'Bushland', they must have imported a lot of sand from near Uluru for the desert part. The Sand near Uluru is a distinctly different colour compared to that around Alice: Near uluru it is a deep, burnt sienna, nearer Alice it become almost yellow (for my locals, think the colour of Copacabana Beach Sand). And of course, they had set up a clay pan and a salt pan, with the unique plant-life that survives only around the otherwise deadly concentration of salt. It had just rained, so we got to see the clay pan in action, holding its water. But, having spent time in each of those environments anyway, I felt I'd seen it all before. The advantage was that the park had aviaries, so I could see the bird-life up close and personal. Hmmm... Maybe that's an indicator.
Flic warns that if you start describing the bird life, the place is generally boring otherwise. Still, I could now identify some of the birds I had seen before (Zebra Finches, Port Lincoln Parrots, etc), and see some that I had not. There was also a reptile
Sunrise 3
Check out that car. Clearly been 4WDing. *snicker* house (With nocturnal section which was, dare I say it, possibly better than the one at The Australian Reptile Park), and 'Roo and Emu enclosures. I had, I'll admit, forgotten how ugly Big Reds are. How they look at you, and you can almost read malice into the bony structures of their faces. I much prefer wallabies. But the enclosures were mean, and the Roos and Emus, in a way, were sad. I didn't spend much time there.
The highlight of my time at the Desert Park was probably the Birds of Prey show. You walk up this winding path (all the paths are about twice as long as they would be if straight. Not just winding, but unbelievably circuitous), until you reach the back of an open air theatre. The Theatre is set up so that the stage is a small flat area, before a low hill, maybe twicee the height of a man, rising gently up behind. Behind that is a gully, and behind that, cleverly making you forget the gully, is a taller hill, jagged and savagely rising, But all this is foreground to the magnificent backdrop of Macdonnell Ranges.
But the Park Ranger who
Partying
Me with Gareth. One of the Pharmacy Dudes is discussing each of the birds stands in the stage. He has a belt strapped around his waist, and on that belt, a large, open bag. People with the birds are behind the hill, in the gully, where they release them so that the birds appear as if from nowhere, glide into the arena (sometimes into the seating area), then return. The speaker throws out bits of mice, either into the air or onto the ground to demonstrate the hunting abilities of each of the birds.
First comes a Snowy Owl, common across much of Australia. He demonstrates firstly its ability to fly during daylight hours, then its amazing eyesight and ability to fly completely silently (the trick, apparently, is to feather your feet). Then we were shown the Brown Falcon, several of them came out, and we were shown how they steal from each other. They had long legs, because they catch venomous snakes and lizard, and you don't want them biting important parts of you. That also means they can run and hop along the ground quite quickly: miss once, get it on the ground. Lastly we were shown the Australian Hobby, related to the Peregrin, and
one of the fastest birds in Australia. Sadly, they no longer bring out the Wedge Tailed Eagles: The local Wedge Tails, taking exception to the fact that these ones got fed, started attacking them, so they had to leave the show.
After the I went and found the Harmony Day festivities, back in town. We stayed for some local belly-dancing, and some very cute Malaysian children singing (there is a large Malaysian Emigre population in Alice), then we split and went for dinner.
There seemed to be a group from the hospital that did most things together to me it seemed to be:Ange1 and Ange 2, Gareth, various other pharmacy people, Adam the EN, occasionaly Chris and/or Robert from Pathology, Edwina the Med Student, Kerry the Flying Doctor and others (apologies if you are reading this and would count yourself in; drop me a line and I'll edit appropriately). These were the people I was at Harmony day with, I met them at The Desert Park, we did Carvery, etc.
The last Thursday before I left, we (as above) went to see a local production of a stage play. It was "The Magic Coolamon" Done by Red
Sands Production. It was held in that outdoor ampitheatre (The Nature Theatre to give it its proper name) at Desert Sands. It was fun, a cute story about an indiginous family, their heirloom, the magic coolamon, some evil spirits who steal it off them, and how they get it back (employing Deus Ex Machina, in the form of The Great Spirit). Very cute, and I enjoyed it depsite the weather.
It had been raining on and off for the past two weeks, so, depite the fact that my first four weeks had been so hot as to be impossible anywhere outside the Desert, it cooled off in the last two weeks, to be quite impressively cold. I found myself wearing my warmest clothing for days in a row (not during the day, at work, but after, at night.) It was quite a change, really, from everything it had been up to, well, about the point my folks had come across.
In this time I saw the Todd River in flow three times. Well, four, but I am reliably informed that it didn't stop flowing between two of the times I saw it. I am also reliably informed that
Rain Disrupts Play
And Life, in this part of the world. In all of Alice, there is only one Bridge across the Todd a) You are not local until you have seen The Todd flow three times, and b) If you see the Todd River Flow Three times, you'll never leave.
I believe I can disprove both of those.
But, all good things must come to an end. So it was with this trip. After a week where I spent almost no time at home, I left, handed my keys and keycard back in, and caught the Taxi out to the Airport and back to New South Wales. My brother sms'd to remind me to change my clocks, and to change my money back to Australian Dollars.
Cute.
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Brita
non-member comment
birds
well i see you already know about lincoln parrots oh well. and HEY! I LIKE BIRDS!! birds =/ boring landscape, they are integrated within the landscape. consider gannets and such diving for fish off the nz coast - pretty awesome. i bet seeing a flock of thousands of budgerigars would be awesome, and thats birds. but i guess you agree enough to show your eagle.