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Cairns to Alice Springs
Getting up bright and early, returning our hire car with no hassle, bags packed and we were on our way to the airport. It was only a short distance from our hostel, check in was relatively quick and pain free and the flight was not particularly busy so we were able to stretch out if we desired. The flight itself lasted around 2 hours 30 mins with food and (non alcoholic) drinks complimentary.
We had previously been advised to take a taxi from the airport to the YHA as the shuttle bus had recently put up its prices and it would be more costly. We managed to share a taxi with a local couple which managed to bring down the price of the taxi a little bit, however it was still more costly than we had hoped. I suppose in a small town with limited options they can charge as much as they like.
Before arriving in Alice Springs we consulted the Lonely Planet and also a number of hostel review sites on the internet as I was concerned about sharing my bed with little bed bugs. Unfortunately a large number of the reviews were
very mixed regarding they hostels, so we opted for the YHA which is renowned around Australia for its standards, although a little more costly. This was our first experience of a YHA and consequently due to the price, our first experience of a 16 bed dorm room. We arrived early afternoon so there was nobody else in the room when we checked in. The hostel itself was very clean and quiet, and as we were getting picked up by our tour group at 5am the following morning we hoped that they hostel stayed just as subdued in the evening.
We headed out for a walk around the town. It was a nice little place, and actually reminded us a bit of Siam Reap certainly in size as the place was very compact. Unfortunately for us it was a Sunday and most things seemed to be closed however it was nice to explore the surroundings and check out some of the Aboriginal art that was sold on the streets by the artists themselves. Some of the poorer Aboriginals lived on the streets here or in the Third World style reserves they had been given as their accommodation. It was generally
Australian Windmill
This one was in the middle of the town in Alice Springs. the city dwellers that gives Aboriginals a bad name in terms in the eyes of a lot of Australians, although it is a minority committing the majority of crimes. A lot of these Aboriginals have either been expelled from their tribes or have no tribe left with their land either taken away or falling victim to the evils of alcohol, drugs or even saturated fats. All of which they are genetically predisposed to having survived on bush food for up to 60,000 years, much like native Americans. It's a shame though, as regardless of ethnicity, poverty breeds crime; a phenomenon that can be witnessed in any city in the world.
This goes a bit of a way to explaining the deep racial tension between the indigenous and the non-indigenous Australians. Another big factor is history itself. As well as policies as forced assimilation (which doesn't work), it was actually legal to hunt and shoot an Aboriginal up until the 1950s. One guy got away with cold blooded murder of this sort in the 1970s, producing his 1950s license saying it was within his rights. Only
allowed to be Australian citizens in 1968 (despite the 60,000 year residency on the
land), they were originally classified under Flora & Fauna in the census, which basically means animals and livestock. It all started off pretty well too, with Aboriginals offering little opposition to early white explorers and in return, them being respectful of the Aboriginals. This changed with the growing colonisation as they were either cheated off their land or forced off. Then came the attempted forced conversion to Christianity, being tried under British laws and slavery. It probably never helped that they were black, so they were automatically treated as sub-human.
The Stolen Generation is another issue as well, so this goes a fair bit to understanding the acrimony.
Having been so busy in Cairns, we were beginning to fall behind with our blogs, particularly the pictures. Our pen drive was full again so we searched for an internet place with DVD burning facilities, however we had no luck and Gary ended up trying to copy the pictures over himself using the computers at our hostel. Unfortunately he did not succeed due to the lack of software on the computers, despite advertising and charging for the facility. We did manage to spend some time on the internet writing a few blog entries.
After dinner we decided to head out to Bojangles for a few drinks. The pub was really cool, it was like an old style western saloon with proper swing doors, much to Gary's amusement. There was a big display on the wall near where we were sitting with a skeleton sitting on a bike, and only after looking at it and discussing it for some time did we realise that there were a number of snakes in the display. The skeleton was not wearing a hat as we first thought, it was in actual fact a snake (check out the photo).
Aware of the early rise ahead of us the following morning we headed back to the hostel, put on a laundry, packed our bags and settled into bed for a few hours of sleep.
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