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Published: October 27th 2008
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A Town Like Alice- Day 25
October 26, 2008
We haven’t seen that movie or read the book, “A Town Like Alice” but now that we’ve been to Alice Springs we surely will. The Ghan uncharacteristically arrived 30 minutes early, so we had our rental car and were checked into our room at the Desert Palms (near the casino and golf course) by noon. Seeing all that nothingness on the train for hours and hours really gives us a sense of where this town is…in the middle of Australia and close to very little. Even Uluru (Ayers Rock) is a 4-hour drive from here. As we approached the town it was announced on the train that there was a big dust storm in Alice Springs. There was no need for the announcement as we could definitely see a huge cloud of dust ahead of us. Didn’t seem so bad once we got into town, but we could see some kind of weird purple haze.
The Alice (as they call it) is a very different sort of town and seems to us the Australia of movies and myth. The guys look like Crocodile Dundee with their bent-up hats and stubbly
View from the Ghan
This was what the scenery looked like much of the time as we were traveling from Tennant Creek to Alice Springs. beards and bush clothes and everybody says “G-day.” We ate lunch in the famous Bo Jangles Cafe and Joe ordered lasagna that, to his surprise, was served on a bed of French fries. The salt and pepper shakers were 2 liter beer bottles, guess they don’t want to spend time filling them. For some reason there were Magnificent 7 photos on the walls along with several Australian animal skins and skeletons and old boots with the toes in various animal traps hanging from the ceiling. There was a giant live snake in a glass cage and a coin slot with a sign that said, “See the snake move. Money goes to charity.” We put a 20 cent coin in the slot, and of course, nothing happened. Then Joe said, “That was one fast moving snake, do you want to see it again?” We are such suckers, hope it was for a good charity.
We walked along Todd Mall where a lot of Aboriginal people hang out with their paintings and carvings. Very few of them spoke English and they appeared to be needy, we heard a lot of them live in the dry riverbed. Seems pretty sad to me.
Alice Springs
Aboriginal Artists Selling Their Paintings All the employees in the shops were white. It appears to be a town of contrasts between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” The rental car girl told us it was the Murder Capital of Australia but that we shouldn’t worry. There are a lot of nice museums here celebrating things such as the Telegraph Operations and the Royal Flying Doctors, but we ended up just enjoying the city center and the art galleries. We probably won’t be buying any didgeridoo CD’s as I think we’ve heard enough of them to last a lifetime.
Alice Springs is also home to about 1000 U.S. Defense Dept. employees who work on “secret stuff.”
We stocked up on provisions for our trip to Uluru and the Olgas tomorrow. We can’t remember if our room there has a kitchen or not so we only bought stuff that doesn’t need to be cooked. We also had to buy a decent Australian wine to toast the sunset because that’s what they do at Uluru.
Joe swam in the hotel pool, but it was too cold for me. I miss those plunge pools in Litchfield.
While checking into the hotel, we asked about wifi.
Alice Springs
We drove to the top of this lookout to view the town. You can still see part of the dust storm. The owner said the internet wasn’t working and we said we’d try it somewhere else. He said, “No, it’s not working anywhere in town at the moment.” Unbelievable. So, you may be getting the Red Centre blogs after we move on to Adelaide.
We have yet to run into any more U.S. tourists other than a family from Ohio we talked to on a ferry in Sydney. Where is everybody? It’s a good time to travel in Australia now.
We are tired from the train ride, so will be in bed early tonight.
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Connie
non-member comment
You have seen an incredible amount of variety in Australia already- I assume the interior is desolate, like the movies. Does it seem similar to Death Valley? I've spent more time in the stretch in Utah, near Green River, but that is more "moonlike", high desert plains-arid. We look forward to your next entries-