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Published: April 20th 2009
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Friday 17th April - Said farewell to Cairns, really liked this town and was sorry to leave. Taxi to airport and a 2hr flight to Alice Springs - “The Alice” as its locally known. As the skies were clear we had 2 hrs of flying over the desert - just mile after mile of red sandstone below us with the occasional dead straight dirt road and milky-blue salt lakes. Caught the shuttle bus to our hotel and the short journey from the airport was mostly through desert.
Alice was a bit of a culture shock after Cairns - it wasn’t the heat or the desert but this was our first close encounter with the indigenous people, the Aboriginals. There was no integration whatsoever and you get the impression that the Aboriginal people have no interest in “western” culture. However, there were loads of galleries in Alice all selling wonderful aboriginal art. Our hotel was slightly out of the town centre so walking back after a meal in the town was an interesting experience in the dark.
We had however managed to book a day tour of the Western MacDonnells mountain range. Alice lies in a bowl between the eastern and western
ranges with the only way in from north and south being through gaps created by ancient rivers (long since dry).
Saturday 18th April - Up early ready for the 8.30am pick up outside the hotel. As we waited at the front there was quite a gathering of Aboriginal people who were also waiting for a bus/coach. Two buses finally arrived one for our trip and one for the Aboriginals - we were carefully guided around their bus to our own. These are the occasions when the difference in cultures appears to be emphasised - an uncomfortable feeling. However, once on our bus all worries soon disappeared as we were a very small group. Brian the driver, Sam (Polish) the guide, 2 Australian Japanese girls, a French family with a 5yr old son, Debbie & Paul (art & economic teachers) from Sydney, Annie (art gallery curator) from Canberra and us two. Our tour would explore the gorges, chasms and gaps in the Western MacDonnells - if we had gone to Uluru it would have meant leaving at 6.00am back at midnight and only 3 hrs around the Rock.
Our first stop was Simpsons Gap and as it was still
early in the morning the colours of the rocks just hit you. No wonder its called the Red Centre. The photos don’t really do it justice, they don’t capture the silence, the heat and the grandeur. The other benefit of being early was that the wildlife was still active before it got too hot so we saw Rock Wallabies and Eagles. Next stop was Standleys Chasm - this was a narrow split in the rocks, a bit like Petra and the Valley of the Kings. The walls here were absolutely vertical and polished. Had tea/coffee and cake before we left for our next stop the Red Ochre Pits - interestingly although all of these areas are on land ‘owned’ by aboriginals it is only the women who are allowed into Standleys Chasm and only the men in the Ochre Pits - don’t think political correctness comes into it. At Ormiston Gorge we had a glorious 5km walk climbing up through the gorge before descending into the river bed - mostly dry but with a few deep pools and big boulders to negotiate. Its places like this where you can understand people falling in love with the desert. If nothing else
it certainly gave us an appetite for lunch courtesy of the tour company. More pools in gorges followed with a trip to Glen Helen and Ellery Creek. On the way back to Alice (some 132km away by now) we saw 2 dingos by the road just watching us indifferently.
Despite being unsure when we arrived, we found ourselves loving the desert and being constantly surprised by the colours and the beauty of the land and certainly felt that we would have liked to explore more (but only on organised tours - its not a place to be trifled with!). It also makes you aware that it’s the aboriginal culture which is at home in the desert and we are visitors in their environment.
Finished off the day with a meal by the pool in the hotel. Tomorrow we fly to Perth!
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