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Published: November 24th 2012
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We made it to Alice Springs! Back to civilisation! This town, literally in the very centre of Australia, is a lot bigger and bustlier than we had imagined it would be. It has a population of 28,000, including a thriving Aboriginal community, and the focus seems to be on art and culture. We had only intended to stay for a couple of nights, but ended up staying for five nights as there was plenty to do and see.
We did a big re-stock on food, toiletries, camping gear etc; we both had haircuts; I caught a couple of yoga classes and went for what felt like a well-deserved massage. It was lucky that our visit coincided with the monthly Sunday market and we enjoyed soaking up its relaxed atmosphere. We also tried our hand at playing the didgeridoo (and gave up pretty quickly – it’s not easy!), visited the Adelaide House museum (central Australia’s first hospital, designed by John Flynn and operated by the Australian Inland Mission which he established) and checked out the Araluen Arts Centre (a lovely complex with a gallery, theatre and arts cinema).
One of the highlights was our trip to
the excellent Desert Park, a set-up in the desert surrounding Alice Springs featuring the area’s flora and fauna. We learnt a lot about the environment as well as the animals. As it turns out, as much as 70% of Australia is covered by desert and it’s not as barren as you’d think. In fact it’s crawling with wildlife. We joined a fascinating presentation by one of the park’s rangers on the area’s indigenous culture and traditions. We handled tools and desert foods and learnt about the strict rules surrounding women’s and men’s domains and marriage between tribal groups. Apparently, the last recorded self-sufficient desert-dwelling indigenous communities lived in the deserts of the NT in the 1960s. Today, members of many aboriginal communities go and live in the desert for short periods at a time to keep their culture alive.
On 14 November, a day before leaving Alice Springs, I was all set to get up at 6am to watch the solar eclipse (Cairns would have been the best location to see it, but apparently 70% of the eclipse was visible from Alice). Unfortunately my alarm didn’t go off, so that opportunity was missed!
15
November, three weeks after my actual birthday, we went out for a scrumptious breakfast to celebrate. We had intended to go out for dinner the previous evening but our chosen restaurant (and pretty much the only decent restaurant in town) was apparently fully booked. Strangely, there were a dozen or so empty tables when we arrived and they didn’t think to offer us a limited-time sitting. I’m so glad, though, that we did brekkie instead though. ‘Page 27’ is the loveliest café with a Melbournesque ambience and mouth-watering menu. Yu-hum! Brekkie was followed by some browsing around the local shops and galleries. There is so much aboriginal art on offer in Alice Springs and I fell for the work of Tommy Crow. Although it’s not the usual style that I go, his landscape ‘Sunset Dreaming’ paintings are really distinctive and I first noticed them in the camp kitchen of our Alice Springs caravan park, where Tommy had painted a couple of murals. Check out his work and profile at
http://tommycrow.com.au/
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