Spring Break, Part 1: The Alice

There’s a lot of this country we haven’t explored yet, so when Joel finally got some time off during a school holiday unimpeded by studying for endless exams, we decided to take a stab right in the middle, in the Northern Territory.   Our first stop was Alice Springs.

Ruth, hunting emus.

Alice Springs is almost smack in the middle of the NT.  It has a population of about 22,000 people.  It was 29 C when we landed, and has stayed pretty cool our whole time here.  It was still too hot for Ruth, who was whinging from hour one that she was too hot.  But for the rest of us, it was okay. 

Not a lot of fanciness in the Alice.  Our living quarters were a basic little cabin with three beds squeezed into it, a hot plate, a fridge, a bathroom, and of course a kettle.  The accommodations were a little tight, but not a problem unless we’re trapped in the cabin with rain or illness, and we’re in the desert – that’s not going to happen, right?

First day here we took a walk around the city centre.  Really good ice cream, and a lot of houses and shops that look like they haven’t been updated since the 70s.  Countless Aboriginal art galleries.  Posted warnings against public drinking in the park.















The people are a strange lot.  There are lots of Aborigines who are either really obese or upsettingly thin.  Many are obviously drunk or under the influence of something. There are also lots of hippy folks and backpackers, and quite a diverse community in between those two groups.   Many, many utes are parked all over the city, all covered in red mud.  Maybe six traffic lights in the entire city centre.

Isaac standing in the Todd riverbed. 

The Todd River runs through the city but it’s almost completely dry.  They have a regatta on the river every year, renown because it’s the only regatta in the world to be held on dry land.  However, there’s a flood marker on the road over the river, which shows that at least sometimes there’s way too much water on the Todd. 

The city is in the McDonnell Ranges – mountains that they estimate are 300 million years old caused by tectonic plate collisions.  They are so old that they have eroded a lot.  It is estimated that when they were new they were as tall as the Himalayas.  Nowadays they’re shorter but still over 3000m tall, and very treacherous at times.  There’s a hiking trail called the Larapinta that goes through the range, and there are multiple warnings posted at each entrance to the trail that this is a rough trail and not for amateurs, carry a sat phone with you when you go, sign in and out in the log books, etc. You can see in the photos how deeply eroded the rock is, how many different layers of metamorphic rock there are, and you can almost see the changes the rock has endured in different places.

Our first night the city was holding a light show called Parrtjima. They had projections of art work on the ground, on the mountains, in the sky.  They also had inflatable caterpillars, important to the Arrernte people who are the traditional custodians of the land because they believe in the dreaming time (before people) that giant caterpillars formed the mountains.  It was a beautiful display.

The festival had recordings of artists talking about their work while the art was projected on the ground.

The circles represent locations or water holes.  The lines connecting them are journeys.

An artistic interpretation of a caterpillar that formed the McDonnell Ranges.

Our second day we visited the Alice Springs Desert Park.  They have three different climates to walk through, with all sorts of gorgeous plant life that manages to survive despite limited water and poor soil.

We were dazzled by the varied plant and floral life found in this very dry area.  All it takes is a little rain and everything springs to life again.

While there we saw a bird show with birds swooping in from the sky or behind us .  It was  impressive how well-trained they were – everything from a magpie to a huge kite. We also saw a talk on how Aborigines survive in the desert.  Our guide showed us tools the Arrente made to dig for bush potatoes, the fruit they collected from plants like bush bananas and bush raisins.  He demonstrated how women would grind flour to make damper and talked about how difficult it is to collect your own spelt.  He demonstrated how the men would start fires, hunt kangaroos and goanna and emu, and how to cook them.  

Spinifex.  The aboriginal people would pound the spiny leaves to release the resin which makes an excellent adhesive.  It's everywhere, and can grow in very poor soil.

Bumpy things on the left are 'bush potatoes'.  The white  thing on the bottom is a witchety grub and a stick to dig it from inside trees.  Big egg is an emu egg.  Red and yellow seeds on right are beads.  Green pod in the middle is a "bush apple". Others are medicinal herbs or fungi to eat.

Far left, fire-making log (grooves from rubbing to create spark).  Next to that, traditional bowl holding human hair (hair used to make belts). Bowl is resting in a baby cradle.  Next to that, a shield.  Next to that, a spear-thrower.  The next two are hunting boomerangs, and the last piece of wood is a woman's digging stick.  The containers have seeds that can be ground to make flour (middle) and "bush raisins".

Desert honeysuckle.  You can actually pull off the flowers and suck out honey-like nectar.  But not here, because it's protected.

A claypan.  Because the surface is clay, water can pool in it rather than sink into the ground, leaving a place for people and animals to drink.

Barn owl

Piper

Goanna

They had a spectacular nocturnal house with marsupials, rodents, arachnids and reptiles.  There was also an emu pen and a kangaroo enclosure so we could see a lot of the bush animals at once.  A fun day for all.

Skinks and dragon lizard (I think)

Cutest bilbys ever.

Red kangaroos

  That night it rained and rained and rained.   The following morning, we visited a botanic garden, climbed a huge hill with lots of scary crumbly rocks on the way up.  The overlook let us see all of Alice Springs. On our way around the rest of the botanic gardens we saw so many Rainbow Bee-Eaters and Honeyeaters We were especially excited to see three grey kangaroos eating all the new grass that sprang up overnight from the rain.  

Climbing to the top of the overlook. 

Wallaby

I love the photos from this park, because you can see that all the rocks are tilted and really see how the tectonic forces acted to create the range.

Mama and Joey greys, kissing ♥

Another grey kangaroo, munching away at all the new green stuff brought by the rain.

 After a quick lunch we were off again to the west to visit Standley Chasm.  The Chasm is the starting/ending point for two segments of the Larapinta Trail, so there was a logbook, camping, cooking etc. there.  Also toilets.  Good thing, because Isaac had started feeling very unwell on the drive over.  We walked to the chasm and back.  It is a great place to really see how millions of years and pressure can change a landscape.  

How the chasm was formed

The Standley Chasm at about 12:30, when a bit of light can get in.

While at the same location we went on a second walk called the “overlook and loop walk”  They called it medium difficulty.  It started on a steep uphill, but with pretty easy footing that turned into treacherous loose rocks and 75 degree slopes.  Ruth ran up the hill like an antelope, Joel followed, desperate to keep her safe.  Once he caught her, he begged me and Isaac to stay down, saying he wasn’t even sure how he would get Ruth down.  Turns out getting up was the easy part.  He managed it, but it wasn’t easy.  We finished the loop going down the mountain, then followed a dry river bed full of big and small rocks.  While walking, Joel reminded Ruth of the dinosaur movie they watched where the dinosaur family was walking through a dry riverbed and there was a flood and the daddy dinosaur got swept away.  That added a bit of urgency to our walking because it looked like rain again, and we were the only people that we had seen on this particular trail. 

Made it back, Isaac used the toilet again, and back home we went, searching for a phone signal so we could find out who won the presidential debate.

Next morning:  More rain and this time it didn’t stop for good until about 3.  Poor Isaac had been up and down to the bathroom all night, and was worn out and afraid to go anywhere too far from a toilet, so yes, we all stayed snug and way too cozy in our teeny tiny cabin. By lunchtime Isaac felt well enough to venture out, so we all went to the Araulean Cultural Centre, which had a natural history museum, an art museum and an aviation museum all in the same place.   It was a good call for a rainy day.  The natural history museum had lots of meteorite remains, models of the craters they left, and geologic explanations for why there were so many of these craters in Northern Australia.  There were also really well-taxidermied marsupials and birds that are unique to the region. In another section they talked about the main missionaries to the Northern Territory and how they interacted with the native people, and talked about how there were so few children and teachers that students had to learn by huddling around their radio to listen to lessons.  They called it the School of the Air.

 The aviation museum had old planes that were used for mail runs, for doctors, and for airmen  There were some tragic stories highlighted of aviators who, because of compass faults, ended up lost and dying horrible deaths in the desert because no one could find them.  It gives you a feel for how very vast the desert is around here.

 

Dinner was at a cheesy tourist place where we tried desert delicacies – camel, buffalo, crocodile and kangaroo steak.  The barramundi was probably from closer to Darwin.  It was also my first taste of damper bread.  The restaurant put flags on the table from whatever country you were from.  Around us there were lots of Germans, at least one Swede, plus lots of Aussies.
 

Overall we thought Alice Springs was okay.  It’s chill, you don’t need to dress up for anything, and the weather, when it isn’t raining like nothing we’ve seen since Noah, is warm and sunny and nice.  There are lots of opportunities to walk and see wildlife and flowers.  But exciting and comfortable, not so much.

 The next day we hit the road for Uluru, which is the “Centre of the Centre.” Part 2 will commence with our ride through lots and lots of flat desert.  Hoping Isaac is well enough so we don’t have to stop every hour . . .