Tuesday night I again went to bed at the usual time and couldn’t get to sleep for a couple hours. When I did sleep it was for the usual 7 hours.
Last night was similar to Tuesday night, though I got to sleep a little quicker than before and was up around 8:30.
On with the travelogue.
Monday, August 13
I had a morning flight from Cairns to Alice Springs. I got a window seat. After passing over the rainforest and eastern mountains there was a lot of land with no sign of humans and not much sign of vegetation. Some of the ground was a pretty red color.
The transfer from the airport, a ways south of town, was straightforward. There are maybe ten flights in and out of the Alice Springs airport a day. The shuttle company is ready to go after each one lands. They also have a set schedule for pickup at each hotel – for this flight we’ll be at this hotel at this time.
I got to the hotel at noon. They said the room wouldn’t be ready until after 2:00. I left my suitcases and started to explore the town.
The tourist area of Alice Spring is Todd Mall, a pedestrian zone. There are many shops and a few restaurants. Todd Mall is known for a few art galleries for indigenous art. They weren’t as interesting as I had hoped. This is art to decorate the home. It is in the traditional dot style of many of the indigenous people, but is art that doesn’t offend the tourist. There is nothing to hint that these might be oppressed people. So this perusal took little time.
After lunch I took a city bus to the Araluen Center and the Museum of Central Australia. I got there after 2:00 and it closed at 4:00. The museum’s temporary exhibit was a series of photos taken in the area between 1915 and 1918, 100 years ago. They were quite interesting. The permanent exhibit was a natural history display, the geography, plants, and animals of the region. Nice, but not great.
In choosing the museum I had to skip the Araluen Arts Center. I didn’t have time for both. The precinct had art of Albert Namitjira (click here for some of his art) who was one of the famous indigenous artists. I suspect I made the wrong choice on which exhibit to see.
https://araluenartscentre.nt.gov.au/art-collections/albert-namatjira-hermannsburg
I was done at the museum a bit after 3:30. I checked the bus schedule and saw it would be 35 minutes to the next one. I figured I could walk the two miles back to downtown in that amount of time (checking the maps just now I see it was only one mile) and get there ahead of the bus. So I did.
I checked into the hotel and rested a bit. I had enough time before sunset to climb Anzac Hill. This is a small hill on the north edge of town that provides a view over the town and of the surrounding hills. It also is a memorial to the Australia New Zealand Army Corps and the various wars they fought in.
Back down the hill and supper. That’s when I found Todd Mall closes at 5:00 – including the restaurants. It makes one wonder where they expect the overnight tourists to eat. I found two restaurants open in the evening and one of the two was closed due to “unforseen circumstances.” The other was packed, so all they could offer was a seat at the bar.
Tuesday, August 14
Alice Springs is much colder than Cairns. Yesterday the high was above 70F. This morning the low was 38F. I started out wearing my sweater, hoodie, and jacket. My parka didn’t fit in the suitcase.
Many, perhaps most, hotels now put a duvet or comforter on the bed. In most hotel rooms for most of the year these are inappropriate. I have a duvet for my own bed in Detroit – and use it in cold February. My hotel in Cairns, as did the hotels in Ayers Rock and Sydney, had one. In Cairns I rolled it up each night and lay under the double sheet.
My bed in Alice Springs didn’t have one – and really needed it. As I said, it got cold. I searched the room for blankets and didn’t find any. I spread a bath towel over the sheet and used 3 of the 4 pillows as mini comforters. At 3:00 am I added sweater and jacket on top. One might ask why not call down to the front desk for blankets? Well, they had already closed for the night.
The day’s adventure was a tour of the West MacDonnell Range and its pretty gaps and gorges. More than 300 million years ago a mountain building event created the MacDonnell Range. It is the only east-west series of mountains in Australia and the whole thing is about 400 miles long. When created they were pretty big – likely above 10,000 feet. Not much is left. The highest peak is about 3,800 feet above the surrounding land and much of what is there now is a double row of ridges maybe 500 feet high. These ridges are occasionally interrupted and it is these pretty gaps that people (like me) come to see. One of these gaps also determined the location of Alice Springs. It is where it’s at because a gap provided space for the Darwin to Adelaide telegraph line, railway, and road.
I was picked up at the hotel at 7:45. We stopped at a few other hotels around town and the 20 seat bus was almost full. The driver announced there had been a mixup and more were coming, as was a bigger bus, one for 36 people. It wasn’t a long wait. We left Alice Springs about 8:45 with 25 on board.
The first site was close to town. It was the grave of Jim Flynn, the guy who started the Royal Flying Doctor Service. He studied the lives of people in the outback and saw that too many people were dying of things that were treatable when doctors were available.
The driver was a pretty good storyteller. Between each site (and it sometimes took 20 minutes to get to the next one) he told about the site and the people involved, such as why this person named the site after that person. He told stories of explorers of the region. And he also told stories of how the indigenous people used the land. For example, he told about the many uses the indigenous people made of the mulga tree.
Here are pictures of the various gaps and gorges and chasms.
Simpsons Gap. Nobody remembers who this Simpsons person is.
Standley Gorge with its famous vertical walls. We heard the story of Ms Standley, though I don’t remember it.
The Ochre Pits. Ochre, in a variety of colors, is used by the indigenous people to paint their bodies. The various colors signify different things. These pits are a source of ochre and are seen as sacred. We weren’t to touch (and certainly not take!) the ochre.
Glen Helen Gorge. This was as far west as we went. There is a resort here and where we had lunch. The water in this picture is the Finke River, considered the oldest river on the planet and the one that has shifted least from its original position. Want to know what that means? Go find a geologist.
After lunch we stopped at a panoramic overlook. This is Mount Sonder, a bit to the northwest from where we were.
Ormiston Gorge was the first stop on the way back to Alice Springs. It is a beautiful valley. If it were summer the driver would suggest the pond here would be a good place to cool off.
Ellery Creek Big Hole. The last stop for the day. The driver said the water might be inviting but you do not want to swim here. The water is very deep (300 feet?) and one of the springs that feed it is very cold. If you swim into the cold water your muscles will cramp and that’s the end of you. So enjoy the beauty from the solid ground.
From there we went back to Alice Springs.
The second Todd Mall restaurant was open so I ate there. On my way up to the room for the night I stopped at the front desk and asked for blankets. The clerk said there should be some there. I said I hadn’t seen any. He was soon at my room with two blankets. They were quite welcome.
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