There’s no town like Alice

I really don’t know where to start when I want to tell you of my impressions of Alice. First off there is the terrific entry into Alice by driving through The Gap which is literally a gap in the rocky MacDonnell Ranges to see Alice Springs spread out beyond this. Next I notice that there are so many Aboriginals walking around, one wonders what they are doing or going in the middle of the day. A lot of the aborigines are congregating in small groups all around town as though waiting for something. Another thing I noticed that many of the women esp the older ones around the shopping centres have bad scarring around their faces. It saddens and shocks me to learn later that aborigine women are 24 times more likely to be beaten up in Alice due to the combination of alcohol and violence. Alice also has the sad distinction of having the highest renal failure per population in the world. However we are informed that what we see is only about 20% of the Aboriginal population. The majority of the Aboriginals are working and have a worthwhile lifestyle, whether it be in their communities or in town as is their choice. Regardless, or maybe in spite of this, the people here are very friendly. The white people I met are sympathetic to the problems of the indigenous population, though may feel frustrated for various reasons in their limitations of what and how to approach and tackle the problems here. Most of the people we met here love Alice. It is quite common to here that someone came for a week’s visit and ended up living here. There seems to be something that draws people here, maybe it is the relaxed pace of life, maybe it is multitude days of sunshine, or the magnificence of the evening stars and the sunsets and sunrises over the ranges that surround Alice.

The marvelous Kings Canyon

We went for the big walk around the top of Kings Canyon today. This is truly a magnificent chasm. It took us a good 4 or so hours. It is harder but oh so worth it. We did take our time and we had a picnic lunch by the Garden of Eden rock pool which is lovely. Not a whole lot to say about this wonderful walk but I will let you see some of the many photos we took and they do not do justice to the magnificence of the whole canyon. I think that this canyon beats going to Ayers Rock, but really you have to go to both they are just so different and both are fantastic in their own regards.

After the walk we decided to relax and cool off in the pool back at the resort, except that the pool was so jolly cold that the most I could do was jump in and get back out very quickly then lay down on a towel in the sun to warm up again.
The next day saw us doing the much smaller creek walk in the Canyon. There were lots of birds & the variety of flora was amazing in the Canyon. Later we did the resort rim walk which was a disappointing waste of time.

Hamming it up

In Kings Canyon Resort, we set up camp; quickly befriended our neighbours, in particular, Wayne & Diane, whom we had met at other caravan parks a few times, even as far back as Coober Pedy where they pulled in at auto electrician behind us. The four of us went to the local Roadies Show after dinner. These are a couple of musios who sing out some rock n roll & country songs, getting audience participation for bits and pieces. For example, Bob was called up to don a koala ears on, along with others. And then they had to sing and act their parts to the song “there’s a home among the gums trees, with lots of plum trees...” Later Diane & I were called up along with about 4 other ladies, we had to put on these ‘orrible colourful costume wigs and hold those cheap plastic kids microphones that echo when you talk or sing into them. Our song that we had to perform was the old 60’s song “Singing diddy diddy do run run”. Well Diane & I chose to act up real show-offish and had ourselves a ball. Later the 4 of us were called up again to waltz as lovers as they couldn’t find enough honeymooners to do the bridal waltz. It was a great fun night and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. (especially as we could really let our hair down as no one we knew were there to see us make a fool of ourselves!)

Uluru and Kata Tjuta

Yalara

I am way behind with my blog but hoping to catch up a bit here. We arrived in Yalara on the 1st May; quickly set up the Robbiebago & then off to Uluru. It is absolutely massive. You see it for about 20km before you get there. We went for a short walk first and then we noticed a pair of bike riders and decided to come back tomorrow with the bikes and do the 11km trek around the base.

Kata Tjuta

So instead we decided to go to Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) now and did a 3 hr walk up one of the gorges. The aborigines won’t tell any of their legends of the Olgas due to their secret men’s business and you are not allowed to walk a lot of the rocks there either, probably about 2/3rds of it, just the 2 sections we did go to. I think this makes it less interesting, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

 

 

Ayers Rock

The next day we rode the bike around Ayers Rock and finished off the day with sandwiches & champagne (compliments of the German tour guide parked next to us at the sunset viewing park! He had left over champers and we just had to help him out of his dilemma) We do try to be helpful when we can! Big cheesy grin!!!

The underground church at Coober Pedy

I have been really looking forward to visiting Coober Pedy and I am not disappointed.

It is like being in an alien land with various sized ant hills all over the place. It is very hot, dry and dusty.

We stayed in the grounds of the famous Catacomb Church which is fascinating and well worth visiting. We were doing some volunteer work for the church as we worked in the mornings as it is much too hot to work the afternoons. 

After a leisurely lunch, we tend to indulge in a bit of sightseeing such as the Breakaways - a luna /alien landscape that have featured in many movies including Mad Max.

Faye’s underground house (dug out entirely by ladies by hand! And complete with an indoor swimming pool and games room) and the Old Timer’s mine.

Quiet times are spent chatting, playing games or in my case making some explosion boxes for craft.

On Anzac Day, Rob &Julie stayed in their respective beds while Richard & I went to the Dawn Service which started with coffee or tea with a shot of Whiskey was available for all comers along with wonderful homemade Anzac Biscuits. After the short but emotionally charged 20 minute service we were all invited to stay for breakfast of bacon & eggs, and they did a fantastic job of it too! Way to Go Coober Pedy RSL. We stayed and had breakfast with 4 others that we had met previously.

Then back to get ready for church at the Catacomb Church. They sing songs for 15-20 minutes then they break for coffee and fellowship for about 15 minutes then back into the church for the bible readings, prayers & sermon plus another song in conclusion. I also go me some more lovely sunset photos and a sunrise photo too whilst here. I love the colours that occur at these times of the day.

Though it was an interesting experience, it is not my sort of town.

Serving others

As we are serving others via the various churches from time to time, I am aware that they are serving us too. Not only in fellowship and opening their homes to us, some of these wonderful people are offering to serve us in other ways too. It can be hard to let others serve you but I remember a line in a old prayer/song by St Francis of Assisi, “Brother let me be your servant...pray that I might have the grace to let them be my servant too!” So thank you Sari for doing all our washing & ironing. To Mary, Sue, Alison, Carmen & Quentin, Colin & June and to Gill for your wonderful hospitality and to others that have offered and shared something of themselves and to those that are yet to come. We all serve a wonderful God in different ways with the gifts & personalities that God has bestowed on us. It truly is a case that we get more out of it than we put in. We are so loving this BCA Nomad life, no wonder Richard and Julie have been doing it for 3 years and still going. It makes our planned 6 months look tame. Bring it on.