I must admit we didn’t really know what to expect when we drove into Alice. We had not planned anything other than booking our campsite and just thought we would play it by ear. The Northern Territory was always somewhere that we thought we would do post Griff due to the number of National Parks up here but we needed to get back to North Queensland for a wedding so we had to head north to go east. Knowing how much everyone raved about NT we knew that even with Griff we would still see some pretty spectacular things.
The drive into Alice Springs is very impressive from the south. You literally drive through Heavitree gap in the McDonald Ranges which was made by the Todd river. The river bed was bone dry and I believe they need a lot of water for that river to run. Our campsite was a little out of town but had awesome views of the West McDonald ranges and had nice big campsites so we were pretty happy.
Tim had discovered that there were supposed to be some great mountain bike tracks around so that was our first point of call. The weather was not great. To the point where the first few kms were ridden in hoodies and our legs were cold. The track we completed was around 13kms and threaded through some impressive scenery. The red sandy dirt just seemed fake it is so bright. We got some great views and generally had a blast.
We had teed up a golf game with Denis, one half of the couple we have been running into on our travels over the last few weeks. They looked after Griff for us while we were at Uluṟu and we found out that Den was also a golf tragic. He had done some research and apparently the Alice Springs golf course was in the top 120 in Australia so we thought we would add it to our growing list of courses. We even wore our official golf attire as it seemed a little fancy for no collars. 😂 We we’re not disappointed that is for sure. Green fairways and greens which sharply contrasted the red dirt and rocks. It was an awesome game and unfortunately for myself and Den, Tim came away with the win.
Rain was predicated so we thought we would head out and do some of the art exhibitions in and around town to pass the time. We managed to catch Albert Namatjira on display who was the first famous Indigenous water-colourist. An art school in Hermansberg which is a town just outside of Alice was where he learnt to paint and it pretty much started a movement of Indigenous water-colourists in that area.
There were also several private art galleries that had some impressive art and the ability to purchase from them. This included amazing textiles and if I had the space I think I would have purchased so much! Though something that we found a little weird was that all the galleries were apparently Indigenous owned but were fronted by white people. There was one guy who even said to us that he tells the artists more dots = more dough. It just left a little sour taste in our mouths.
We needed to stock up on our alcohol stores and found the experience pretty confronting. NT has strict rules on the purchasing of alcohol. Every liquor store has two police out the front and you have to show your ID to get in and if you purchase anything your ID gets scanned and the purchase recorded against it. It’s pretty in your face to be honest and made us feel angry and upset at being told what to do. It has been put in place by the Indigenous Elders due to the high levels of alcohol fuelled violence and crime in the indigenous population but I am not sure policing alcohol sales is the right way forward. It just creates resentment and further adds to the divide between white and black in the community. Yes we were also scanned however I don’t think I would have been told I had a limit and I would like to see the government install such stringent measures in say Sydney and see if it passed. People would be outraged at the level of control of their lives. I know there are lots of issues that are complex and I don’t have the answers but all I can say is that I feel sick to my stomach as to the way we treat out First Nations people sometimes.
Alice Springs town centre was not a big place and not the prettiest but had some charm to it. There were some amazing murals and artworks dotted around the streets and nearly everywhere you looked you could see some part of the McDonald’s Ranges. We didn’t explore the West McDonalds for two reasons. Most of it is National Park so no Griff and second is the Larapinta Trail stops at all of the major sights and it is something that Tim and I want to walk one day. It’s a 261km trail which leaves from Alice and winds it’s way through the West McDonald ranges. It’s touted as one of the must do multi day hikes of the world. We thought if we went and drove to all the sights we would never come back and do the walk so we put a pin it for the future.
Another of the to do sights was the Olive Pink Botanical Garden. Olive Pink was a lady who fell in love with Alice and it’s flora and painstakingly planted a beautiful garden filled with natives of the area for people to come and walk through. The highlight was the hill walk which gave us views over town and Heavitree gap.
The next part of our trip was going to be pretty remote again so we had to stock up our supplies. We had to do this over several trips as Woolworths was running out of supplies! The first day we went in there were no eggs and all the bread was out of date. Another day there was not a lot of meat but luckily the delivery had just arrived so a man was restocking. But as quickly as he was stacking people were taking. We forget how remote we are until things like this happen. S