Civilisation

Alice Springs

Civilisation

Alice Springs

It’s been a long time between bitumen, shops, fruit and veg., and as it turns out, beer. 1500km of 4-wheel driving. After the Oodnadatta Track, the Perdirka and Ghan Tracks continuing North brought new delights – Dalhousie Springs, Mt Dare Pub, more of the Old Ghan Railway and then Chamber’s Pillar in Northern Territory, still following the path of Stuart, the explorer. My hero. I felt like Stuart some days with my supplies depleting, but lucky I was relying on Troopie and not Polly his horse, who was very dependent on water. She would have been right this year though. The tracks when I crossed from South Australia into Northern Territory continued to be ‘ordinary’. The flooding extended far.

Then into Alice Springs. First things first. Straight to a car wash, as I seemed to bring a fair bit of South Australia with me. Twenty minutes later with the high pressure hose the tarmac was covered with clumps of solid mud. I had to get a stick to get the now hardened dirt from around the wheel arches. It had set like adobe bricks. A 5cm adobe layer had even adhered to under the bonnet. What a weight I’ve been carrying.

Then to stock up before the next leg, supermarket, and bottle shop for a carton of beer. But the rules have changed since I was last in Alice. Bottle shops are closed totally Monday and Tuesday, and on other days open between 3pm and 7pm. It is Monday morning. Looks like I’ll be staying a little longer. I hear later the there’s a lot of vans travelling up the highway from South Australia bringing in black market alcohol. Proabition has never worked.

I find a bush type caravan park, Wanngardi, a few kilometres out of town. Alice is so green this year from the rain but my view does face some of the red hills and that the Centre is famous for.

Over the next couple of days, I head into the ‘city’. I don’t plan to visit tourist attractions but do head to the historic Old Telegraph Repeater Station as I’ve visited all the others on the way up, following the line. Mission completed.

But in the town centre I have culture shock- cars, shops, people. The Mall is closed. The paving has been ripped up because to replace leaking pipes, and the art galleries, shops, cafes and restaurants seem to be all closed too. Where is the ‘heart’ of Alice? I am starving. I’ve been on short rations of potatoes and eggs for the last week.

Then I find ‘Feast’, an Asian restaurant in an obscure shopping centre out of town. And feast I do. Truly it may be the best Chinese restaurant I’ve ever been too, and I lived in China, but then I remember, context is all. And the beer ‘Almost Summer’, from the Alice Springs Brewery . I’m at the brewery the next night for pizza and more of their brew. Appetite sated.

But the supermarket, in a big shopping centre, with all those people? I tried, but had to return to tackle it next day. I lingered by the locked trollies hoping I might figure how to release one but no luck. I lugged my groceries around in baskets. The supermarkets look like they’ve had a hard life. It’s probably why there is a new one being built next door. I know I like my lamb chops but I didn’t know that they are so special that each pack has to have a security lock.

At the checkout I find I can buy a token to release the trolley to get my groceries, beer and wine to the car, but it doesn’t fit. I’m now informed that I have to push the token out from the centre of the device that I’ve just paid 50 cents for, and ‘voila’ I have a bottle opener. That seems ironic considering the fuss about bottle shops but I need the trolley for that as well. I’m at the bottle shop at 3pm Wednesday and join the crowd. There’s a bit of a rush – nearly all Whities not the Indigenous. Also, ironic. I show ID to the security guards at the entrance, and then again at the check-out as you can only visit once a day. Lucky my paltry stash fits the quota.

I was only in town during the day but none of the problems the town has were evident - no fights, no drunks, no people sleeping in the streets, no arrests, no shouting.

This whole town civilisation experience has left me shaken, disorientated and bloody exhausted. I feel like I’ve been in a foreign country. Take me back to the bush, the deserts and the lonely roads.

Just for this afternoon I make do with the Olive Pink Botanical Gardens. Olive was a Tassie woman who studied art at The University of Tasmania. The University still has a collection of her botanical sketches and drawings. She was a contemporary of Daisy Bates and spent time with her at her aboriginal camp. This engendered Olive’s interest and she became an anthropologist wanting to work at the missions but was not allowed because she was a ‘difficult woman’. As we now know they could have done with a woman running them. She moved to Alice Springs and set up the gardens living there until her death aged 91 in 1956. She became totally eccentric, and is my heroine. There are over 600 botanical species in these arid gardens and it is a mecca for the birds of the area.

This trip is definitely the roads less travelled, only small towns, natural attractions, endless outback. I’m out bush again tomorrow.

Recommended reading:

Mr Stuart’s Track John Bailey Pan Macmillan Australia 2007

Olive Pink A Life in Flowers Gillian Ward Hardie Grant Books 2018

The Indomitable Miss Pink : A Life in Anthropology UNSW Press 2001