Alice Springs Eternal

21 March, 2010

Another early start as my flight to Alice Springs was at 8.10am and I had to get a taxi to the airport as P was doing a cycle ride for charity in the morning. The fare was a hefty £45. I am beginning to haemorrhage money and I've hardly done anything. (UPDATE: sadly P and I lost touch a few years back but I believe he’s still in Oz)

As we come into land, I am struck by how green it is and there are clumps of greenery midst the rich red of the desert sand. I am staying at Annie's Inn yoff hostel and I think I must be the oldest person there by 20 years. There wasn't a great introduction to the hostel as some people had been waiting at the airport for 2 hours to be picked up but luckily I only had to wait 40 minutes. I have a feeling that I am not going to get much sleep tonight and not because I have managed to become Mrs Robinson but because there is constant music playing near the pool and I am sharing with 5 other girls who I haven't met yet. Still, it's only for one night and then again when we return on Wednesday.

Alice Springs is a bit of a dump and it must be unbearable in mid-summer - I am failing to see why anyone would want to live here by choice. I find the whole Aboriginal situation a bit sad as a lot of them sit around the town doing nothing looking rather forlorn: they really do look like they are still on the fringes of society. They try to sell their paintings whilst trying to compete with the big art galleries selling the same stuff but the galleries are run by mostly white Australians. I vow to try and buy some direct from the artists themselves when I get back later on in the week. I am off on a 3 day tour of Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon starting at 6am tomorrow morning. If it's anything like today, we are going to boil.