Thursday, September 8, 2011

Australia/Hawaii 2002, part 4: Alice Springs

From Cairns (CNS), I flew to Alice Springs (ASP) in the Outback for three nights.

Saturday, September 21, 2002: Cairns to Alice Springs
From the Tropics to the Desert

Flight 1949 is officially a QantasLink flight, a BAe146 Avro RJ plane. I lucked out and got seated in row 3, just behind first class, which meant that I had extra foot room, and there was nobody in the middle seat.  Flying out over the Outback reminded me a lot of the US desert Southwest, with the mountains and colors and few signs of civilization.





Alice Springs is in the middle of nowhere, Australia – by design, actually. Back in the 1860’s they needed a midway point to install a telegraph station on the Darwin to Adelaide route, north to south, and this is pretty much the middle. When the telegraph people got here they found plenty of water, so decided to stop. What they didn’t realize was that the river (later named the Todd River) only flows once or twice a year, as they get only about 5 inches of rain a year on average, and they just happened to get there when it was flowing. So 99% of the year the Todd River is a dry riverbed. And once a year, in late September, they hold a party to celebrate that dry river, by holding a Regatta.



Well, not quite the regatta you’d see elsewhere (where there’s water in the river), but the dry equivalent. Can’t row canoes without water? How about putting them on a track and instead of oars, use shovels to propel yourself along in the sand. A boogie board is pulled by four people, with one riding through the sand. A “yacht” is a metal frame with the corporate banner around it, while it “sails” through foot power (think of Fred Flintstone driving and you’ll get the idea). The finale includes three “boats” (frames on top of a 4-wheel drive vehicle) with water cannons and flour bombs and cannons, maneuvering and firing at each other (and the crowd). This year’s finale featured a Viking ship, a pirate galleon, and a Navy ship. The Henley-on-Todd Regatta is a world-famous party and an excuse to be goofy. I lucked out by arriving in town on the day of the Regatta.

 


The hotel I’m staying at, the Aurora Resorts Territory Inn, is right in the middle of town, just off the Todd Mall, which is a several block section of Todd Street blocked off for pedestrian traffic only. Most of the stuff in the area is a short walk away – book stores, aboriginal art, supermarkets, drug stores, restaurants, internet access shops, etc. It’s definitely a high-tourist area. After the Regatta I walked up and down the Mall checking things out, and after an hour or so on the internet checking up on my email, sending a few out, and checking the news on various web pages, I went to the Red Ochre Grill for dinner.

Out here in the Outback, which has spread to the rest of Australia, the new hot thing in food is “bush tucker”, the food that might be eaten while in the bush. Lots of new plants and berries, combined with meats like crocodile, emu, and kangaroo. The guide book calls this “gourmet bush tucker” and says “the chef at this upscale chain fuses Aussie bush ingredients with dishes from around the world; although the results might sound strange, they’re mouthwatering.” For my main dish (not an entrée; that’s what Aussies call appetizers, so you’d get an entrée and a main), I had grilled kangaroo with wattle seed mash and Quandong apple tomato relish. Kangaroo is supposed to be a little gamy, but the berry sauce took any edge off of that. The back of the menu helpfully explains what everything means – Quandong is a wild desert peach high in vitamin C, common to South Australia and arid areas; and wattle seeds are Acacia seeds that are dry roasted and ground to enhance their natural nutty, coffee-like flavor (wattle seed mash is very much like mashed potatoes). The whole thing was quite good, and with the exchange rate, the AUD$32 meal is only about US$17.50. The waitress helped me choose between that and the Pepperberry grilled camel with caramelized onions, sweet potato frittata and a riberry glaze.

Even though it was Saturday night, there wasn’t a whole lot to do in Alice Springs. I checked out a couple of pubs but not much was happening, and they were all ready to close down at 1 a.m. anyway. I did watch a bit of the Rugby League match between the Dragons and Sharks; there’s a Rugby League and a Rugby Union, and I have no idea what the difference is, not that I could completely understand the rules anyway. It looked like “kill the guy with the ball” like we played as kids, with an occasional kick for some reason. Then someone scores and the place goes nuts. Whatever. They don’t understand American football either (which they call “gridiron”), so I guess we’re even.

Sunday, September 22: Alice Springs
Touring the town

With my tour not starting until 1:30, I slept in a bit and then went out to the Mall. To my surprise, the Mall was lined with people selling stuff from booths along the sides, like some sort of flea market. You could find fresh fruit, used books and CDs, aboriginal art, homemade crafts, t-shirts, and lots more. I spent a couple hours wandering up and down, and I picked up a couple of “railroad nail figures”, though these guys were a Stockman (an Aussie cowboy) and a Swagman (a journeyman who travels with his swag, or bedroll).  I later found these figures for sale at retail shops for twice what I paid, directly to the guy who made them. Got a sandwich at a takeaway shop, read a leftover newspaper, and watched the people pass by.

I signed up for a tour package called the Red Centre Discovery through Australian Pacific Tours (APT), which is actually a collection of day tours. Today’s tour took us through the highlights of the city.

First up was a trip up ANZAC Hill, a memorial to those from the Australia/New Zealand Army Corps members who died during military actions in Korea, Malaysia, Borneo, and Viet Nam during the 1950’s through the early 1970’s. From the hill there’s a 360 degree view of the city and the spectacular mountains which start just outside of town.



Next we went to the local home of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which started in the Outback in the 1920’s. Due to the huge distances and remote locations, there were not enough doctors available, so with the help of the new wireless transmitters and their airplanes, the RFDS can journey hundreds of kilometers to either fix or retrieve a patient, or they can talk someone on the other end through a medical procedure if needed. The RFDS branch in Cairns, by the way, took our diver with the bends from Lizard Island back to Cairns on Friday night.



Following that was a trip to the “Panorama Guth”, a 6 meter high x 210 meters long painting of the area in the form of a 360-degree panorama by Dutch transplant Henk Guth. Guth’s other original art, along with a nice collection of aboriginal art, made up the rest of the museum. Guth is still alive but looking for a buyer for his whole collection so he can retire. [The painting was bought in 2003 by two Alice Springs businessmen, and Guth died a few months later.]



One of the most interesting places was the Alice Springs School of the Air, where they teach preschool up through 7th grade via a combination of shortwave radio and the mail, and the internet where available. Just like the Flying Doctors, the students sometimes don’t live close enough to anywhere to be able to go to school, so effectively the school comes to them. The kids and teacher will do their lessons over the radio in a “virtual class” a few times a week, then periodically the kids all come to Alice Springs to meet their classmates and have a chance to interact with others their age. The teacher will journey to the kid’s house once or twice a year to meet the parents and observe the student first hand. It’s supposedly the only thing like this in the world. I thought it was pretty amazing.



Our last stop on the tour was the restored Telegraph Office, the whole reason for Alice Springs (the town) being here in the first place. The visitor site showed the buildings and operation of the Alice Springs Telegraph Station as it was between 1895 and 1905. Quite a lonely place, as there were not many people living on the grounds besides the Station Master and his family, a cook, a blacksmith/stockman, a governess, and four linesmen/operators. The Station Master also ran the region’s Post Office, was the government’s official representative in the area, was the local magistrate, sold rations to travelers, and acted as emergency doctor (relying on medical advice via telegraph from Adelaide, 1000 km to the south). Behind the office is the Todd River, in fact the actual place that Her Majesty’s representatives found the water flowing in the river. It just happened to have water above ground that day, normally it’s completely dry (though there’s water several feet underground). We also saw a wild kangaroo; I hope he didn’t mind that I had his cousin for dinner last night (and not as a guest).



For dinner I went to the Overlander Steakhouse, which has been mentioned in just about every guide book as one of the places to eat while in Alice Springs. I had the Mixed Grill of a scotch fillet steak, lamb chop, sausage, bacon, an egg, a grilled tomato, and chips (fries), along with a Cooper’s Original Pale Ale (a beer from South Australia) with a huge slice of chocolate mud cake for dessert, all for AU$44.90 (only $24.67 after the exchange rate is factored). One of their specialties is the Drovers Blowout: all you can eat of Crocodile vol au vent, Kangaroo filet with a red wine and mushroom sauce, Emu medallion, Camel fillet with plum sauce, with either a grilled barramundi (an Australian fish) or a tender scotch fillet of steak with a red wine and mushroom sauce, followed by either apple pie or a pavlova (that meringue cake of egg whites and sugar) plus tea and coffee, all for about AU$45. While it all sounded good, it was just going to be too much for me.

After dinner I took a cab over to Lasseters Casino. After being in Las Vegas just a couple months ago, this was no comparison. This casino had slots, video poker, and a bunch of table games. However, being Sunday night, it wasn’t very crowded, and in fact half of the tables were closed. I played blackjack for an hour, finally walking away with an extra $15 which exactly paid for cab fare to and from the casino. Some of the rules and practices were slightly different from what I’m used to (such as the dealer only takes the second card after everyone else has taken all of theirs, instead of getting it when everyone else gets their second card), and the chips were the wrong color (a $5 chip is always red, except here where it is yellow). It was entertaining for a little while. And that was about it for the night, Monday is a full day of tours and we leave at 8:30

Monday, September 23: Alice Springs
This guy walks into a bar with a 10-foot long python…

Monday started out with another tour. Some of the same people from yesterday were on this one; the tours here are set up as a collection of day or half-day tours that can be strung together in any order or in any package. Some would even be with me on Tuesday. The DJ on the morning radio said it’s 25 out now (77 deg F) and would get up to 35 this afternoon (95 deg F). No problem, that’s just like back home.

After another trip up ANZAC Hill, we first stopped at the gravesite of John Flynn, who (among other things) started the Royal Flying Doctor Service and raised the money for the first hospital in Alice Springs. His grave is marked by a huge rock that looks like a marble (from the “Devil’s Marbles” rock formation). Then it was off to the beginnings of the West McDonnell Ranges, more commonly known as the West Macs. We passed some of the ubiquitous white gum trees, which the guide told us (and showed us) are used for aboriginal body painting, as the tree bark is covered with a white powdery dust.



Two of the well-known natural formations near Alice Springs are Simpson’s Gap and Standley’s Chasm – we did both of these today. Both are giant breaks in the mountains that come down to ground level, permitting a person to walk through a 20-foot gap between the walls. Simpson’s Gap is a short walk down an almost-dry riverbed (only a couple small pools right near the gap), past gum trees, fallen rocks, lizards, and a couple wallabies, while Standley’s Chasm is a long walk (20 minutes) through sometimes rocky terrain. The view for the Chasm is worth it when the light hits it just right – the rocks on the sides glow a fiery orange. We stopped at the Chasm for lunch, which was provided for us: sandwiches, cake, bickies (cookies), and billy tea (tea brewed in a metal “billy cup” over a heat source).

Simpson's Gap
Standley’s Chasm



The Alice Springs Desert Park was the last stop on our itinerary. This turned out to be a pretty interesting look at the flora and fauna of Central Australia, showcasing various habitats. The park has a Desert River, Sand Country, and Woodland Habitat theme section, with plans representative of each and with a selection of birds in an enclosed housing. Combined with a Nocturnal House, a movie on the evolution of Australia’s desert, and a birds of prey show, the park was sufficient for 3-1/2 hours. One of the more interesting things was my first exposure to the red dusty soil common to the Outback – the soil is rust-colored, due to the iron oxide in the soil from the rocks.



Did a little shopping in Alice Springs before dinner. I picked up a t-shirt with an aboriginal design and a bowl (also with such a design) for my shelves somewhere. I finally decided on the Outback Bar and Grill (not the chain restaurant), just down a few shops in Todd Mall. While waiting for dinner (camel steak, medium), I watched a bit of an Australia/South Africa cricket match. It was dreadfully boring as well as being incomprehensible. I don’t understand runs, 50s, 100s, innings, overs, etc. Dinner came with a Cascade Lager from Tasmania.

After dinner, I found a place with some night life, Bojangles Restaurant and Saloon. It’s a typical bar with a cover band, though this one has an Aussie accent. They played everything from “Peppermint Twist” and “The Wanderer” to some of the modern rock tracks from the 90s. Hearing the band play songs by American artists from the 50’s to today, for some reason, got me a little homesick for the first time. Had three beers while I was there: Carlton Draught and Carlton Crown Lager (both from Victoria) and Boag (SA).



So then this bald guy shows up wearing a 10-foot olive python around his neck. No, this isn’t the start of a joke, it’s only Max (the bald guy), one of the owners I think, with his pet Ollie (the olive python). Surreally, nobody seemed to think it was strange that a 10-foot snake was in the bar. Max let Ollie crawl on people and let him (her?) drape across their neck. Wearing a python on my neck in a saloon in the middle of the Australia desert certainly ranks on the top 10 weirdest moments of my life to date. Discussing the snake with a British girl whose name escapes me at the moment, she told me that she was with a big group of people who were on their last night of their tour and invited me to join them. The group included a couple from Washington DC, a pair of lawyers who were happy to talk to someone with a familiar accent. They and the band provided the entertainment for the evening, which I found for the first time in Alice Springs (too bad I missed this place the last couple of nights!).



The place closed at 1 a.m., and then I had to go back to my hotel and pack and try to get some sleep, in preparation for a 6:30 pickup for the next leg, the drive out to Yulara. I think I got about 3 hours of sleep.

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