Alice Springs is kinda depressing. For starters, it’s an entirely unattractive town with a town planner’s grid of streets and nothing at all to centre them on. A river runs through it, but as with most rivers up here it is simply a very long sand pit. The town centre is cluttered with aborigines. They hang around car parks alone or in small groups, shamble along the road toting bulging old shopping bags, or shout at each other outside the shopping centre. In other words, exactly what homeless drunks do back in England.
Alice Springs is the only place we’ve seen aborigines in any number in Australia. There were a handful in Sydney, exactly one in Melbourne, and no others. They all seem to be out here in the Northern Territory, and not doing very well. This is a very uninformed impression, we’ve only been here a day, but that’s how it looks.
This afternoon we went to Heavitree Gap to the south of town where a group of wild Black-footed Rock-wallabies come down from the crags at dusk to be hand-fed food pellets. This cheered me up immensely.
Nevertheless, when I look back on our visit to the Red Centre of Australia I will remember the natural landscape as wonderful in all ways, and the human landscape as utterly without appeal.
Related Images:
Thinks all of Australia’s varied hoppity population is just adorable!