West Of Alice

Thursday 6th August 2009
Having lost the whole day yesterday I was keen to start exploring some of the areas out of Alice. Ilse packed our lunch and we headed West along Larapinta Drive which leads to Hermannsburg, the famous old Lutheran Mission which was handed back to the traditional owners in 1982. Hermannsburg's most famous son is the late Albert Namatjira, who is reckognized as the first Aboriginal artist [in a white man's sense] and who's paintings are worth a fortune nowadays. He has started an industry which is now turning over $250 million per annum - what proportion of these millions actually ends up with Aboriginal artists is questionable.
These days Hermannsburg is an aboriginal community which closed off to white people but there is a museum and some old buildings accessible to tourists. We didn't go to Hermannsburg but instead turned right into Namatjira Drive which took us all the way to Glen Helen, an old Homestead and a Gorge about 135km West of Alice. The water at the Gorge looked beautiful and inviting but both air and water temperature were too cold.
The drive to Glen Helen took us through some very interesting country which is part of the West MacDonnell Ranges. The landscape contains everything from small rolling hills to steep cliff faces and from virtually bare ground to lush green areas. Most of the creeks were typical dry desert creeks with water running below the surface and an occasinal water hole.
On our way back to Alice we called in at Ormiston Gorge where we walked to the magnificent Ghost Gum lookout to see the Gorge below and the huge Orange Rock that towers above it.
Next was the Ochre Pits, an old quarry where the Aboriginals got their Ochre from. In this one pit we could see white, yellow and purple Ochre all in the one rock wall. Ochre was (and still is) very imortant and valuable to Aboriginal people. It is mixed with animal fat and painted on the body for ceremonial purposes but it's also used as an ointment for all sorts of ailments. Ochre was heavily traded amongst the different clans and it was a man's responsibility to keep up the supply of Ochre for the family.
A bit further down the road was Ellery Creek Big Hole, a beautiful water hole set in a very nice Gorge. We had our lunch at one of the picnic tables and gave the kids a little bit of time to play in the sand before moving on to Simpsons Gap, just a few km's out of Alice.
We had to get back to Alice by 4pm for the last tour of day at the Royal Flying Doctor Base. We saw a little movie about the Flying Doctor, listened to a talk by one of the staff members and checked out the operations centre of the Base before proceeding to the museum. With a little bit of time on our hands before the shops closed we had a look at Todd Street Mall where Aboriginal Art is sold in shops and on the streets by the Aboriginal Artists themselves.
All around town we saw the advertising for the upcoming Henley-On-Todd Regatta. The Todd river runs (if you can call it that) through the centre on Alice but only carries water during heavy rains and floods. The Regatta, just like the famous "Henley-On-Thames" in England, is conducted with boats. The total absence of water in the Todd river is only a minor problem as the boats don't have a bottom and are propelled by legs in Fred Flintstone fashion - it sounds like a lot of fun.
Most dog owners in Alice use the Todd river on a daily basis to walk their dogs [in the river bed].
We hit the supermarket for a last shopping trip before heading out into the bush again tomorrow.
Tonight we had Sue and Rex (Grand Parents of Alexanders School mate) come over for a visit to exchange travel ideas as they are heading North where we have just come from. As always when we have visitors, bed time was pretty late and the blog didn't get done either.