The Incredible Shrinking Town

There's been some fun the last few weekends. Some of the hotels here have a deal for locals where if you eat in their restaurant, you can stay and use the pool. It's pretty neat. The town pool is really nice, but it's fun to be somewhere else for awhile.
In fact, that feeling of - that's great, but what else is there?- starts to pervade a lot of one's life here. Alice is an island. It is an oasis surrounded by desert - thousands of miles of it. A ten minute drive has you on the edge of town and there is no town ahead of you... for hours and hours.
There is heaps to do and see here, in Alice. It just starts to occur to one (ahem, me) that this is all there is. There's lots of it (I realize I'm repeating myself), and it's beautiful and fun and wonderfully interesting, but then... there's nothing else. Sometimes, I worry that heaven will be kinda similar. "Halleluia, halleluia..." Four billion years down; eternity to go.
Back to the hotel pool - we were all hungry after church last Sunday and we decided to eat at the Alice Springs Resort where Tom's group had had a Christmas party.
The food was tasty and the staff was so nice. We were the only people in the restaurant. There was no one else at the pool either. Thomas had been asking to drive his remote control boat somewhere and the glimmer of an idea came to us both. I asked the manager if we could drive the boat around the pool so long as we didn't bother anyone. In true Aussie style: "Aw sure , no worries."
We had the pool as our personal marina for a good 3 hours. There was a stone fountain in the middle which added to the excitement with "driving blind" behind it. Tom and I both raced the boat swimming. The skipper was in fits of giggles. The flies and some other patrons came in about mid-afternoon, so we headed home - 7 minutes away.
I hear there are three or four more hotels in town with the same lunch/swim deal. We'll have to work the circuit. Thomas took the photo in our backyard to look like one he saw in a catalog. He's quite fascinated by marketing; especially the Sham-WOW!

Thanks for Everything

Nope. There is no way to have an American Thanksgiving in Alice Springs. People try...and try...and there are turkeys in shops and cans of pumpkin stuffed in suitcases from trips home. The Saturday prior, we were invited to a nice American gathering at a friend's house - 30 people; supremely brave woman. Still, no filling vs. stuffing wars, no keilbassi; there's no place like home.
Soooooo... why even try?!
We decided to throw tradition out the window and invent our own Aussie Thanksgiving. It was great!
My original plan was to get our barbecue grill Wednesday and have a cook-out at home. Alas, I forgot to never count on anything happening quickly here. The grill was available, but the truck wouldn't bring it from the warehouse until Thursday after 3.
I went to swim aerobics in the morning. Tom and Thomas built a cool robot sent from his pal, Carly back in Warrenton and then, we hit the outback trail!
I'd been hearing a lot about the Telegraph Station lately - a large historical/natural area just a couple kilometers from town. A friend had seen a 2-metre Perentie lizard very up-close there recently; another man went on about the nice trails and a local gal had recommended the carpark for kangaroo sightings in the evening. The also have grills - nice, push-a-button gas grills, free for the using.
We packed chicken breasts and thighs, drinks, lettuce and bread, mayo and the all-important Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce (feel free to send a can whenever you want). Cans of baked beans and corn rounded out the meal and I had baked a pumpkin pie with a grave and respectful nod to our fellow pilgrims. Oh, don't forget the camera and binoculars. Oh, and aluminum foil. Oh, something to put the leftovers in. Should we bring these apples? How about macadamia nuts? Oh, hand sanitizer and paper towels. Come on, get in the car!
It was a warm day, only in the 90's. There were nice tables at a good height to sit on as well as eat on. The birds were terrific. I heard the flute-like song of a pied butcherbird and found it sitting on the restroom wall. Flocks of Port Lincoln parrots were chasing each other through the palm trees. Tom and Thomas walked over to the visitors' center while I got the chicken sizzling.

Feeling very Pilgrimmy, we gave thanks a lot: for our home here in this wild, new land; for surviving 3 months armed only with a Visa card and SPF 45, for our friends and family back home.
Our sandwiches and sides were yummy. The company was interesting, too. Right about at pie time, a young kangaroo came hopping into the picnic area. He was in no hurry and soon laid down in the shade of a tree. Ok, "hopping" isn't the right word. See, roos have a kind of non-airborne movement where they are on all-fours and just go: paws.. feet... paws...feet. It's not hopping. Definitely not walking. It's good for eating grass. Let's call it "loping." So, he loped around a little and checked out the picnic table beyond ours. They (2 Aboriginal kids and a white woman) had left to play frisbee. When the Aboriginal kids saw the kangaroo, they crept slowly toward it making a soft clicking noise. It turned and loped right up to them!
Just kidding; it hopped away. When it did, it came on an angle toward us about 10 feet away. Can you find it in both pictures?
When it was at a comfortable distance again, it browsed some grass awhile then went its kangaroo way.
With the kangaroo gone, my men decided they'd had enough food and flies and wanted air conditioning and their robot again.
I told you it was a great day.

Mind the Gap

Daddy got to go to Sydney and Canberra for a week, so Thomas and I had our own adventures. We filled a magical Sunday with magical stuff. First: church, and promised a dollar, Thomas was good. Considering early martyrs paid with their lives, a buck isn't so bad. Plus, the exchange rate is currently 92 cents.
The plan was swimming in the backyard next, but since we were finally graced with a cooler day (temps had hit 110 the past week), we skipped that and Thomas found one of those ridiculous airplane tragedy movies on the telly. Written 20-odd years ago, it had become a comedy with flare guns shooting down fighter jets and flight attendants in mini-skirts climbing ladders - often.
By 2 p.m., we were ready for real-life and headed to Emily and Jesse Gaps.
No one living knows who Emily and Jesse were. Rumors they were daughters of an explorer have been proven untrue, but they have nice gaps. Local "Gaps," BTW, are not places to find deals on sportswear, but natural openings in the McDonnell Range which runs along the south side of this area.
They are about 10-15 minutes' drive away, but since I forgot to look at which road they were on, it took about an hour. When you visit, remind me to take Ross Highway.
Emily is first and very pretty. It is a registered sacred site and one of the most important in the "Dreaming Trail" of the aboriginal people who believe the caterpillar beings, who created the topography of this area, came to the surface here and spread out across the Simpson Desert. There was a major battle here between the caterpillar beings and the stinky beetle beings with great losses especially to the caterpillar side. Their guts dried and formed the rocks on which Thomas now climbs.
I can't seem to find out how old the rock paintings are, but they were there when Europeans came in 1871 and up to 13,000 years before that. They are maintained by generations of people who inherit the responsibility. Local mineral clays are used, mixed with animal fat.
The paintings are roped off and there is a barbed-wire fence a short way into the gorge. Like many places here, there are implied rules, but no way to enforce them. So, it is up to the individual. This individual chose to not cross the barbed wire even though there were about as many footprints in the sand beyond it as before it.
Hey, sacred is sacred and no one should have to pay me a dollar to be good.
Next stop: Jesse's place about 5 minutes down the road.
Our fly nets were very handy on this day as the other few tourists we saw spent a lot of energy constantly shooing.
I can't stop thinking of Jesse as the Jan Brady of the gaps. She's not quite as pretty... her paintings are ok, but she's no Marcia, er... Emily. Emily gets the exciting Caterpillar - Stinky Beetle battle. Jesse gets compared to Emu fat. There are some important ceremonial objects buried there. Both sacred sites are only for "initiated" men. If "initiated" calls to mind scary scenes from Roots and articles from National Geographic, you've pretty-much nailed it.
Same barbed wire a short distance in, same easy way around it if you want.
Next: back to visit our old friends, the wallabies at Heavitree Gap. This time, we were early but found them already waiting. This time, they were almost scary-friendly, climbing onto laps and digging into the food bag like crazy goats at a petting zoo. Thomas spent his time "training" them to sit up for food and follow a rock he had rubbed the smell of pellets into. We sat with the wallabies and watched the sun set on our really fun day.