Alice Springs is a very modern city in the heart of Central Australia and sits between the East and West Macdonnell ranges. We enjoyed our stay here and one of my favourite pastimes was visiting the art galleries full of wonderful Aboriginal paintings. The main mall in town, Todd Mall, has many galleries and you will often see Aboriginals sitting on the grass selling their own art work.
The city has fantastic bike tracks and the roads are on a grid pattern so it is easy to find your way around.
We spent a day at the Desert Park which is a huge park on the outskirts of town and has a self guided audio walking tour through the various desert habitats: desert rivers, sand country and woodland. They have the type of animals, plants and birds that live in each of these areas. During the day there are presentations about finding water in creek beds, Aboriginal tools and artifacts and the most amazing show of free - flying birds of prey coming in to feed. It was a very educational day and we would highly recommend the Park to anybody coming to Alice.
I spent an afternoon at the Araluen Cultural Precinct where they were having an art exhibition of Aboriginal artists from the surrounding areas. Some of the paintings were stunning and so were the price tags. I wonder how much the artists get for their work?
We spent two evenings at Aboriginal concerts. One was children singing, dancing and playing their instruments and the second was bush bands from as far away as Darwin. It was wonderful sitting amongst them gaining more of an appreciation for their music.
We spent a month in and around Alice Springs and love the area a great deal. There is so much to see, so much history and we furthered our appreciation of how the Aboriginals had lived so well in this harsh environment for centuries.
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