The Red Centre Way

Mt. Gillen, more of a long ridge than peak, is the highest of the rocky features close to Alice, and looms over the west side of town. One ragged end of Gillen long ago suggested a triumphant dingo's profile to the Arrernte people. According to their folklore, the ridge was formed by an extended battle between a local dog, the victor, and an interloper from the west (they shared a desire for the same female). A prominent hill below the ridge was created by flying fur, which mounded up as a result of the fierceness of the fight.

In the morning Rachael and I drove out to the west side and set off afoot up the Gillen Trail, three or four kilometers up to the ridge top. The wind was strong and cool enough to keep me in long sleeves. I stopped often on the steep trail to turn and admire the expanding view of town and the West MacDonnell Range.

The top portion of the ridge is capped with a red rock outcropping, creating a high cliff all along the upper face, in the manner of a mesa. Near the top we came to the foot of the cliff and climbed up a narrow defile where the cliff face was relatively short. We came out on the windy top and walked along the ridge to a marker, where we sat down in its lee, just a few uncomfortable feet from the edge. Chris, from the Larapinta, had told a Mt. Gillen story about having his pack blown off the cliff, with his keys and phone and wallet inside, just at dusk. He'd had to get down and around to the cliff bottom and search in the near dark till he found the pack. We and all our belongings stayed on top, admiring the view and eating tangerines.

After our hike, we drove west out to Standley Chasm to retrieve a food box from our long hike. Standley had been our first food drop, but after the first three demanding days, Rachael was in no mood to carry lots of food. We had left much behind in the box. After claiming it from the snack bar/souvenir shop, we sat on a log in the sun beneath a giant gum tree and had a look inside. A huge, heavy bag of muesli, a couple Indian dinners (spinach, dal), a package of dried fruit, one of "nibbles" (trail mix), a bag of granola and muesli bars. I opened one of the bars on the spot and ate it. Rachael went for the nibbles.

Back in town we stopped in at the Cultural Centre so I could see the much talked-about (among Rachael and her friends, and Alice residents in general) Beanie Festival. Each year artists from all over Australia make beanies, many of them wonderfully elaborate, which are then displayed and sold to raise money for some aboriginal cause, I didn't catch what. The beanies hang on the walls of a large gallery, and you can go through and try them on and look in the mirrors mounted on the walls. Which I did. I particularly liked a brown, square-topped entry, with long fringe sticking up all along the top edge. I looked like an extra from a Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movie.

In another room I walked through an exhibit called "The Red Centre Way." The wildlife paintings of Nicholas Pike included a small acrylic of a spiny-cheeked honeyeater, a bird I had stalked at Olive Pink just the day before. Most of the exhibit, though, was devoted to the soft and bright watercolor landscapes of Albert Namatijira (1902-1959), a local artist who had a huge influence on other aboriginal landscape artists, and who, as far as I can see, remains the master of the local style. Important nearby sites such as Mt. Sonder and Glen Helen and Mt. Gillen were the subjects of most of the paintings.

Namatijira's representational landscapes are not, however, the leading school of Alice Springs Aboriginal art. In shops all over town, from cheap souvenir stands to posh art galleries, the more abstract dot style paintings are for sale. This brightly colored form is adapted from body painting, and the works supposedly depict animals, events, and places. The tourists are wild about these paintings, as are apparently white Australians in general.

Besides the many shops where they can be purchased, one can have such a painting directly from aboriginal artists, mostly women. They sit on walls across the street from the shopping center, or in a bit of grass on Todd Mall, with a handful of paintings spread on the ground, and usually a handful of small children running about. The women, though, like most of the Aboriginal people in town, remain mostly still and quiet, stolid witnesses to the action of the town, the white visitors moving quickly among them, always on the way somewhere. The women show little interest in hawking their work, their demeanor suggesting one can buy or not, it's all the same to them. But many do appear to need the money.

Few people were on the streets of Alice, though, on this particular Monday--a Northern Territory holiday called "Picnic Day," celebrating grilling and outdoor eating. The Territory has eleven official holidays, substantially more than any other part of the country.

I'd set aside some time for souvenir shopping, but only one store was open. Not that it would matter, probably. Near the end of a trip I always feel compelled to come back with some trinkets but can rarely find anything to satisfy. I browsed disconsolately among the cheap boomerangs, the bags of "Wombat Woops!", kangaroo and koala everything, G'Day Mate" shot glasses.... I decided to try again the next day, but I may come home empty-handed