Day 40 Alice Springs

Around Australia in 40 days?  Not quite, but in the red centre and loving it here.  I was not entirely convinced about coming to Alice Springs, but as Master Yoda would say "Hmm mistaken I was."

Alice rocks, so does Ayers, but that's in the past now.  Today was semi booked, and we choofed into town early to go to a didgeridoo lesson with Andrew Langford who runs the Sounds of Starlight Theatre.  He was very helpful with my interest in Didge, and after a half hour of lesson with him I had managed to work out the bugs with my playing, and get the two main notes out of the instrument.  Lisa and I spent ages looking at all of the instruments in the shop, and ended up buying a beautiful Ironbark Gum Didgeridoo in D#. 


The instrument is a little longer than the usual didgeridoos, at approx 1.65m and will be challenging to learn on, but it was Andrew's advice that if I was to get an instrument for playing then this style is best suited.  The tone is beautiful.  I also got an instruction book and cd to continue learning.  The great thing is that it will look great in our lounge room as well as being a functional instrument.



We did a quick food shop for the coming week and went back to camp for lunch.  Warm chicken rolls with Nandos Perinaise...mmmmmmm!!!  After our lunch, we headed off to the cultural centre and museum which was very different to what we had expected. 

Lisa found her first Sturt Desert Pea, she was very excited!

We walked through the Namatjira Gallery, and looked at some original water colours which were as beautiful and well done as I had heard.  He was an extremely talented artist, and having seen some of the locations in his painting, you get the sense that he captured the beauty of the land very well.  We also had a look at the finalists for the beanie festival.  Some of the beanies were fantastic, and carried price tags to match.  Some fetching over $2000.00.

Out the back of the cultural centre is the aviation museum.  We wandered down there to have a quick look at the DC3, and the other exhibits.  The kids enjoyed climbing on board this aircraft.  There was also original wreckage from the Kookaburra which crashed near Wave Hill (North West of Alice Springs) whilst on a search and rescue mission looking for the Southern Cross.  I can't believe that anybody would fly in something so flimsy, but there isn't a lot left of the aircraft bar some frame work, the engine and the BMX bicycle rims that were used for landing gear.  There were various other bits of aircraft (instruments, radios, engines and so forth) laid around the two hangers, but the display was a bit disappointing.


From the aviation museum, we went on to the actual museum which had some beautiful displays of dinosaur bones which were found and excavated nearby.  They were in fairly good condition.  There was also a really good display on meteorites and craters in the area.  We didn't go to the Henbury Crater, or to Gosse Bluff, but after Wolfe Creek, it would be hard to imagine anything quite so grand.  They did have fragments and cutaways of the meteorites though which I found very interesting.

It was getting late in the afternoon though and we had booked to go and see a show at the Sound of Starlight Theatre in Todd Street Mall. This is the same place that I had my Didgeridoo lesson in the morning.  We had booked onto the show as they had a 4pm abbreviated show for  a school group from Victoria, and we figured that the kids wouldn't stay awake for the 8pm show or be still enough for an hour and a half, so this was a pretty good compromise.

Andrew Langford plays Didgeridoo, and has a drummer and a percussionist that perform to a video and to a synthesized sound track.  He describes the interaction of the music with the land and the native people as the show goes on.  Half way through they got the school kids to get on stage and play some didgeridoo, and then handed out clap sticks, shakers, and djembe's for the people in the audience to play.  Having spoken to Andrew earlier in the day, he knew that I was a drummer and got me into the percussion booth for this part of the show.  Not a bad way to spend the afternoon.  I've been missing the drums whilst I've been away.

I really enjoyed the show, and the kids did too.  Even Lisa got into the spirit of the show. 

In a rare miraculous feat, Rowan didn't spill blood today, but did manage to walk into a pole which was 1m and 45 Degrees in the wrong direction that he was walking.  I don't know how he does it.  Whilst shopping though, I ran over Emma's foot with the shopping trolley.  She squealed and slumped to the ground.  I was helping her up when a young police officer appeared to see if she was ok.  He then asked to see my license to ascertain if I was fit to drive the trolley.  At least that cheered her up.  I have to say, I was impressed with the community spirit of this guy.  Thanks for your help.