What a place!! It was a culture shock to see how Aborigional people are living in a Town in Australia. Some of them are like animals fighting amongst their different tribes. They just sit on the grassy verges around the town in their groups. Some try to sell there art work on the street. They sell there work cheaply compared to the art galleries surrounding them down the highstreet. Its a wierd place. All the touristy shops well groomed white people then the Aborigional people on the streets. Another thing there is that they have bars for forgieners only! This kind of mentality tells me its an unsafe place straight away! Its a sad state of affairs and just shows they are a long way off intergrating with society here.
The YHA hostel had the most unfriendliest girl behind the desk and the people staying there were not much better. Luckily for me I had Frog! We plonked our stuff down after such a tiring trip. He slept. I washed all my stuff as it was covered in red dust. I wanted to get organised ready for the next adventure in Cairns. That night we went to dinner at a backpackers the otherside of town with the people off the Adelaide to Alice Springs tour. It was $10 and eat all you like! This is where I held the snake it was owned by the barman - who was as camp as christmas. A fight soon errupted with a local Abo man and a local from the backpackers - one of the lads were from Shrewsbury!! It was really scary and the Abo guy picked up a huge rock and hit it off a guys head - not a pretty sight or sound! This is how these people fight they have no qualms about using a weapon to attak you - it wouldnt have to be a knife or a gun! We tried to leave and he started holding the rock up to all of us and we had no where to get away. After some comotion he left as police were mentioned. They arrived to take statements off people. It was a frightening experience in a new place. We all just got cabs back to our hostels as the guy was still roaming the streets and everyone says it isnt safe to walk around at night anyway.
We had two more days there. I really didnt like this place at all. But we got on with it. Went to the internet cafe to catch up with people burn our pics onto cd's and catch up with our blogs. We all met at Annies Place - a top backpackers! If you have to stay there go here its soooooo friendly and has a great atmosphere with a cool bar and food you dont need to go into town! I was staying in the YHA - so unfriendly and horrible. We ate dinner at Annies place both nights and food was good at $5.00. We got a taxi back the first and second nights but braved it the last night by walking through the town and it was ok. Still scary but we made it which was our thing. We did it! There is a few touristy things to do round Alice. We all went to the reptile centre and it was really intresting. We held different lizards and snakes. I enjoyed that and it made Alice seem a better place it was run by friendly people which for me made such a difference.
We all went our seperate ways at the end of our time in Alice. Frog back to Adelaide, Leonie to Sydney and Ryan, Jannie and Meta got the bus to Cairns which would take 3 days. I however flew and it was the first time I was totally alone on my trip!
