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NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
April 13, 2000
Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University
©2000 Plains Folk
"Alice is a bonzo town." That's what Joe Harmon, the hero of "A Town Like Alice," told the heroine, Jean Piaget, about Alice Springs, in the central deserts of the Northern Territory, Australia. My Lotte and I, as part of our quest to see plains country all over the world, got to the Alice a couple weeks ago, but we're not so sure about Joe Harmon's verdict.
The Alice, which lives in popular memory as the classic outback town, has been "malled." I can live with tacky tourist development--that would have been preferable--but a downtown mall, for pete's sake. At least the Todd Tavern is still intact and ungentrified.
Then, too, we might have been soured on the Alice by being stuck at the Alice Springs airport until 3 a.m., after the airport pretty much shut down at 9 p.m. Some of the more genteel travelers got a little upset when they turned out the lights and fleets of stink beetles came marching across the tile.
That said, I wouldn't miss seeing the red center of Australia for anything. West of the Alice, in the West MacDonnell Ranges, where little creeks have scoured channels through faults in the quartzite ridges, are some of the most spectacular swimming holes in the world. What a sight, to lie on the sand and look up at the line where the red rock meets the blue sky, and the ghost gums rustle, and noisy parrots scream by in flocks.
We drove over to Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), of course. After a while I found the landscape of desert oak, mulga, and spinifex really easy on my eyes. The red sand right in the bull's-eye of a circular tussock of hard spinifex grass--what colors, and what geometry. There had been rain recently, too, and so as we entered the gorge of Kata Tjuta, there was a Stuart desert rose in lavender bloom, a rare sight.
An interesting bit of recent history in regard to these landmarks is that in the mid-1980s, as part of a treaty settlement, they were titled to the local aboriginal owners, the Anangu people. The aboriginal owners kicked the motels and vendors out of the park, making this one of the most delightful sites of natural wonder I ever have visited.
Further, they instituted a program of prescribed burning to renew vegetation in the park. This is traditional. Prior to the advent of Europeans, aborigines managed the landscape with fire. The results of this program are splendid. The country is like a spinifex garden.
Euro-Australians, like Euro-Americans, are inclined to distrust native management of natural resources. The Uluru-Kata Tjuta example shows that native management can be a spectacular success.
The northern reaches of the Northern Territory, too, are a fascinating landscape, with their monsoon climate (wet summer, dry winter). We came at the end of the wet; from now until about October there will be no more rain.
Speaking of swimming holes, if there are any better than those of the red center, they are those of the north, in Litchfield National Park. In Australian national parks you don't just look at things, you can DO things! Like swim under waterfalls, dive from the rocks and try not to think about crocodiles.
As I'm writing this, I'm looking at my surreal photos of cathedral and magnetic termite mounds in Litchfield, remembering how a bush plum tastes and thinking about that cheeky kookaburra at Wangi Falls. And trying to remember where I put the snow shovel I cached away before leaving the country, because now there are 6 inches on my driveway. This is a little more reality than I want to face.
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Source: Tom Isern, (701) 231-8339
Editor: Dean Hulse, (701) 231-6136
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