Rainbows and songs- first impressions of Alice Springs

I will post more photos on another day.  But my first impressions of Alice are these:

The colours- yellow sun, blue sky, red earth, green trees (many more trees than I thought).  And then there is the art from the Aborigine people.  They use bright colours and in one way, like Islamic art they use simple designs over and over again to form more intricate patterns.  Unlike Islamic art though, the Aborigine artists will represent animals with their art and forms of people may appear as well.  I resisted the temptation to buy, having been warned by Aussie friends that prices for art here in Alice are much higher than in Uluru (formerly known as Ayer's rock).  However it was very tempting.

Songs was something I did not expect to find here.  And here I am talking about the Cicadas.  Now we have Cicadas back home in Toronto.  They begin to buzz in mid July on warmish summer days.  You hear their buzz then they stop.  Then they buzz again.  Here though the Cicadas sing at a constant low drone- much like bag pipes or a pipe organ.  A constant hum reminded us we were not alone.

The flies.  Now we did bring bug spray.  But it is amazing how the flies here are with you always.  They don't bite they just constantly buzz around you and don't take no for an answer.  Those of you from the prairies will under stand how annoying these non biting flies are.  Those of you with cottages will think- well at least they don't bite.

Other things- I love some of the trees here.  Their white trunks have huge circumferences and the trees grow very tall.  Downtown has a few malls.  On the hottest of days here it is not unusual to hit 45 and 40 is quite common.  Today as I write this it is 34C and with only 7% humidity it is warm but not uncomfortable.  Oh one more thing- and this may sound like a wild tangent at first- I have never been to Newfoundland before.  So I have never had to adjust my clock by half hours before.  But when it is noon in Toronto- at this time of year it is 4am in Sydney and just 2:30am in Alice.

Tomorrow I am off to do the town tour of Alice.  Thursday we do an 18 hour tour to Uluru and back.