9/9/22 B

Today, I had an appointment at Hearing Australia here in Alice Springs,  arranged when I picked up my new hearing aids the day before we left home, just to check that all was working as planned. (More about this later).

We took the morning to do some touristy things. 

First stop was the Desert Park. We could have stayed for their informative tour showing the plants and their use by desert dwellers, and to hear some of the history, but chose instead to book for a night-time tour on Monday night to see the native night animals in their predator-free enclosure.

Next stop was the Araluen Cultural Precinct and it was stunning. We spent an hour in the gallery, seeing the works of Albert Namatjira and others from the Hermannsburg  mission. He was a wonderful artist. This was our favourite, painted two years before his death.

There were so many stunning works from other art collectives that it's hard to choose which ones are best to show you. So much variety, and many which were so intricately done that they must have taken weeks of careful work to complete.

 

Even the entrance is artistic, with this incredible stained glass window a work of art.

Then we set off to see the Tjanpi Desert Weavers. These are desert women who weave artefacts from native grasses. This enables them to stay on country and still make a living.  However, none were working today, and with even a tiny bowl selling for $62, we didn't stay long.

Then it was time for my hearing appointment,  but we hadn't been there for long when I discovered my phone was missing! Much consternation and distress while I contemplated all that would be lost, while Ian went back to retrace our steps from the car, with no luck. The staff were so helpful, one even letting me tether onto her phone to set up a phone-finding app, while Ian also tried everything to try to find it. We knew if I'd dropped it, it would never be seen again.

However, just as we were giving up, a staff member went to the loo, and there it was, along with my sunnies, just 20 metres from where we sat, right there in the building.

Oh, the relief!!

We went straight vack to the van to recover with a restorative cuppa, and will now transfer all my photos to a memory stick.

Tomorrow,  we attend the first of the Desert Song Events - the catalyst which brought us to the Alice.