Alice Springs part 2

Beckie and Craig offered us such a comfortable haven with the beautiful view described in my last blog, that we kept it for our entire visit to the red  centre of Australia.  This gave us a home base, a safe space to leave extras on our various tours, and a comfy stopover in the down times between to do laundry, rest up, and regroup, already familiar with the Alice Springs environs. We got to know the downtown area - June at the Information Centre, Steve and Ria at Thrifty's, Andrew who sent us to  Red Dog Cafe for its great coffee and brekky, the Epilogue next door with its gluten free for me and Gavin's open mic on the rooftop Thursday nights.

An aside here: I wanted to sing my Australian love song, Stay Down Here With You and had signed up to sing at 9:15 pm. Well, Gav was running a little behind. By 10:45, the crowd had swelled as the restaurants closed - a big audience, a full of drink happy but noisy crowd. My froggy throat was even worse in the dry desert air, and the more so due to the smokers on the rooftop. So it was a major disaster but I did it anyway, kind of yelling the song through the mic - couldn't hear a thing! Much better when I sang it to our guides from Glen Helen - uh, later.

We got to know the beautiful state of the art public library, surrounded by trees and a sculptured meeting place honouring the first peoples and pioneers of Alice Springs. We ate at Sporties and the Red Ochre Grill - kudos to both. Closer to where we stayed, I would skip Juicy Rump next time. But for our last night in Alice Springs, The Deck at the Hilton served delightful meals and the bar even had Gentleman Jack for me. Coles, Woolworths, and the Pharmacy at the Yeperyenye Centre provided our needs and Dingo equipped us for our forthcomng camping trip through Kakadu.

So...what did we really do in the red centre? in our frst few days in Alice Springs, we visited the Araluen Cultural Centre, a complex that includes a theatre, several galleries, a craft guild, and two museums. One gallery exhibited a collection of larger than life 3-D photo portraits of Aboriginal individuals, each dealing with a particular physical challenge. Fascinating works. Another was filled with the most beautful and exceptional Aboriginal artworks ranging from representational landscapes, exquisite dot paintings, and contemporary sculptural pieces. The crafters shop included a workspace for locals and an exhibit of mostly textile arts like knits and painted silks. The Natural History museum focused on Australian fossils, meteorites, and minerals, as well as the history of first contact and the changing population. It also housed a good Aussie gift shop. We did not visit the air museum. Or school of the air museum? But did walk through the sculpture garden surrounding a 300 year old sacred cork wood tree. The garden borders a sacred hill, Two Women Dreaming, that is fenced to prevent climbing. We ran out of time, but not before JD spotted the first lizard, a long nosed dragon, and the only species of lizard we have seen thus far.

When we arrived at Desert Park in Alice Springs we had missed all the exhibitions. Matt recommended the Nocturnal Walk that night. We can't say enough about this wonderful experience! In fact, it bears repetition. The park keeps small species almost extinct in parts of the wild since the introduction of camels and cattle have disrupted their environments. Even captive breeding and release programs do not work now due to the huge numbers of invasve foxes and feral cats, even where the dingos are still hunted, which might control the fox and cat populations. We wore red head lamps to see the creatures who came to the feeding stations after dark. Our guide along the walk, Damion, was obviously knowledgeable about all the creatures we saw along the two hour walk: malas (tiny kangaroos and one a momma with an eensy joey in her pouch!), echidnas (one took a stroll through our group!), stickneck rats and a nest, long nosed bandicoots and long eared bilbys. The battong and wallaby remained in shadows so we caught just a glimpse. It was splendid.  However, jostling and low light elimnated most photo attempts :) 

I will leave you here and pick up the next blog at our drive to Uluru. In the meantime, have listen to the song of love I wrote on my first visit to this wondrous country. It is available on iTunes and all music platfoms if you search Catherine M Thompson or Celtic Cat. The song is Stay Down Here With You: soundcloud.com/catscupboard/stay-down-here-with-you

Alice Springs part 1

It is difficult to describe the beauty of the red centre. JD took tons of photos, but they never communicate the scale. For instance, the land beyond our Alice Springs rental's backyard sweeps across a long stretch of dried tall grass dotted with trees and up the high ridge of the MacDonell Ranges and into an unbelieveably high cerulean blue sky. There is an old tub outside the yard, filled with water, drawing kangaroos, a dingo (we never did see), and every sort of bird. The galas descend on one of the trees off and on, grey crowned babbler nests crowd another, and a whistling kite lights on the spar of a dead tree to rest just beyond the fence. 

In the evening, after the sun goes down, the ridge is sillouetted with a soft pink glow as the sky darkens. We had a full moon last week, making one night's nocturnal tour of Desert Park less dark, full of shadows, but still starry enough for our guide to point out the southern cross and my constellation, Scorpio. We wore red light head bands and saw malas (tiny kangaroos, one a momma with an even tinier joey in her pouch), banicoots, echidnas (one that took a stroll among the group's feet) wallabies, sticknest rats, and bilbys.

The Aruluen Cultural Centre galleries are full of Aboriginal traditional and contemporary arts, the natural history museum is full of Australian fossils, and which is located at a women's sacred hill, women's dreaming, including a sacred 300 year-old corkwood tree. The range is the origin of caterpillars in Aborginal belief, represented by a contemporary sculptured walkthrough. Hard to describe. But we did see a ring-neck parrot telling his own stories in the corkwood tree, a long-nosed dragon (!) (tiny lizard), and a gigantic grasshopper. 

As for the birds, as mentioned above and so many more, they are spectatcular and everywhere to be seen. So I am in awe and JD is having a field day! 

En Route to Uluru

I am writing this on a short layover at the Melbourne airport, en route to Alice Springs from Canberra. As I mentioned earlier, I have had a lovely lazy couple of weeks visiting family in Canberra and Melbourne.

A month of adventure begins. First stop Alice Springs, today until the 27th. We have a room with a couple on the edge of town, so reasonable we are going to keep it while we tour further afield. On the weekend we will be in Uluru, to see the sunset on the rock, the sunrise the next morning, and to take a walk around it - my bucket list items. Back in Alice Springs there are bird watching opportunities, and then we take a two day Glen Helen tour of other desert sites. 

Off to Darwin on the 27th, where we will take a four day camping (yes!) tour of Kakadu park ending in Arnhem Land, a site with an aboriginal guide and ending at an art centre. L&B join us in Darwin Sept 1 when we will stay with their niece for a few days to see the sights there 

Sept 6 we four fly to the north west coast at Broome, to stay in a house near Cable Beach for a week. We may take a flying tour up the peninsula there. On Sept 14 we all fly back to Canberra. No plans yet for the last 2 1/2 weeks, but we hope to see family again. And maybe other places. 

There are lots of stories and photos to share. I will try to get some photos posted in the down times over the next week or so. And news from time to time :) 

Australian Vacation 1

So, I never did complete the SAC 4x4 Songwriting and Blogging Challenge - I will try again another year. The third challenge involved finding a co-writer among fellow challengees and I did offer to act as lyric editor and wordsmith. But I got no takers, and was already involved with a co-write at SongStudio2016 that same week. I let it go. The 4th challenge, regardless of wonderful encouragement from Rosanne, was to gather from 2 unfinished songs to complete a new song. That during the week of packing and travel to Australia was simply too much to undertake.

No matter. I finished all I had to do on my new EP Cool Cat - it is being mixed by my producer, Chris Birkett, and will be mastered at Silverbirch, ready for manufacturing before I return. The first two challenges in the SAC 4x4 generated at least starts to 2 new songs. And I had a wonderful week at SongStudio2016, staying with my sister Mary, and performing I Still Want You with co-writer Tom Phan at the Hugh's Room SongStudio Student Showcase. What a great send-off.

This hiatus in Australia is exactly what I need. When I am able to get back to open mics in Toronto, after Thanksgiving, I will be refreshed and raring to go. My first week here has been a lazy lovely visit with brother and sister in-laws in Canberra. The one long outing we had was to the botanical gardens where the sections are arranged according to the geographic areas of Australia, giving us a glimpse of what we will see in our travels further afield. The banksia varieties are astonishing in the size and colour of their curious brush shaped blooms. And there, the richness of this country's bird population is easily apparent, at every turn. We saw yellow robins, currawongs, fairie wrens, crimson rosellas, and wattle birds.

Yesterday, we made the 650 km drive through the hilly countryside to Melbourne. The rains this winter have been unusually wet, leaving the dams (water holes) full, the streams and rivers high and running. There were places where the trees were standing in water and I hope it bodes well as protection against summer fires. Verges, hillsides, and fields are lush and full of happy fat sheep and cattle. The land is dotted with the pale blue grey gums that I love so much. The evening ended with a wonderful reunion with a much loved niece and her family, where we were served a delicious meal, traded songs, and came back to our rental house ready for a good night's sleep.

More to come...