Road East

Loaded up with the four course breakfast including eggs bennies, time to blaze back to Alice. See that, I’m so local now I’ve dropped the Springs. Though having arrived here, I’m not convinced it ever had any. Just a ruse to attract people like calling Greenland, Greenland. We took a trip into town: Sunday afternoon pretty closed up, a few bars open, one with live music: a grey haired pony tailed guy strumming out some James Taylor. And then, amazingly enough people strolling to an arthouse cinema. And bikes parked inside too. Hipsters! A matinee showing of Shoplifters.
And outside, here and there, groups of the indigenous people sitting under trees, their rubbish strewn around on the grass beside them. Anyone on a multicultural schtick has a hard job here, for so many reasons - the Uluru resort place had made big deliberate efforts and seemed to have some success, but here in town the divisions seemed stark and felt uncomfortable.
Back to the hotel and a swim and lounge till the sun went down behind the buildings and the poolside was deserted. Still a very comfortable 37°C.
With little choice of eateries we sat outside beside the famous casino at the ‘Juicy Rump’. Famous of course, in a relative way: it’s in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Which I’d never seen - well, until we got back to the room and downloaded it. When in Rome.... or as the SK said to the hotel receptionist, on justifying our trip to the rock, it would be like visiting Paris and not going up the Empire State Building. It’s the heat.