The Outback

By Jamie C. Welling - From the moment I made my decision to live in Australia I dreamt of sleeping in the Outback. Finally I was on the plane. I was flying from Sydney to Alice Springs. It takes about the same amount of time to fly from New York to St. Louis. That is the only thing that is comparable to the US. I looked out my window and all I could see for miles was red Outback with speckles of green vegetation. There were no roads, cars, houses... I was flying into the heart of Australia.

Walking off the plane is like walking into a dry oven. The sun is sweltering, I had to slow my breathing to allow the thick air into my lungs. It’s a 45 minute drive from the airport into the city of Alice Springs. From my window I observed the aborigines huddled in groups of 2’s, 4’s and more walking about. Some were naked, some in western clothing, wading in small streams and thirsty lakes. It was the first time I had seen aborigines since I had arrived in Australia. I had asked a lot of questions about their culture in the city, but no one seems to want to talk about them. It was as if the government wanted to forget they existed.

Once I checked myself into my hostel I made my way to the town square. There were few tourists and many aborigines. The children were dark skinned with wide noses, dark eyes, and blonde hair. Most of the men were large and wide shouldered. They seemed to be a tight community completely ignoring the Australians and tourists. It was as if no one else existed. As if we were living in a different matrix. When Captain Cook sailed into Botany Bay he saw aborigines for the first time fishing and cleaning clothes in the ocean. Even though his huge sailboat passed right before them ~ a piece of machinery they had never seen before ~ none of them gave the ship a second glance...and hardly even a first glance. I understood that now.

The town square is lined with shops and galleries displaying Anangu (Aboriginal people of western desert) art and crafts. The most interesting being the dot drawings. They are always in earth tones and are images of their ancestors’ stories. The crafts were boomerangs (kali), hunting spears (Kulata), Shields (Tjara), bowls and desert animals carved out of wood. The opal stores are also quite popular. Opal mining is a big business in the outback and most shop owners take great pride in explaining the mining process and the differences between high end and low end opals. I felt bad not purchasing an opal or art, but as a backpacker I had little room and less money.

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