American tourist’s observations about the UK go viral

[Alex]

Yep. Generally, all my travel experiences are pretty good. Just came back from 7 nights in Alice Springs and surrounding desert. What a place.

You living back in NZ?

 

[rhizome17]

Yep.

 

[Sir Didier Drogba]

Yep. Generally, all my travel experiences are pretty good. Just came back from 7 nights in Alice Springs and surrounding desert. What a place.

I have a huge desire to visit Alice Springs, preferably for a decent stretch of time, on account of reading The Songlines. Alex assures me that I will be bitterly disappointed.

 

[Alex]

I have a huge desire to visit Alice Springs, preferably for a decent stretch of time, on account of reading The Songlines. Alex assures me that I will be bitterly disappointed.

It's a great and beautiful place to visit. I just think you'll be disappointed iof you wanted to live there, and have romanticised the whole idea.

 

[Bobby]

I think he'd enjoy it. I'm pretty sure he likes the American and Canadian rural west a lot.

 

[Alex]

I think he'd enjoy it. I'm pretty sure he likes the American and Canadian rural west a lot.

Alice Springs isn't rural. It's empty. And country Australians are a different breed. Especially somewhere that secluded. It's not comparable to country America. I grew up in country Australia. I imagine that would be much more comparable.

Alice Springs is 1500km from the nearest city with a population over 500,000 (Adelaide), and even Adelaide isn't huge. Nashville is closer to NYC than that. You look at even the nearest towns of over 10,000 people - and there is nothing. I'm not saying this is reason not to like it - but that it's simply not comparable to anything in the USA.

Alice Springs isn't "country" it's proper outback. And I think Sir_Didier_Drogba has romanticised it from the book. The people there also see little but their own community and loads of tourists.

 

[Sir Didier Drogba]

I want to become some form of God like figure amongst the local aboriginals

 

[Sir Didier Drogba]

The only other Australian city I would consider living in is Darwin

 

[rhizome17]

I have a friend who lives there and travels a lot out to the rural communities with a mobile classroom (the communities where alcohol etc. is banned). Rewarding work, but extremely hard. Lots of driving on unsealed roads.

The landscapes are absolutely spectacular though. And nothing like hiking through the desert and coming across one of the watering holes for a swim in the afternoon. The town itself is nothing special and appears to be going through some hard times economically now that there are direct flights to Uluru, but man - the surrounding area. Beautiful.

 

[Alex]

I have a friend who lives there and travels a lot out to the rural communities with a mobile classroom (the communities where alcohol etc. is banned). Rewarding work, but extremely hard. Lots of driving on unsealed roads.

The landscapes are absolutely spectacular though. And nothing like hiking through the desert and coming across one of the watering holes for a swim in the afternoon. The town itself is nothing special and appears to be going through some hard times economically now that there are direct flights to Uluru, but man - the surrounding area. Beautiful.

Katherine and Kakadu are much nicer areas to look at than Alice.

 

[Bobby]

Longreach. Good town.