Just after driving an hour I crossed the only proper city around an area of 1000km: Alice Springs. Seriously, the only notable thing about this place is its location just between the western and the northern ranges. They form something like a natural gate that opens into Alice Springs. That's about it. People just come here to visit Uluru and other national parks around.
I continued driving until I reached an area called “The Devils Marbles”. Again a wonderful natural site with very few people around. I took a long break walking around the massive stone monuments. See for yourself.
While driving through the northern Territory you see more and more aborigines. They usually sit close to unsealed road crossings that (I suppose) lead to their settlements. They just sit there and stare into the desert with a serious face, seemingly doing nothing. My eye to eye experiences were so far a bit unsettling. Sure I have heard bad stories about break ins and alcoholism. It was sad to be confronted with the problem directly. You see them sitting, sleeping, drinking, shouting, staggering or buying alcohol, though never actively doing something. Most aborigines live of social welfare and the problems became so big that buying alcohol is now very restricted (you need some kind of license and you get only a couple of cans). I have read some articles these new restrictive alcohol laws concerning aborigines. Though positive they still sound shocking: Citation : "It's just been fantastic to be able to talk with people who are not intoxicated and not argumentative and people who are engaged." However, I have seen quite some intoxicated people. I don’t want to know how it was here before :/
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