We kicked off yesterday by meeting for coffee with Meredith Campbell in one of our favourite Alice cafes, Page 27. It is in a laneway off the mall. It was called Bar Doppio for many years but is under new management and revitalised.
Meredith and Meredith. The bloke on the left behind Meredith 2 is Knies, one of the two blokes who found Ann's phone, referred to in the very first blog. He had just come from winning the 24 hour dance-a-thon. He didn't recognise us.
Meredith 2 was very enthusiastic that we should see the biggest ghost gum in the world (in her opinion), out behind the ranger station at Simpson's Gap. So after hiring a Thrifty car for a few days we headed out to the Gap, found the ranger station and found this awesome and very beautiful tree.
Several hundred years old, very important to local people.
I know it sounds a bit wussy, but we didn't go on to Simpson's Gap and walk around because we had sandals on and you get little stones in them and it's REALLY irritating.
Instead we drove back into town and checked out another Aboriginal art gallery, Tangentyerre. More stunning paintings, this time all done by people living in the town camps around Alice. a selection of self portraits and a lot of pieces in a new naive style depicting stories of camping, journeys, sports events,
Next stop was Milner Meats, the best butcher shop in Alice, for some osso buco for Friday night, one of my new dishes. Morroccan Osso Buco. Whacko.
Half a dozen or so people arrived at Davis Hotel at about 6, to share a meal. I hadn't met any of them but one before but as is usually the way there they were all interesting and the conversation flowed without stop. The one we did know was Marg Bowman, who lives two doors down the road and is a distant cousin of Meredith's. She has been a dealer in Aboriginal art for many years, one of the good sort, not one of the carpet-bagger rip-off merchant exploiter types.
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