A Town Called Malice

[Diuretic]

I would have put this in the "Australia" forum....but we don't have one

This is a crying shame. Alice Springs - according to Neville Shute, "A Town Called Alice" - is an icon in this country. It's the service centre for tourism in central Australia (think Uluru/Ayers Rock which is actually a few hours drive west of Alice Springs) and as the article points out, it's right on the backpacker route.

Now, to spin off from Paul Weller, it's "A Town Called Malice."

IT is the gateway to one of Australia's most famous tourist icons, Uluru, a red-centre oasis that is marketed as a cosmopolitan, urban slice of the outback. But Alice Springs is in meltdown, its escalating social unrest and entrenched dysfunction on display for international tourists to see in the middle of the town's mall.

The safety warnings on backpacker forums are becoming increasingly hysterical; letters published in the town's local newspaper beg for authorities to restore order. T-shirts are on sale with a slogan that is no joke: Alice Springs - Stabbing Capital of the World.

Mounted police patrol the Todd Mall; the Alice Springs town council has resorted to hiring private security guards to patrol the town at a cost of $5000 a week to ratepayers.

The town's acting mayor has called for riot police to respond as they would to a national disaster; one local member of parliament has resorted to offering any young woman she sees walking in the town after dark a lift in her car.

"Very few people in this town would go out at 10 o'clock at night in the main area of Alice Springs by choice," says politician Jodeen Carney. "I wouldn't, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else."

More at the link.

Down like Alice the meltdown of a tourism mecca | The Australian

 

[strollingbones]

this really bad news....i had always hoped to visit there and ayers rock..sorry cant do the albo names...too old to rename all the shit....i have always imagined it to be a beautiful country....one of my favorite movies was about the two albo girls who ran away and followed the fence home...and who wouldnt wanna see them big ass cane toads ...

also that odd movie..picnic at hanging rock...did they ever find any evidence of the two girls and teacher?

 

[Diuretic]

this really bad news....i had always hoped to visit there and ayers rock..sorry cant do the albo names...too old to rename all the shit....i have always imagined it to be a beautiful country....one of my favorite movies was about the two albo girls who ran away and followed the fence home...and who wouldnt wanna see them big ass cane toads ...

also that odd movie..picnic at hanging rock...did they ever find any evidence of the two girls and teacher?

Rabbit Proof Fence was the film of the aboriginal girls who ran away from the mission and went home, great film. Hanging Rock was really just fiction - there is a place in western Victoria called Hanging Rock but there was no disappearance. We lost a Prime Minister though, that was a real one, went swimming off a beach in Victoria and was never seen again. The hottest and most stupid rumour at the time was that he was taken aboard a Chinese submarine......

Cane toads - they're dangerous and a pest and they're on the move up in the tropical north, bloody things can stay there as far as I'm concerned.

That part - central Australia - is really astounding. You really can see the changing colours on the Rock, it's beautiful, and there are a lot of other things to see out there as well.

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[Anguille]

Rabbit Proof Fence

What a great film.