Woke up to the sad news that Aunty Beth had passed away yesterday. She was having an afternoon nap. I’m probably more relieved for her than anything, just shy of 102 meant her quality of life had dwindled a while back. It certainly bought losing Dave back, and I spent the day under a fog. Didn’t help we had to move two carloads of gear to another cabin on top of more disappointing news that the parts were misplaced by TNT and wouldn’t arrive now till Monday morning. The whole of the park was booked out for the weekend for the AFL game coming to town, so we missed out on any cabin accommodation for Sat night..... We had to book a powered site for Saturday and hope someone would cancel which the particularly unhelpful receptionist at the park gleefully told me wouldn’t happen. So we are faced with another gear transfer and prospect of sleeping in the car?!
I’d been wanting to get to some galleries for a few days now and although didn’t really feel like it, Matt suggested he take the kids to see new Star Wars movie for the afternoon so I could spend a few hours looking around.
Some local information steered me to Tangentyere art centre and away from several others with questionable integrity - apparently there is a roadhouse on the way into Alice with an art gallery (like the one we saw at Marla) that pays it’s artists in alcohol?!
I had seen an artist (Maggie) on this centre’s website with a stunning painting of salmon and pinks, which was unfortunately sold. All the art centers were closing at 4 so I wandered back into town to check out the Todd St Mall galleries there. Talipa is a gallery that sells directly for the artists - who set their own prices. They were just about to hang a painting that was just stunning, of course about one of the Dreamtime stories of the Seven Sisters that we’ve encountered several times over the last week. It ruined me for all the paintings after that!
Picked up the movie goers and headed to the Outback Steakhouse for a nice meal that I was happy to be ripped off for a night off cooking, followed by our second trip to Uncle Eddy’s ice cream parlour- thanks Rach!