Wide Brown land

I'm now at Bangkok airport, with 4 more hours to wait for my connecting flight to London.
The plane left at 10am this morning and I had a window seat, so I saw Australia from 36,000 feet, going right across the centre to the north of Western Australia.

The centre of Australia is horrible and terrifying. It looks like a place for a Mars rover, not humans. Even from such a height, the flat red sand went as far as the eye could see. It was surely impossible that there was anyone alive down there.

When we crossed the coast, on the other hand, it was beautiful. The coast is jagged, with many inlets and lakes, the green vegetation goes right up to the shore where there is a Sandy beach. The water is a light blue, and it looked calm and shallow.
Having said that, there were no obvious signs of human habitation. No buildings of any sort, no roads, no boats on the sea, only pristine, lonely nature. Does anyone do anything there?

In contrast, when we passed over Indonesian islands, there was obvious human activity. Why the difference?