Alice Springs

We arrived after very short flight (30 minutes) but we still got a bun and a cup of tea.

We took the Alice Wanderer Shuttle into town and found it was closed; New Year’s Day is a public holiday in Australia but Alice Springs goes to town and a lot of places close until 19^th January, including 2 of the 3 tour companies, apart from special bookings. We tried to get a Town Tour from the 3^rd company - AAT Kings again, but they cancelled 2 minutes after taking our booking, we were the only people booked.

Our hotel was the Lasseter’s Hotel and Casino and on New Year’s Day they were very busy with a special offer on Steaks of A$18, they called it Tight Tuesday !

We tried walking to the Town Centre attractions but in the heat even at 9:30 it was too much, so we hired a car which was cheaper than the tours anyway and we got to visit an extra place.

We visited the Reptile Centre seeing lizards and snakes, there was a python called Monty (see below) and a saltwater crocodile in a tank called Terry, he did not look happy.

Next was the Royal Flying Doctor Service which was founded here in 1929. We saw a very interesting video and looked over a mock up front half of their latest aircraft a Pilatus P6 made in Switzerland, very powerful and with extremely short take off and landing capability. After that we spent a lot of money in their shop, they are a very deserving cause. There are over 60 RFDS stations in and around Australia, they even cover Christmas Island.

Next visit was the School on the Air which started in Alice in 1951, using the radio technology pioneered by the RFDS.

From Alice they currently have 138 pupils within generally a circular area of 600, the furthest pupils are from their classmates at the moment is over 1,400 kilometres.

Nowadays the radio has been generally superseded by the Internet and Video and are taught as classes using video, chat and whiteboard technologies.They have 3 studios and 11 teachers covering 4 ½ yr. olds up to 14 at the moment, when pupils switch to either correspondence courses or boarding school.

The children have a classroom of their own at home or on the station where their parents work and have a helper (usually mother) to help them.

Their home classroom is equipped with lap top and fixed computers, router, printer and a large satellite dish for 2 way communication.

 

The children come into Alice 3 or 4 weeks a year accompanied by their parents to meet and work directly with their teachers and classmates., it is a strong and expensive commitment by all parties.

They get a lot of visitors some very famous others like ourselves less so.

We tried to get to the Telegraph station which was a repeater on the Adelaide to Darwin line set up in the 1890’s, but it meant a lot of walking and the temperature was 45C, we did get a picture though. 

The telegraph reduced the turn around of communications between the colony and London to a couple of hours from 16 weeks minimum.

When the station was built there was no town, and it developed into a small township before the town developed about a mile south between 2 rivers, which of course are dry 98% of the time. The telegraph station was built next to a natural spring which was named after the telegraphists wife Alice, hence Alice’s spring became Alice Springs.

Next stop to last was the War Memorial set on ANZAC Hill overlooking the town giving a good view of the town and surrounding hills.

Last stop was the Old Ghan Museum which ran to and from Adelaide from 1929 to 1980, when the new standard gauge track was completed carrying passengers on the famous Ghan and of course huge quantities of goods, the service was extended to Darwin in 2004.

The name Ghan comes from the camel drivers who were superseded by the railway who were mainly Afghans. After the camels became redundant they were set free and there are now an estimated 1,000,000 feral camels in Australia, we saw one in Uluru.

The hotel was pretty good and boasted a very nice pool which Gwen swam in several times, once there were 2 robot cleaners in the pool and she had to keep changing course to avoid them.

Alice Springs is almost exactly the geographical centre of Australia and is about as far from anywhere that you can get.

Nearest civilisation is Yulara, the resort for Ayers Rock at 250 km southwest, the next in this easterly direction is Kalgoorlie, one of the goldrush towns another 1,000+ kms away.

Next is Tennents Creek 500 km north also a telegraph sation. Coober Pedy is about 600 km south and is where Opals are dug.

East would be a township in either Queensland or New South Wales, probably 1,000 km away.

We have never been so far from anywhere.