Our Tour of Alice

May 19
Alice Springs
Sunny, warm, and dry.

I do apologize for being away for so long. Our schedule has been hectic enough so that it's been pretty much impossible to get some time for writing, let alone getting on the internet to upload journal entries.
Were back from our Central Australian camping trip, and have but a few things left in the course. Tonight, after their final quiz, we will have dinner at the Red Ochre Grill, followed by a didgeridoo concert at Sounds of Starlight. Tomorrow we head back to Sydney for a couple of free days before returning home.
Let me first write about our day tour of Alice Springs. Though Alice is very small as cities go, with a population of just over 25,000, it is the largest city within 1000 miles in every direction, and thus serves as a hub for much activity. So, there is actually a fair amount of things to see here.
We began our day at the Alice Springs Desert Park. The park is a zoo of sorts, though the emphasis is much more on presenting the habitats one is likely to encounter in Central Australia. The students thus had the chance to see the sorts of conditions that they would encounter while camping.
The Bird Show is particularly interesting. Though it is a free flight show, the birds are clearly well-trained to display their natural behaviors. The species we saw were the standard birds of prey one finds in the wild, with the exception of the wedge-tailed eagle. But we saw plenty of kites, a magpie, an owl, and a tawny frogmouth as a part of the show.
We stopped at the Royal Flying Doctors Service (RFDS) Visitor Centre for a tour and a lunch. The RFDS is the first line of medical care for anyone in the remote Outback, providing over-the-phone emergency care, emergency airborne medical transport, clinics in villages and on stations, and medical evacuation. They do this with a small fleet of planes, a staff of pilots, mechanics, nurses, doctors, and radio operators.
We had a leisurely lunch at the RFDS Cafe. Since we had so much time, I wandered about the neighborhood, as our coach driver had suggested that I take a look at the nearby Old Gaol. This old eyesore is being refurbished as a museum celebrating Australian pioneer women. Perhaps we'll include it in the tour for next year.
We continued to the School of the Air. The running joke is that tourists often think that it's a school for pilots, though our students always arrive knowing that it is in fact a school conducted from Alice Springs and other central locations in Australia, for the children in remote stations and Aboriginal communities. Because many of our students are preparing for careers in education, this visit usually turns into a long question-and-answer session during which the students learn a lot, not only about the School of the Air, but also about the educational system in Australia.
The Telegraph Station is the reason Alice Springs is located where it is. During the 1800s, Australia underwent tremendous economic growth, and needed therefore to be in touch with the rest of the world. The plan was to run a telegraph line from Asia undersea to Darwin, and then down the middle of Australia to Adelaide. The terrain itself certainly represented a barrier, but gaps in the central ranges needed to be located as well. Most importantly, repeater stations needed to be located every 150-200 km to amplify the signal, and the people staffing those repeaters needed water.
The local river, now named the Todd River, had an unusual amount of surface water in it when the explorers came through; they thought they had discovered a spring, though there was no reason for a spring to be located at that point. The telegraph station was located on the spot, and a town named Stuart soon flourished nearby. Of course, everyone knew the name Alice Springs, since that was the telegraph station, so the citizens of the town eventually renamed their city Alice Springs.
The telegraph station was closed in the early 20th century, but the history of the place continued. Under the name of the Bungalow, it was used as a native school for some of the children of the Stolen Generation until the mid 1960s -- in fact, our tour guide, Merrill, was the daughter of a woman who was a resident of the Bungalow, and had several other relatives who had passed through there. So, her lecture about the place had an extra dimension to it.
I'll recount our camping trip in my next post.