Arriving at the Red Centre

---

We left Melbourne behind for the small and quiet town of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. We had booked a 3 day trip into the outback including seeing Uluru (Ayers rock), Kata Tjuta (The olgas) and Kings Canyon.

The flight into Alice Springs was amazing even though you know that the area is literally baron when you see the landscape from the air it is quite unbelievable just how flat, dry and sparse of greenery it actually is. Alice Springs airport is small and quaint I dont think we have been to a quiter airport before as they only have a few planes landing a day. After collecting our baggage we set off for the counter for our hostel in the airport. We had booked (through the tour) to stay at Annies Place one of the larger hostels in the area. We were met by a very friendly guy who directed us to the bus and asked us to wait as there was another flight coming in a few minutes later with more guests for the hostel. Alice is very very hot we sat in the sunshine waiting to leave for the hostel and the heat is stifling!!!! Eventually we set off and our driver from the hostel filled us in with some local information. Alice Springs was founded in 1888 and is named after the permanent water hole in the area. It is famous for the overland telegraph pole built there in 1870 which enabled a pretty remote town to be linked to the outside world. Before the telegraph pole was built it would take 3 months for information from the outside world to reach the Australian coastline via shipping, even longer to make it to the remote area of Alice which is smack bang in the middle of the red centre. Alice is 2062km from Adelaide, 2998km from Brisbane, 1497km from Darwin and a massive 3549km from Perth. The telegraph pole was a pretty important invension!!! Alice has a large Aboriginal community, many of the local tribes have moved there and no longer live the traditional aboriginal life. Many though still count themselves part of the heritage of the lands and there has been conflict between different people from different land areas. The introduction to alcohol and drugs doesn't seem to have helped these historically remote people either and it is well documented that drink is a major problem for the aboriginal community.

Having checked in a paid for our tour we went for a walk into the town in the heat of the midday sun. It is unbelievable how tired you get from just a 10 minute walk down the road. Alice itself is small but has shops, restaurants and a supermarket. The impact of how many aboriginal people are living there is huge and although we did not have any reason to feel threatened by them when a large group of men came out of one of the bars it was quite intimidating. Alot are just sat around on the grass areas drinking and smoking which we were quite surprised by.

We decided to head back to the hostel as there was little in the town and sat by the pool for a while. We had a very early start the next day as the tour was deaprting at 6am so we had a few beers and fish and chips for dinner (yummy) and took ourselves off to bed.

We actually returned to Alice after the tour which was a sunday and there was a lovely market through the town area. That was worth seeing and we enjoyed walking through the stalls selling aboriginal art and local artefacts. On the whole though Alice is not a place that you would stay any length of time as there is so little to actually do. It really is a base to head off into the sun and see the sites the red centre has to offer....................

---

Photos

Alice Springs main street
Really sorry but this is the only photo we have of Alice!!!!