Day 7 Alice Springs


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Oceania » Australia » Northern Territory » Alice Springs
December 17th 2012
Published: December 17th 2012
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Alice Springs has underground water but still appears much like a 'desert' as seen from our hotel room.
Ok I really didn't mean to sleep till gone 11 but I did. Fortunately last night the hotel left me a birthday card and a big plate of fruit. Our breakfast!

We booked an afternoon tour and we got a taxi into town to have a walkabout before getting the bus. The town is very small and very poor. We bought a couple of things of Aboriginal design and a thimble, and of course the book "A Town like Alice".

Then we boarded the bus. The population of Alice Springs is between 25-26,000. First stop Anzac Hill with tbe war memorial which was originally for WW1 soldiers. Later this was updated to commemorate those who died in WW2 and Vietnam and Iraq.

Then on to The Telegraph Office which was the original town. The town was named by the boss of the engineers who erected the telegraph. They discovered a river which they called Todd river. Then they discovered a creek which they called Charles Creek. Then they saw bubbles which they assumed was a spring so they named it after Charles Todd's wife. But the springs turned out to be the bubbles of the two rivers converging underground. There are no springs in Alice 😞

Then on to the Alice Springs School of the Air. Kids who live in remote areas receive their schooling over the internet, coming together four times a year. They celebrate life changing events and every child was encouraged to participate in the Olympics. They had amongst other events, the shot putt, cycling and even synchronised swimming (without water!). The school tries to raise funds but it is difficult to have coffee mornings or bring and buy sales because of distance. So they ask people to spend money at the shop. One of the things that you can do is donate a book and Don found "The Dreadful Fluff" by Aaron Blahey. It appealed to the child within 😊

Next stop the Royal Doctors Flying Service. The service also serves a wide area and does an incredible job. It has 60 planes and a jet. Each plane is fully equipped with life saving equipment. In the foyer was a computer driven map of where the planes around the country. Four planes were on call in a mining area and maybe there had been an accident.

Finally we were taken to a reptile farm. Never go walking in the long grass as you never know what may be there. Nor swim in a river if you don't want to become a croc's lunch. A croc has a small stomach and will only eat what part of a human he wants. The rest of the body is left to float downstream and the rest of the crocs have meals on wheels!

We were taken back to the hotel to forage for food!

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