Day 267 – Alice Springs (6 June)

Left Pomona early – 5.45am to catch flight to Alice Springs.  Parking car at airport in long term parking area about 10mins drive from the terminal.  For seven days it cost $59 which is reasonable and a shuttle bus drops and picks you up from the terminal.  We had a lovely ground crew lady check us in at the airport who organised for us to have a spare seat between us on the plane.  It was a 3x3 seat combination.  Great to have the extra space.  She obviously loved camping and gave me a tube of camping towels (the ones you add water to).  A good flight over to Alice.  The population of Alice Springs is 27,000 including 7,000 Aborigines (those that can be accounted for).  Many Aborigines are homeless and live in the riverbed under the bridges.  We watched some of them sitting there in the sand doing the most amazing dot pictures, would loved to have bought one from them.  Within a 500km radius of town the population is about 50,000.  After checking into the hotel we went on a “Hop on Hop off” tour around Alice Springs.  The tour stops at all the attractions close to town and you can choose when you want to get on and off.  We opted to do the complete tour and then decide which places we would look at.  We stopped off at the Old Telegraph Station which was midway along the Overland Telegraph Line from Darwin to Adelaide.  The line was opened in 1872 which suddenly reduced the isolation of Australians from the rest of the world.  This meant that messages took hours instead of the months it previously took by sea.  By 1900 the station was home to a cook, blacksmith-stockman, a governess, four linesmen-telegraph operators plus the Station master and his family.  The station has been recreated as it was between 1895 and 1905.  It is protected by the Parks and Wildlife Commission.  We were lucky enough to see the Ghan train which travels from Darwin to Adelaide via Alice Springs at the station.  The Ghan is 1km long and seems to go on forever with many carriages.  (Apparently the Indian-Pacific is 2km long)!  We were told it costs from $200 to travel on the train (non sleeper).  The trip from Darwin to Adelaide takes 2 nights and covers a distance of 2979 kilometres.  The Ghan has been operating for 80 years. 

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