Alice Springs

Let me tell you, living in and growing up in the bush is unique, especially on a huge cattle property out of Alice Springs. For a kid it’s simply the most wonderful way of life. Where else could you be driving an old jeep when you were seven? Where else could you work along side your dad when you were ten, mustering cattle and riding horses? Where else can you grow up to be twenty when you’re still twelve?

Where else could you experience droughts, floods, bushfires, extreme thirst, heat, flies, booze, fun, poker, as well as teach yourself to play the guitar, read copious amounts of books, fly in the Royal Flying Doctor plane, ride a buck jumper in a rodeo and play with Aboriginal kids. Where else could you eat kangaroo, snake, damper and echidna, as well as drive a tractor and a truck, cart cattle, brand them, castrate a calf and still be under 16? I loved it!

Those words aren’t mine, they belong to my mate, Dave Prior. I’ve only visited the Territory, so I’ve seen the sights and heard the sounds. Dave has probably given me more of a ‘feel’ of what the territory is about. It’s also been the setting for a number of songs we’ve written together including The One That Got Away, My First Plane Ride (Dave’s first plane ride was in the Flying Doctor Plane after he sucked on a hose and was bitten in the throat by a redback spider) and Our School Yard (“Our school yard was 700 square miles…”). You can hear this one at the School of the Air in Alice.

The town, being a long way from nowhere, is just a little crazy. Who else would cancel a boat race if it rains? The Henley-on-Todd Regatta (August) sees grown men and women running, carrying the hulls of boats along the dry, sandy Todd River through town. Most of the boats are made from beer cans, and tradition insists the crew empty the cans used in the construction. Rain, even if it falls miles away, can turn the Todd into a raging torrent and the last regatta to be cancelled was in 1993.

The Camel Cup (July) is as also great fun and a major social event. The camel races are followed by camelback polo. The Alice Springs Cup Carnival features horses and is run over six days in April. The locals love a bet and Lasseter's Casino is open daily. Open since 1981, it was the world’s first government licensed and regulated Internet casino.

There’s an array of restaurants from Asian to Italian, even Swiss, and there are the ubiquitous international fast-food outlets. Some restaurants specialise in Bush Tucker like buffalo, kangaroo or crocodile. There also a surprisingly good winery (Chateau Hornsby, owned by pharmacist Denis Hornsby) and a delightful way to get there is by camel, which also takes you along the Todd River.

The Alice Springs Desert Park, with 350 plant species and 120 animal species, puts paid to thoughts that deserts are wastelands. You’ll need a few hours to do it justice. The Olive Pink Botanical Reserve also has more than 300 local species of plants, and you can sponsor your own ‘family tree’. During her 91 years, Miss Olive Pink fought hard for Aboriginal rights and set up the flora reserve. She ran it as a fortress, only opening it to invited guests, and named her trees after public figures. If they didn’t live up to her high expectations, she refused to water them. In 1975 she was buried in the Memorial Cemetery in the only grave facing west. It was her wish to always see the sun set over Mount Gillen. Other residents include prospector and optimist, Harold Bell Lasseter; great Aboriginal artist, Albert Namatjira; and several Afghan cameleers, facing in the direction of Mecca.

In the late 1800s, hundreds of camels were imported from Afghanistan with their handlers to carry supplies over the harsh, dry, trackless centre of Australia. They were replaced by the internal combustion engine in the 1920s. Camels were used to carry the supplies during the building of the overland telegraph line that connected Adelaide to Darwin and then to a submarine cable, thus providing a vital communication link with world centres.

The telegraph line followed the route of explorer John MacDouall Stuart. Permanent waterholes, named Alice Springs (after the wife of South Australia's Postmaster General), were the reason for the Overland Telegraph Station’s location in the 1870s. It was the seed of a township originally called Stuart, named after the explorer. In 1933, when it was renamed Alice Springs, there were just 400 residents. The Telegraph Station is now the centre of a historical reserve at the north end of town.

West of Alice, and only a short drive from town, is Simpsons Gap, gouged by millions of years of floods from Roe Creek and, at dawn and dusk, black-footed rock-wallabies turn up for a drink at the waterhole. Standley Chasm is best visited (but most crowded) at midday, when the sun passes overhead to penetrate the chasm (80 metres high and only 8 metres wide at its narrowest point). It was named after Ida Standley, the Alice’s first schoolteacher. On the way, on Larapinta Drive, is the grave of John Flynn, founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Even if you only have two or three days in Alice Springs, you will leave with an appreciation of Aboriginal history, European frontier heritage and a dramatic an sometimes unforgiving part of Australia.

More Information

For more information about the Northern Territory:

• Events And Festivals
• Accommodation
• To See And Do
• Darwin
• The Top End
• The Centre
• From Adelaide River To Wauchope

Northern Territory Tours With Tours To Go