A TOWN LIKE ALICE
A Visit To Alice Springs, Australia
By: Phoenix Arrien
Back on the hop-on-hop-off bus around Alice Springs.
First up is ANZAC Hill for great views of the township. The Anzac Hill lookout shows how Alice Springs kinda’ snuggles into a bit of a valley bordered by the MacDonnell Ranges. It looked relaxed and sleepy as it spreads out among green trees and bakes in the sun.
Each stop sees me wandering into unique places like the Royal Flying Doctor Service and School of the Air, both with enormous distances for their personnel to cover: oh, about the size of Britain.
The Docs look after the scattered population in need of medical attention, the School makes sure the local (read - within several thousand kilometres or so) kids didn’t have any excuse not to do their schoolwork, even though they are at home rather than in a classroom. The doctors and nurses buzz around in small planes that land in paddocks about the size of London, while the teachers sit in the best spot they can: thousands of kilometres away from their students and use radio and internet to scold Johnny into doing his 2 X table.
The Alice Springs Reptile Centre. Here you get to learn about wildlife, have a python wrap itself around your neck and learn how to kiss a lizard. The Reptile Centre has goannas, frill- necked lizards, thorny devils (met a few of those in my travels) and some of this country’s (and the world’s) seventeen most venomous snakes (met even more of these travelling the world too).
I become a kulcha vulture at the Cultural Precinct. To wander around here takes a few hours if you really want to check out desert life. There are eight buildings to explore as well as seven Aboriginal sacred sites and two ‘women dreaming tracks’. There is also desert art in the art galleries, bones in the Museum of Central Australia and aboriginal artefacts, found in the 1930’s, at the Strehlow Research Centre.
You can get into the insides of a giant caterpillar - the ‘dreaming animal’ of the local aboriginal tribe, via their metal outdoor sculpture. The Central Australian Aviation Museum has early planes including a restored DC3 dominating the hangar and other bits and pieces that once flew the sunny skies. More than a few planes crashed as they propelled across the desert skies during the first half of the last century, certainly a risky business being a desert pilot.
The Road Transport museum contains the Old Ghan train still perched on its railway tracks and ready to roll out and stream across the deserts of Central and Southern Australia. It used to go from Adelaide on the south coast to Alice, but the route often became flooded, so a new track was laid and a modern train now zooms along it in style, stopping in Alice but then going further north to Darwin on the north coast. So in fact you can travel across Australia in 48 hours and see much of the desert along the way.
Inbetween touring with the Wanderer, I munch on ‘roo and emu at the Overlander Steakhouse, heave around on camels on the dry Todd Riverbed and zip around town on the back of a Harley Davidson. Outsides of Alice the attractions include Kings Canyon, Palm Valley and tomorrow, my friends, I visit one of the great icons of Australia.
I am making my first pilgrimage out to Uluru, a red rock of mystery and legend.
Tags: Alice Springs, Alice Springs Reptile Centre, Old Ghan Train, Snake Adventure, Uluru
