Alice Springs

Tuesday 7 November

Another hot day was forecast on early morning television, with temperatures rising to 37 degrees in Alice Springs. One of my favourite books and films has always been “A Town Like Alice”, yet Alice Springs has always seemed a fictional place, so what would the real town be like? I knew Alice was in the middle of the desert, miles from anywhere. In the book, its little more than a few shops, houses and bars, but would it be like that for real?

When we got up this morning about 05.30, the first dilemma we faced was how to have a shower – the hot water worked (it was scalding), but there was no cold water. Colin had woken up in the night and heard lots of gurgling in the pipes, and presumably this was something to do with the water pressure. The water here is all “bore” water, pumped up from the Great Artesian Well that covers a large part of interior Australia. Colin managed to make the loo work, using waste paper bins of hot water! And we used some of our precious cold drinking water, to cool water in the basin for him to wash and shave. At 06.00, the cold water began to dribble out of the taps, and five minutes later, the pressure was sufficient for me to have a “soft” shower, not the drenching force of last night, but perfectly adequate. Having overcome that difficulty, we took our cases to the coach and went to breakfast, another excellent buffet.

We left the resort at 07.30 facing a journey of over 4 hours. One of the most ‘important’ tasks was to sort out the sweepstake for the “Melbourne Cup”, a flat horse race, which has the significance in this country of the Grand National in ours – in fact, its even more important, as everything comes to a halt while the race is run – and many offices and factories close for the whole day. Every time we have switched on the television for the past couple of days, (they have crap programmes here on the whole) someone mentions the Melbourne Cup. There were 23 horses (one horse had already scratched) and Ruben ran four different sweepstakes, two at 1 dollar a go, and two at 2 dollars a go. That meant everyone would have a minimum of two horses, if they wanted to join in. Colin and I chose our two horses and I had once of the pre-race favourites. Kieron Fallon (the ex-champion jockey in England) was riding in the race, despite being banned from riding in England for some sort of race “fixing”.

Our mid-morning stop was at Mount Ebenezer – a roadside service station, with an exhibition of Aborigine art and goods at the back. It was originally named after Ebenezer Flint, a character who died of his spear wounds in Alice in the mid 19th century. I spent most of the time getting everyone to sign a card for Val, from St Helens, who was 50 today, so it didn’t seem long before we were on our way again. The property here is part of the Ebenezer property lease, a small station of about 1600 sq kms that has been owned by the Aborigines since 1978 and they now employ white people to run the service station.

We were traveling along the Lasseter Highway – named after Harold Lasseter as young lad of 17 years of age, who came west to make his fortune in the gem fields north of Alice Springs. He wasn’t successful, so he set out for Western Australia where there were richer mines. He became disorientated around the Olga Mountains, and found a Gold Reef. He became very excited, but decided to continue his journey to Western Australia and return to claim the reef at a later date. He teamed up with a Mr Hardy, an Afghan camel herder, and taking him into his confidence, the pair left to find the reef some three years later. They were successful in their quest, but the gold only yielding about 3 – 4 ozs per ton – the same as other fields – so they decided to wait again and separated. Mr Hardy died soon after this, but Harold Lasseter continued traveling all over the world for the next 30 years. He returned to Sydney in the early 1930s when the world depression was rife, and set up a company whereby 100 men put in 200 GBP (a lot of money in those days) and appointed John Blakely as head of the company and agreed that Lasseter would get 10% of all their findings. John and Harold did not get on. Problems with transport (their plane crashes and they have to wait for a replacement, cars and bikes wouldn’t work , delays the departure, and eventually Lasseter can wait no longer and sets off on his own. He manages to find the reef again and returns to tell the rest of the company. Lasseter meets up with Paul Johns who has several camels, so Harold sets out again, but again he falls out with his fellow traveler, who promptly departs taking his camels with him. The Aborigines start looking after Lasseter, who is sure Johns will tell Blakely that he has found the reef again. But he doesn’t and when Lasseter sets out again, he never returns, only his remains are found. To this day, no one has found Lasseter’s reef, despite many costly expeditions. Currently, an Australian entrepreneur, Dick Smith, (all the Australians on the coach had heard of him) is trying to locate the reef.

Australian History lesson continued:

Abel Tasman founded Tasmania (Van Diemensland) in the early 1860’s before going off to New Zealand. Traders were told that if they found any precious minerals they were to play down the discovery, and pretend it was worthless, and the Dutch became very powerful over the next twenty years, not only from mining, but also shipwrecks around the west and north coastline. Today many Aborigines in Western Australia have blue eyes and blond hair!

The English did not colonise Australia for a further 18 years, due partly to the Industrial Revolution at home, while the machine breakers and thieves were being given long sentences and the jails were overflowing and George III sent convicts to help in the American War of Independence. At this time Joseph Banks remembered New South Wales, and the beautiful stands of pine trees on Norfolk Island (about 1500 kms from Sydney into the Pacific Ocean), which would support our ship building industry (which was short of wood). So eleven boats containing 600 male convicts and 80 female (kept separate for the voyage), made the perilous journey to Sydney, and on to Norfolk Island – in 8 months. When they arrived they found the pine wood was useless for building ships! The first voyage only lost 49 people during the entire journey, but subsequent voyages lost five times that number at least, as those in charge realized that they received the money and supplies for the convicts before they sailed, so the sooner they died the richer the officers would become.

In 1788 Admiral Philip explored south of Botany Bay and found Sydney harbour, a 200 mile coastline of small bays, freshwater and natural moorings for the boats. Admiral Philip began to colonise the area, but died after two years. Although new Governors were appointed the marines (soldiers enlisted from the convicts) took over and rum was used for currency for the next twenty years, until 1809 when Lackland McQuarry was appointed and set about removing the marines (often sending them back to England where they faced charges for their behaviour here) and set up education, a proper finance system, housing and employment laws.

In 1801 -1803 Matthew Flinders (of Flinders Range fame) had sailed all the way round the Australia to prove that it was all one island. He was captured by the French and jailed in Mauritius for seven years on his way back to England. When he finally reached home he wrote a book about his findings, only to die days after publication.

In the 1840’s Americans had come to Western Australia in search of gold and gems. At in the late 1890’s Victoria was being declared an independent state, and needing more people to work there to raise enough taxes to become self-sufficient as a state, rewards were offered to people finding gold in the south eastern hills. Gold was found, after the state was established, otherwise Victoria would never have become a state, but stayed part of New South Wales. The six states became unified on 1 January 1901 – before that time, each state referred back to England for laws and government.

Most colonists lived off sheep farming – either wool or meat. Australia lost 330,000 at Galipoli in 1915 - and it was not until the 1920s, that manufacturing was developed. Australia played a great part in fighting the Japanese in the Pacific and south east Asia, after the fall of Singapore in World War II – they had always believed that England would protect them – and after the War relations with England changed – they stayed part of the Commonwealth, but gave more powers to their Government. Until 1986 it was possible to refer a court case to the Privy Council in England, if it had failed at all levels of the Australian court system.

Australian Capital Territory was built, with Canberra named as the capital city of Australia, because Victoria and New South Wales both wanted to be the capital – Melbourne and Sydney. It was built between 1901 and 1928, and Melbourne acted as the capital city during this time. Northern Territory is not a state because it does not have enough people to generate sufficient taxes to make it self-sufficient, so it relies on central Government for much of its money.

Around 13.30 we arrived in Alice Springs. The first impression is that the city is clean and orderly – it has been planned on a grid system, with no buildings more than three storeys tall, although most seem only a single storey. We didn’t have lots of time to see around as we had to have lunch before our appointment after lunch at the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) museum. The Melbourne Cup race was run about five minutes after we arrived, so many of our fellow passengers were able to see the race in bars or the betting shop – alas we didn’t win. Colin lost his hat at Ayers Rock – he thought he left it on the chair in the room, but after the room had been cleaned, it was missing – we did ask housekeeping to search the washing, but to no avail. So our first task was to buy Colin a new hat, which we did in the appropriately named “Bush Stores”. It is similar to mine (without the bandana) and he says it is more comfortable than the old one. Having a hat out here is a must, as the sun beats down relentlessly, in temperatures reaching over 40 degrees C.

The RFDS was founded in 1928 in Alice Springs, and now has 27 bases covering all of Australia, even the larger towns and cities – no-one is more than about one hour’s flying time away from help. They operate with a fleet of 15 aircraft, flying 20 million kms per year, helping around a quarter of a million patients. There are 6 doctors, 6 nurses and 6 pilots working at Alice Springs, plus 2 paramedics and 3 engineers to service the planes. (The aircraft cost A$6 million each). Funds are received from the Government and donations. They provide not only emergency care, but support regional clinics, health care services, act as GPs, transport specialist medical teams and equipment, and provide education and preventative care for many of the aboriginal families living out in the bush. Having watched a short film, explaining the services offered by the RFDS, we were taken to see the communications room - which looked a little like a war-time operations room (except they had a modern computer in the corner) - with a two way radio, telephones and a map showing all the landing strips (blue for day time landing only, red for night) Today the map showed that one plane was out, attending an emergency, with a piece of red string strung from the centre representing Alice Springs to the destination air strip, far to the south. We wandered around the shop – where I was nearly tempted to buy the book “A Town Like Alice”, but I still have a book in reserve to read, and I must think of the weight of my case.

Our next stop was at the Repeater Station (operated a bit like Chinese Whispers). In the 1870’s it was decided to put in an overland telegraph line, as the outback was becoming more accessible, following many expeditions opening up routes across Australia in the 1860s – 1870s. Communications with England took over three months to arrive. The project took two years to complete, with the installation of 36,000 poles to carry the wires from Adelaide to Darwin. Morse code was used to deliver the messages, but could not be relied on for distances over 200 kms, so eleven Repeater Stations were set up, near springs and water holes along the route. The message would be sent to the first station, who would then tap it out to the second station, and so on, till it reached the intended receiver – but like Chinese Whisper, the message was not always correct! Alice Springs was chosen as one of these stations because the surveyor, Walter Mills, found what he thought was a spring outside the town, but in fact it had been raining and the water he saw was rain water, accumulated from the run off from the surrounding hills, into the bed of the Todd River, the river running nearby.

Alice Springs was the name given to this Repeater Station, after the wife of Charles Todd (the river was named after him, the Governor of the town). When the gold rush soon after, they needed a township to support the prospectors, and so the area nearby the Repeater Station was developed. It had a population of 90 people and for 50 years and it was known as Stuart (after one of the early explorers). But as the area then started to grow, it became confusing to have the Repeater Station known by one name and the town by another, so the Governor decided that it should be called Alice Springs.

We explored the rooms of the house and telegraph office, that still stand today. They were furnished just as they would have been in the late 1880s. The telegraph officer was quite a well to do man in those days, and his house reflected this, with all the latest “mod cons” and a smart carriage.

During the second World War, all Australian troops were moved around the country via Alice Springs, as they feared bombing attacks on coastal bases by the Japanese. The town become an important military area, with an American base on the outskirts.

Our next visit was to the School of the Year, about which many documentaries have been made. It was established in 1958 to help educate children, aged between 4 and 12, who lived between 100 and 1000 kms away from the nearest school. Most of the lived on remote cattle stations and used the radio system, each farmstead had to contact the Flying Doctor Service. Today they use computers and broadband, as well as the more traditional learning materials, all of which is Government funded. This particular school has 15 -20 twenty teachers and anything between 90 and 150 children, including aboriginal children, and covers an area of 1.3 million sq kms – the largest classroom in the world.

Lesson materials and books are delivered to the children by radio, fax, phone or plane. Each child has a ‘home tutor’, which may be a parent (usually mother), a relative or neighbour, who has to be present at all the lessons, to assist the child, and ensure concentration and effort. On three days a week, all the children listen in to their lessons – usually lasting between half an hour and one hour. They then have to work with the materials provided to extend their learning (a bit like a correspondence course). The work is returned to the teacher, when another set of materials is delivered – usually two weekly – and marked and a report made of the child’s progress. On the other two days each week they have lessons like Art, Music and Library, and they are able to speak on a one-to-one basis with the teacher, at least once a week. Every child has at least one personal visit from a teacher a year, and four times a year, all the children gather at the school in Alice Springs, (or the sister school in Katherine, further north) to meet each other and learn to interact with other children (this may be the only time some children have with others their own age). There are 16 of these schools within Australia, but only two in Northern Territory.

When the children reach the age of 12, most go to boarding school in Adelaide or Darwin, but some continue with correspondence courses from state schools and colleges.

We saw a film showing children of different ages and ability taking part in their lessons, and teachers working together with the home tutors to provide the best education programme for their students. I sponsored a book for children aged about 5 years old, for A$10. This will be passed around the children, as they each receive about eight library books for each two week period. We heard one child talking to a teacher about problems he was having with his computer, which they were trying to solve. It was a very interesting experience and seeing some of the work on the walls, you can see that this service is very successful. It costs parents A$12,000 a year for each child – there is some Government assistance as most of these families do not have a regular income on the cattle station – market forces, weather conditions, and well being of the animals make each year different.

Our last visit of the day was to Anzac Hill, a rocky outcrop on the edge of town, where a memorial had been erected, dedicated to the Australian soldiers who lost their lives in World War I – about 8,500 – mostly in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey. The national flag and the ) from the top of the cenotaph. It was then time to find our hotel for the next two days.

We were staying at the Alice Springs Resort, a modern 4* hotel, with two storey blocks of rooms surrounding a very inviting pool - we were quite hot and sticky after all our exertions today, and the temperature was still in the top 30’s, even at 17.00. A quick dip in the pool and back to the room, to start this blog (it is now two days later – and I haven’t finished yet – sorry if the entry has been boring!) before going for cocktails and dinner here in the hotel. It was a set meal menu, and I again chose steak (cannot change a habit – I know how Sandy feels now when he has chicken burger every day) but it was cooked very, very blue and quite delicious. Everyone just socialized after the meal, so there was just a short while to blog before bed.

Alice Springs is a really interesting place, a city by Australian standards, nestling in a valley in the foothills of the McDonnell range. It is very dry here at present – the river bed is like a sand pit – this area usually has about enough rainfall to fill a can of coke, in a year. The residential part of town – on the other side of the river to the hotels – is mainly bungalows with the much-needed verandahs all round the building, built in small estates. There are lots of green areas, with trees in parklands – many of which are watered by sprinklers each day to keep them green – and many brightly coloured flowers such as the Sturt rose and Sturt’s Desert Pea (these flowers look a lot like sweet peas) in gardens and along the roadside. The Ghan railway stops in this town, on its way across the country, but unfortunately we didn’t see it while we were here. Tomorrow we have another full programme of sight-seeing, mainly out in the surrounding country.