Day 38 – Alice Springs

There is so much to see and wonder at in Alice Springs. We started with two days, extended to four days and could have stayed a couple more. We started by reminding ourselves how much good John Flynn’s Royal Flying Doctor Service does in Australia. It is a great example of cleric giving both spiritual and practical support to the community.

The goal houses the Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame, an extensive tribute to Australian women who have achieved significant things. It was created in 1993 by Molly Clark of Andado Station in retaliation to there being no mention of women in the Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach.

Another character of Alice Springs was Molly Pink who set up a botanic garden. She would name trees she planted after politicians of the day. If the politician displeased her she refused to water the tree which would wither and die. There were many dead saplings. On another occasion she refused to speak to her aboriginal gardener for over 1,200 kilometres of a journey because had made a negative remark about a plant.

The telegraph station gives an insight to life around the late 1800s before even reading the plaques. The investment in setting up and maintaining the telegraphic link from Darwin the Adelaide was considerable. The station operated 24 x 7 with two telegraph operators initially and later four due to the volume of traffic. There was also a battery maintenance person and a cook. None of the telegraph operators had time to hunt for food so all the supplies for the station had to be transported from Adelaide in the dry season and last through the wet season.

The men who surveyed the line must have developed significant navigation skills. Just walk away from the station out of sight of civilisation and imagine surveying a patch of land over 1,000 kilometres from Adelaide. Not only do you need to find a place within 100 miles (160 km) of the previous repeater station but it needs to be near a water supply but not in flood plain. You then have to record and mark the location so the people building the telegraph station will be able to identify the spot and to build in the right place.

A scene the surveyor would have seen

Telegraph Station

Alice Spring - or a dried up water hole.

It is amusing to note that Alice Springs was originally named after Lady Alice Todd, who never visited the place. It also refers to one spring which was not a spring but a water hole which dried up after the telegraph station was built. The township was actually called Stuart but was renamed the Alice Springs in 1933 because of confusion between the two. One small dried up water hole became famous indeed!