Alice Springs
An Oasis in Australia’s ‘Red Centre’
AT LAST, after driving nearly 1,500 km from Darwin, slightly less than the distance from Auckland to Queenstown by road and ferry, I made it to Alice Springs.
The town known locally as the Alice, or just Alice, has a population of just over 25,000, making it the largest town in the Northern Territory outside of the Darwin area.
According to a history on its council website, Alice Springs began its existence as a station on the overland telegraph line from Adelaide to Darwin that went in in the 1870s, about ten years after Stuart’s famous 1861–1862 expedition along the same route.
In the middle of a desert area that wouldn’t otherwise supply enough water for a town, Alice Springs is what would be known in Arabia, or the Sahara, as an oasis.
It takes its name from Alice Todd, the wife of the first superintendent of the telegraph station.
As with much of the Northern Territory, Alice Springs didn’t support many town-dwellers until the 1930s, and therefore only has a handful of buildings from the early days.
These form the town’s Heritage Precinct: which is pointed out by a three-way sign next to the Visitor Information Centre, which also points to the railway station and the local lookout of Anzac Hill, all within walking distance.
