Alice Springs

We are in Alice Springs! Tuesday we had an uneventful flight from Cairns. Actually, our bus drive from the Alice Springs airport to the YHA was more exciting. Some students commented on the city sign near the airport, and so the driver did a U-turn which involved both grassy shoulders to take us back. We all draped ourselves over the sign; hopefully some photos will show up on the blog. The driver gave us an impromptu tour, and so it was about 3:30 when we checked into the YHA. Some shopping for dinner fixings, grading the quiz and journals, and we could relax.

We had a full schedule today, taking in much of what the city has to offer. We started at the desert park about 6 km outside the city. That tour started with a short film summarizing the geological events that formed Australia and specifically the red centre. At the end of the film, the curtain dropped, and there we saw the West MacDonnell range in all its glory. (It reminded me of the presentation at Fort McHenry in Baltimore.)

We were on our own for the next 90 minutes, roaming through the three habitats using a map and an audio player as our guides. Each habitat (desert rivers, sand country, and woodland) had extensive plant life. Netted enclosures contained birds native to the habitat, and the woodlands had kangaroos and an emu. Charlie and I spent about a half hour in the nocturnal house, straining in the dark to see possums and bats and the other desert creatures that come out at night. In the desert river habitat, I learned that the Red River Gum tree is the most common eucalyptus in Australia and that the presence of spring sedge indicates the presence of water below the surface.
We all met for the bird show at 10:00, after which we went our separate ways for another 45 minutes.

At 11:15, we were back on the bus headed for the Royal Flying Doctors Visitor Centre. The Royal Flying Doctors Service was started in 1928; according to a guide we saw later in the day at the Telegraph Station, the program was the brain child of a doctor who had to talk a first aid worker through a surgery by Morse code. The program provides emergency treatment and transport for people in areas so remote, there are no medical services. In addition, the program is used to treat tourists who need emergency care in the outback, to transport patients for organ transplants, and to provide preventative health care. The planes only take doctors to the site if there is a life-threatening event; otherwise, a nurse is sent out. Most stations in the outback have a medical chest on site, and so some problems can be handled via phone or radio – the symptoms are described, and treatment is prescribed. Everything that is needed will be in the chest. The visitor center exists in part to raise funds to replace the planes which cost $6 million apiece.

We had a nice luncheon at the center and then moved on to the School of the Air. This is also a service provided to the sparsely populated outback. Children living on cattle stations generally don’t have access to a school, so they receive instruction over the internet. The Alice Springs school has 116 children, including some indigenous children. They can start at age 4.5 and continue until about age 14, at which point they go to a boarding school or do correspondence courses. Each day a child “attends” a 40-60 minute session on-line with all the other children of the same age. Books and lessons have been sent out to the child, and so the remainder of the day is spent working on these. Each family must have a tutor on location for their children; the tutor could be a parent. Four times a year, all the students come to Alice Springs with their families to meet, do some group activities, and take tests. At least once a year, a child’s teacher will go out to their home to spend time with the child and the tutor. As with the Flying Doctors, tours are offered to raise funds for the program.

We were lucky in that a session with the 4-year-olds was in progress. Two of our students, Brady and Tiffany, joined the teacher in dancing the hokey-pokey for the students. Priceless!

We arrived at the telegraph station an hour early, so we did an unplanned hike up Trig Hill. The view from the top was outstanding – red hills surrounded us. On the way back to the station, most of us chose the shorter walk, and so we saw 4 kangaroos in the wild. Some chose the path that took them past the cemetery – our original goal when setting out on the hike – and so they saw some names that would be familiar after the tour of the station was completed.

Our guide was a Morse code enthusiast, and after the tour he listened as some of the students tapped out their names for him. I don’t think he was able to determine anyone’s name; once told, he tapped their names for them so they could hear it typed properly.

Bruce, our guide, told us the story of Alice Spring’s beginning. A telegraph line was strung from Adelaide to Darwin (south to north) so that Australia could be connected to the rest of the world. The MacDonnell Mountain Range is an east-west range, and so blocked the way. There is a gap in that range, and the telegraph line passed through that gap. Eleven repeater telegraph stations were needed, roughly one every 200 miles, and so Alice Springs was one of those stations. An added bonus above and beyond the gap in the mountain range was that the area had water, and a city grew here. The flow of water in the Todd River is sporadic and unpredictable, and so was mistaken for a spring, hence the name given to the city. The Todd River is an upside down river – the water is below the sandy surface.

Of all the guides in this city who have touched on the topic, Bruce gave the most balanced and sensitive perspective of the history of the indigenous people local to this area. Good relations existed between the Aborigines and the station workers and their families. In fact, when it was realized that indigenous men were climbing telegraph poles and cutting off bits of wire for their personal use (thus breaking the line), repairmen were instructed to leave bits of wire at the base of the pole so that the men could have the wire they needed without cutting the telegraph wire. When the station closed, it became the bungalow, a residence school for Aborigine children. So Alice Springs played a part in the Stolen Generation. Bruce recounted a story of a man who felt his life was saved by the school, but acknowledged that others felt their world was torn apart when sent to the school.

We explored the grounds a bit, and then went to Anzac Hill for the second time; our bus driver took us there yesterday. Now we could look out over the city with recognition and understanding.

One thing I forgot to mention – the red we see in the desert soil is rust. Iron is in the rocks, and iron oxide is red. The rocks crumble, and so the earth is red. We will be sleeping on rust the next two nights, and that will explain the red in our socks when we return to the United States. I doubt that any of us will be carrying our computers on this camping trip, so it will be 60-72 hours before there will be any more postings.