Alice Springs

Alice Springs, Northern Territories

The route will cover:

There are several options on how to get from Kings canyon to Alice Springs. It’s possible to travel between the two locations entirely by sealed road (the longest distance) or by two other routes comprising part sealed road and part unsealed. We need to check the weather conditions before attempting to pull the caravan over unsealed roads! Alice Springs is commonly called “The Alice”

We chose to drive the long way round rather than the 4 wheel drive route as a couple advised us the roads were very bad. It took them 3.5 hours to drive 100 Klm’s and they damaged their van mirror and toilet.

Our drive meant a revisit to Erldura Road house for a petrol top up ($2.00/Ltr) then the remaining trip along the Lassiter Highway until joining the Stuart Highway into the Alice.

Only once did I pull up on the shoulder of the road to let a rather big road train pass!

The caravan park

Lot 8483, Ragonesi Rd    Alice Springs, NT 0870  Daily 8:00am- 6:00pm  (after hours night bell and phone) Tel: (08) 8952-3135 Tel: (08) 8953-1418 Fax: (08) 8953-1918 Email:info@heritagecaravanpark.com.au

Mobile and TV reception:

Mobile coverage

Optus - 3 bars out of 5 - works well

Telstra broadband - Dongle provides 3 bars - not bad

TV reception includes:

19 Digital channels

6 Analogue channels

5 Radio channels

Rates: 

$36 per night for 2 adults

(Buddy is free!)

Surrounding area:

• MacDonnell Ranges
• Simpsons Gap
• The Larapinta Trail
• Standley Chasm

Wednesday 31st July

On our first full day we drove into the city centre and walked the ‘Heritage walk’ taking photographs in our travels

A view of Alice Springs from the Anzac Memorial hill.

The Anzac memorial

Alice Springs mall.

A little bit of Alice Springs history.

I never knew just how much Dr. John Flynn did for Australia - A truly great man.

Alice Springs hosts the first Royal Flying Doctor Service site created in Australia.

This is the location where the Stuart Highway carves its way through the MacDonnell Ranges.  Known as "Heavi Tree Gap".

Thursday August 1st:

We split today up between to locations. The first was the School of the Air and the second was the Desert Park. Both were well worth the visit.

School of the Air:

A look at some of the equipment in use in times gone bye.

This is a map of the students using the School, about 130 in total. "Class" size is generally about 8 - 13 in total, however, in some cases class student can be up to 4000 kilometres apart.












Desert Park:

Desert Park is like a nature walk. Rangers put on talks to describe the park and all that it contains. Basically, the purpose is to describe what happens in a desert.

One of many information plaques dotted around the complex.

Part of the park with the MacDonnell range in the background.

One of the many inhabitants of the park.

Our instructor describes the various uses of the trees and grasses of the desert used for medical purposes.

A ranger puts on a live bird show while describing their habits. (It took several shots to get a usable photograph!).











On our arrival back at the caravan park we hitched up the caravan in preparation for the next part of our journey - destination Tennant Creek