Day 12 31/05/2013 Alice Springs
Last night was our first really warm night, so the fleecy PJs were discarded in favour of summer-weight ones! It was also unseasonably hot here today.....around 29 degrees...but there are no flies and it is not humid.
Of course we were without our vehicle all day, so we did a lot of walking to pass the time. We really enjoyed the exercise...we have missed our daily walks.
After dropping the vehicle off, we walked into town (not far) and had a delicious breakfast at a very trendy cafe..., yes, such things do exist in Alice! After that we walked up Anzac Hill, which provides a great view of the whole town. The last time we walked up this hill was in the dark on Anzac Day 2009, for the Dawn Service....Helen & John will remember, since they were there too.
Some of you may not know, but Alice Springs was originally called Stuart, in honour of the explorer John McDouall Stuart. It was later changed to Alice Springs.....after the wife of Sir Charles Todd, who was responsible for implementing the original telegraph line from Adelaide to Darwin. However Lady Alice never came to this area, nor are there any springs! It has been said that the town is named for a person who has never been here and for springs which don't exist!!!
We took a very pleasant walk from town to the old Telegraph Station; a two hour round trip. We had water with us, but still needed a nice cold beer when we got back to town!
Alice,(as the town is usually called), is on the Todd River. This is a sandy-bottomed river which is dry for most of the year, but can also flood if enough rain falls. We have never seen it with water in...it's hard to imagine.
We have chatted to some very nice fellow-travellers at the caravan park including a couple from Blaxland in the Blue Mountains, whose daughter I may have taught at Blaxland High School in the late 1980s.
Off on the road again tomorrow.