27 July - Day 13 - Alice Springs

As  mentioned in an earlier post, we bypassed Kings Canyon due to poor weather there and travelled straight to Alice Springs. We are really enjoying Alice Springs. It is a beautiful little city with lots of facilities and of course many interesting activities. Alice Springs was initially established as a location for a repeater station on the Telegraph line which ran from Adelaide to Darwin and which was Australia's only communications link with the rest of the world. Yesterday we visited the old Telegraph station which is beautifully preserved as a museum.

We also visited the Alice Springs Cultural Precinct and viewed the Albert Namatjira art collection - Albert was an internationally recognised watercolour artist who produced some of the most stunning images of the local area.

Another feature of this precinct is the Central Australia Aviation Museum which features many of the iconic aircraft responsible for opening up this remote part of the country.

This morning we drove out into the West McDonnell ranges to visit Standley Chasm, which is reached after a spectacular walk.

Then, after some lunch back at the caravan we visited the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) which from about the 1930's on provided the only available medical support to the isolated rural properties and communities. The area they cover is truly amazing and I think they attend to something like 80 calls a day.

Today services are provided in modern and fast aircraft which can operate almost anywhere, and the museum provided a fascinating insight into the amazing operations of the RFDS over the past 80 years. Tomorrow we will visit the School of the Air which provides class room tuition by radio to remote communities.