Day 101

Day 101 Alice Springs

Today was one of doing sightseeing in Alice Springs. We had a map of town with the highlights listed

Letting the Beast Loose

We go that way or is it that way?

and we went in early to miss the heat. We unloaded the Beast in the centre of town and headed off. First call was the Hartley Street School. The school is not set up as a museum or anything, but it is the original state school built in 1930 and its first teacher was Pearl Burton. We are not sure ifthere is a connection to Maureen’s family, but we will check it out. From there it was onto the

Residency. For about 4 years, this area was its own region and had its own Governor. The Residency was built for him in 1927 and it was used as the centre for administration and town activities for decades afterwards even though there was no Governor.

Old Court House

Old speed record

Adelaide House

Cellar and 2nd story stairways

Adelaide House

It did have a claim to fame in that when Prince Charles and Dianna came for visit, Charles got Food poisoning! From there we went into a nail place to see if Maureen could get some help with a bent nail. A bit of nail glue later and we were back on track. We went to the old gaol that was built in 1908 and is the oldest building in town. It was in service until 1938 before the new gaol was built. From there it was around the corner and into the original hospital for

John Flynn and the Flying Doctor Service. Adelaide House (named after the school girls from Adelaide who raised a lot of the money for it) was an original design with internal airconditioning.

Lunch

One 1930 heritage listed house

The house was designed by Flynn and includes a basement with an air intake, it had hessian bags hanging on racks and water dripped on them. Each room had an inlet into it and the house had a second story with and opening in the top to let the hot air out.



This caused a convection systems going and cools the house, unfortunately the nurses got to sleep upstairs.

Another Syurat Memorial

RFDS Museum

There was a sign we saw about a speed record set in the 1950’s. this guy drove to Darwin, now no big deal, many people did it and the average fast drive took 3 – 4 days. This guy did it in 8 ½ hours! And

RFDS Museum

Old Medical box from Station

this was in a Jaguar and the road was still mainly unsealed.

This ended our morning session and we adjourned to Uncles Tavern for a $10 Steak and Salad lunch, worth every cent and set us up nicely for the afternoon. From the centre of town we walked to the south end of town. It is near a hill called Billy Goat Hill. It got its name from a lady who was a halfcaste who had gained a number of stray

Old Prison

Lady's side saddle

kids (as in Children who were abandoned) and to feed then, started with goats for milk and meat. The local police Sargent took her under protection and had the area fenced off for her goats, that grew into hundreds and had a shelter erected for them. There were quite a few of them in the end well over a dozen as new ones came and went.

The first you see is a memorial to Stuart who went past here on his way North doing the explorer

RFDS cafe

Thorny Devil

stuff. Built there was the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) buildings. We went in and watched a video and wandered around their museum. It was not the biggest or flashest of museum, but it was good none the less and really you are giving a donation to it in one sense. Next door is the old prison that was closed down about 10 years ago. It now houses the Pioneer Womens Museum. It is a great place to

Goanna

Perrenti 1.5m long

pay homage to the women who came out here with the men and helped establish the towns and communities. It was amazing the things they had to put up with and the hardships of bringing up children in the most trying of conditions. We have seen some of it in other museums, but this was just about the women.

From there we adjourned back to the RFDS café and had afternoon tea and then wandered over to the

Water Monitor

Always Watching you

Reptile park. They were very good in that they let me in the out as the in had stairs, in fact all the museums today had gopher access. We had a look outside first and then went into the main area. Another group arrived and whilst they were setting up, this goanna was walking around wanting to be fed and scratching on their admin door trying to get their attention. The young lady went through the introduction of all the

Maureen with Goanna

Ruby the Bearded Dragon (on right)

reptiles with some really gorgeous lizards and snakes. On the walk back to the car, we went passed row of old houses built by the government in the 1930s as accommodation for workers, all are now heritage listed and have all the enclosed verandahs with louvers.

Maureen and Skink

Goanna under the Beast

One of the stops today was in to the Tourist Info Centre and we got some advice on the surrounding parks. We had heard that we are having a cooler day tomorrow so we thought we would do some walks in the parks. Today was 40 and now we hear that tomorrow is now going to be 41! So we are now not sure what we will do yet.