A rest day! Well that was the idea, but it didn't quite turn out like that. However, we did get the best night's sleep since we left home - we might finally be over that jet lag (sorry Bri, I promise not to mention it again). And breakfast in the Red Dog cafe was good and plentiful. Australia is going to have a problem with obesity if they don't reduce the portion sizes! - dinner, later along the road at a local bar, which cost a princely 10 bucks, was enough for 3 people!
A 4km stroll (for Nareesa) / hike (for me) to the old Alice Telegraph Station, was richly rewarded with, what is an astonishing story of resilience and innovation. It is hard to imagine now that only just over a hundred years ago, if you wanted to get a message from the UK to Australia it took 4 months by ship! The telegraph lines, transmitting morse code, ended on the Indonesian mainland and whilst an undersea cable was planned across the Timor Sea, that only got it to Darwin, which was not connected to the rest of Australia. The obvious solution would have been to run a line to Queensland, but the South Australia Government had other ideas and following the only recently completed exploration route from north to south, commissioned a 3000km line from Adelaide to Darwin.
The hardship of creating this in the inhospitable red centre of Australia can only be imagined - but they did it and Alice Springs became the final link in the chain. Named after the local watering hole, itself named after the wife of the project manager, Alice Springs has become a byword for remote settlement - its easy to see why - just look at a map. But it grew quickly once the telegraph line was completed as more and more entrepreneurs saw the opportunities of north/south trade and gold and minerals were found.
Of course this meant overriding aboriginal rights and needs and the telegraph office itself is testament to the ongoing issues this has created as, for a period in the early 20th century (once telegraph was no longer required), it became home to mixed race children of white fathers and aboriginal mothers, the children often forcibly removed and housed in very poor conditions.
Towards the end of the afternoon we visited the Royal Flying Doctor Service HQ/exhibition - forgot to take pictures, so it must have been good. From small acorns ... from the very first flight in 1928 on a borrowed QANTAS de Havilland plane (Nareesa says I'm a nerd!) to the $240m annual budget, 60 odd plane outfit it is today. It is a pretty amazing service and something for Australia to be very proud of.