Alice Springs - Town Guide

G'day.

Alice Springs is almost exactly in the middle of Australia, but with over 1200km to the nearest coast and 1500km to the nearest major city it's rather isolated. So I guess it's hardly surprising that it has a population of under 30,000, according to the census of 2001. However, it's the second largest town in the Northern Territory so you can imagine how sparsely populated this territory is.

Alice, and it's known to the locals, is best known because it's close, if 400km can be described as close, to the most famous natural landmark in Australia - Uluru, or Ayers Rock. We'll come back to this later.

The town grew up as a settlement along the Camel train, which travelled through the desert outback, thanks to the springs, natural water sources, found there. It was originally called Stuart but the name was changed to Alice, the wife of the Postmaster General of the time.

Alice used to be a more important tourist centre than it is today. Airlines in the past stopped here before continuing their journeys but now they usually fly directly to their destinations. Also a new tourist resort, Yulara, has opened just 17km from Uluru and it even has an airport so less people pass through Alice. However, it does have a tourist resort, a casino, plenty of bars and restaurants and enough visitor attractions to keep the tourists coming, even if in smaller numbers.

Clearly the main attraction is still Uluru, the sacred site for the indigenous Aborigine population.  It's an amazing 346m high and has a base circumference of 8km. People who visit the area say Uluru is most beautiful at sunrise and sunset when the red light of the sun seems to make it glow. Many people like to climb Uluru, even though the local aborigines would prefer they didn't. It takes about an hour to get to the top and it's very hard work. At least 40 people have died trying to get to the top, mostly from heart attacks. If you do decide to climb it, take your time and take water with you. The aborigines also ask that you don't take photos of certain areas of the rock because of their traditional beliefs. These areas are clearly marked.
Incidentally, the name Ayers Rock comes from William Gosse, one of the first non-indigenous people to see it who named it after the governor of the time, Sir Henry Ayers.

Surprisingly to most visitors Alice has a very American feel. This is because of the 2000 or so US citizens who live there, connected with the US satellite tracking base located in the town. All major American holidays are celebrated, including Halloween, Thanksgiving and Independence Day and the principal sports are played too -  baseball, basketball and American football. However, traditional Australian sports are popular too - Aussie rules football, rugby and cricket.

Finally, a word about the climate. We all imagine the Australian outback to be a hot, dry, inhospitable place, which it often is - but the winter months of May to August can get quite cold with an average daytime temperature of 22ºc, going down to 2 or 3ºc at night. The average rainfall in this period is 15mm per month. In the summer months, December to March, the temperature goes up to around 40ºc during the day and down to 20ºc at night. This is the period in which Alice gets the most rain - 35mm per month on average.