Monday March 21st to Wednesday March 23rd, 2011
After a great weekend at Uluru, Monday morning arrived. Debi headed off to work and I slowly made my way out of the hotel to check out the bustling metropolis of Alice Springs. Of course there is a little sarcasm there because I am sure most of you are aware that Alice Springs is a relatively small little place in the middle of the desert. For a small place there is a bit of history to check out and I did have a little bit of a plan in my head of what I wanted to see but stopped by the Visitor Information centre anyway. They gave me a more detailed map and a few ideas and I headed out.
I found this on my way to my first stop of the day. Not sure what this is a memorial for (it wasn't readable) but I found it quite interesting that is totally behind bars and can't really see it. I'm guessing it's been vandalised one or two times.
My first stop was at Anzac Hill, which is the town’s Anzac Memorial but also happens to sit on top of a hill that overlooks the town. Gives you a great vantage point of the whole area.
The Memorial on ANZAC Hill.
It’s not a bad little town however I think it’s gotten an undeserved reputation. Everyone I met who has been here (and if you read the hotel reviews on any of the booking sites) talks about how the city is so dangerous and you can’t walk around at night and the aboriginals here are so violent. So not the case and if you know anything about aboriginals you will know that if they are violent……it tends to only be towards each other, not strangers. So in short Alice Springs is not anymore dangerous than any other place. So go and enjoy what the town has to offer.
Moving on from all that however, once I made my way back down the hill I went to check out one of the places on my list to visit. This was Adelaide House.
A look at Adelaide House as it sits on the Todd Mall. Not much to it but the start of a lot of big things in the area.
More than just a house however, Adelaide House was the first outback hospital when it opened in 1926. Reverend John Flynn (who you can see today on the Australian 20 dollar bill) ran the Australian Inland Mission (AIM) and opened Adelaide House as well as 14 nursing homes throughout the outback between 1912 and 1939. Flynn was also behind the idea of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (we will learn more about that) which is still a vital part of health care in Australia today.
One of the old items on display in the museum. There a quite a few little items and a couple of movies as well. I managed to sneak in undetected but the ladies who run the place gave me a full run down as I was ready to leave.
An old bedpan. Not much has changed. Pretty sure this one got a lot colder than the plastic ones we use now.
Flynn was quite a creative bloke and also found a very important and practical use for the Alfred Traeger invention of the pedal radio. Flynn had pedal radios placed in his nursing homes and in many homes throughout the outback so that people could communicate for all reasons. To work the pedal radio has to be…….well pedalled like a bike. But it required no other source of power so was perfect out in the middle of nowhere. So if someone was sick or injured they could call the nearest nursing station, and one of the nurses there could give them advice over the radio and then make her way to the patient (by whatever means they had at their disposal). In later years when the Flying Doctor Service was increased, the nurse or doctor would then be flown out to the patient and then the patient would often be flown back to a larger health centre. Many outback homes had a medicine chest (and still do) so doctors could give a minimal diagnosis over the radio and tell patients to take certain medications while they waited for the doctor or nurse to arrive.
Of course the pedal radio was not just used for medical calls. Women in the outback found very quickly that they could be used to share gossip and stories. They just had to keep pedalling as long as they talked. I tried it out. Far too much effort to get a crackly old signal. Although in the outback it will probably still work better than a cell phone.
Adelaide House itself was also built with a bit more of Flynn’s ingenuity. The house was designed with a ventilation system that helped keep the house cool in the summer. It was the first house in central Australia to have any type of ventilation system such as this. While it was a hospital, Adelaide House was also used as a visitor centre….a place where people could get food and shelter and information on the area where they may be heading next. A lot of uses for a small little building.
I spent most of the rest of the day relaxing…..while Debi worked, and planned the rest of my days.
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011
Tuesday I had a full day planned as I was heading out to visit the Araluen Cultural Precinct. Basically this area of town is home to most of the museums and galleries etc. that call Alice Springs home. Just a short little 15 minute walk from town it is certainly worth a visit for those who like art and/or history or aviation. There is a small $15 fee to get in but that grants you entrance for 2 days…..and the days don’t have to be consecutive. I have no idea how they enforce that but whatever.
I started out in the Art Gallery which as you can imagine is full of aboriginal art by mostly local artists. There was however a temporary exhibit that contained contemporary art by aboriginal artists from every state (and Territory). Now I have to admit that I have never really seen a lot of contemporary aboriginal art but this was great. No pictures in the art gallery but here are a couple descriptions of ones I liked.
- Laurie Nilsen from Queensland “I’m a Widow By Choice” which was a giant red back spider, who like the black widow, is notorious for eating their male partner after mating. Laurie describes the piece as having the underlying message about women having more say in decisions effecting women.
- Diane Mellor also from Queensland had a piece who 3 kangaroos – one who saw nothing, one who spoke nothing and one who heard nothing (just like the monkeys). Her description “They stand for the muted position of a culture that was dominated, undermined by loss of language and displacement and ultimately and deliberate attempt to curtail a way of life and the natural resources of the original inhabitants of the land” Who knew 3 little kangaroos could say so much.
There is also a large collection of watercolours by Albert Namatjira in a section of the gallery that bears his name. Albert can be considered a local and was a very accomplished artist. He used watercolours to depict the land and country around him. Albert’s story is very interesting for he was a mentor for a lot in the aboriginal community and probably still is although he passed away in 1958. I will talk a bit more about him in a few minutes.
From the Art Gallery I headed to the Museum of Central Australia. It is just a small little spot and really you could get through it pretty quick but they offer a free audio tour that gives you a ton of extra information. The museum itself is mostly about the country and land and animals versus its people. Really it is a natural history museum. Actually I found it quite interesting because it starts at the beginning of the earth…..The Big Bang.
A look at the main (well really only) wing of the museum.
You might be interested to know that the Northern Territory is a great place to explore meteorite samples and impact structures and scientists have flocked here to study them. It isn’t that more meteorites strike the NT, it’s just that lack of vegetation allows them to be seen a lot easier and the rate of erosion is reduced due to the lack of rainfall.
A feral cat. They wreak havoc on animals in the outback and in almost every area of Australia. Of course they are not native to Australia (they descend from escaped domestic cats) so they have no enemies. And sometimes they kill just for fun. And they eat pretty much anything. In summary.....feral cats (and rats and rabbits etc. etc.) are bad. Not really sure what the curator was thinking when they decided this was the pose they wanted to display him in but whatever.
This is the remains of the dromonis stirtoni, possibly the world's largest bird. Only about 8 million years old, this flightless bird use to frequent many areas of Australia. Measurements on the remains estimate that individuals would have weighed between 450 and 600 kilograms (990 to 1320 pounds) and stood between 2.8 and 3.2 metres (9 to 10 feet) high. Yes, that was one big bird. So far I have found that any museum in Australia that prehistoric remains on display, will have one of these guys.
My next stop was at the Kookaburra Crash Memorial. This plane crashed in the outback in 1929 while out looking for another missing plane, the Southern Cross. Both aviators on board died. The remains were found shortly after it crashed but in sat in the outback until 1978 because it was deemed too expensive to recover. Eventually it was brought back to this site and remains here as a memorial. It happens to sit about 150 meters from the site where in last took off in 1929. The Southern Cross and the 2 aviators aboard it were found safe and sound by the way. The disappearance of the Southern Cross was actually believed to have been a publicity stunt by it’s pilots Charles Kingford Smith (a very famous aviator and explorer) and Charles Ulm. Let’s hope not because it cost Keith Anderson and Bob Hitchcock their lives when the Kookaburra crashed.
What's left of the Kookaburra. It is now in a protected and air conditioned shelter.
My next stop (not done yet) was at the Central Australian Aviation Museum. Technically not part of the Cultural Precinct but it is still free to get in to. Here you will find a whole lot of old planes in the former hanger of Cornella Airways which sits near Alice Springs' first airstrip. It closed in 1968. Cornella airways was vital to the outback for many years because they delivered food and mail to some very remote areas. In one of the old passenger planes they were showing a movie about the airline. Of course the airline has gone out a business (quite a few years ago) and the movie was filmed in the 70’s but it gives a very interesting history of the area at the time. The most interesting thing I learned was how back then aboriginals were encouraged to STAY AWAY from Uluru because they were seen as unsympathetic to the environment. I just continue to find stuff like that very interesting.
One of the old Royal Flying Doctor Service planes. Don't worry, I'm still going to talk about them.
It was inside this plane that you can watch the movie. Not a very comfortable interior. Kind of reminds me of JetStar.
My final stop of the day was at the cemetery which sits on the edge of the Precinct.
This is the headstone of Harold Lewis Bell Lasseter. He was killed 1931 in the Petermann Ranges. His grave was not located until 1957 at which time his remains were recovered and brought here.
I am told there are a few famous Central Australians buried here but the only one I really knew was Albert Namatjira.
Like many aboriginals, although they were born here, Albert Namatjira was not considered an Australian citizen so therefore did not have the same rights as other Australians. This all changed in 1957 when he was granted citizenship which gave him the right to legally buy alcohol. He made the mistake of sharing this alcohol with fellow Arrente people, as custom required, and was sentenced to prison for his actions. His sentence was eventually commuted and he was released but he never recovered from his incarceration. He died the next year. It really is a sad story and one that I am afraid is not isolated.
This is the Grand Circle Yeperenye Sculpture. A joint effort, it was built to help share the Yeperenye Dreaming to locals and visitors alike. In simple terms The Dreaming is a sacred time when Totem and spiritual beings formed The Creation. They are the stories of how all things came to be.
Not just to look at but to listen to as well.
Wednesday, March, 23, 2011
My final day in Alice Springs I headed over to learn more about the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Like I mentioned earlier, the service was established by Rev. Flynn back in 1928 and was vital to the health and welfare of many living in the Australian outback at the time and still is today. There are 4 planes in the Alice Springs area that service the Northern Territory on not only an emergency basis but on a preventative and routine basis as well. Doctors and nurses and dentists are often flown out to remote communities for all kinds of reasons. Most of these communities are serviced by gravel air strips, many that were cleared and are now maintained by those in the community. Not all of these air strips are lit so they planes can sometimes only land in the day light. Others are lighted by lamps that have to be lit by hand before the plane arrives.
This is just a model of one of the early planes used by the flying doctors. Seriously, it's the size of a toy. The picture just makes it look a lot bigger.
A couple very interesting points about the Flying Doctors:
1. Each plane in the fleet is worth about $6 million a piece and have to be replaced every few years. They are made it Sweden.
2. The Flying Doctors and Nurses are on call 24/7 365 days a year.
3. The Royal Flying Doctors Service is run almost entirely on money raised through charity (I did my part by paying $8 to get into the museum). Of course there are a few government grants and a few of the doctors are on government contracts but most of it is paid for by the charity of others.
4. The Royal Flying Doctors are not just used in the Northern Territory. They are used throughout Australia to transfer patients when needed. They could include transferring a patient from a hospital in Perth to a hospital in Melbourne if treatment required (and that kind of thing).
5. The fleet consists of 60 aircraft that fly out of 21 bases throughout Australia. These planes will combine to fly aroud 26,000,000 kilometres (17,000,000 miles) every year.
A look at what the inside of the doctor planes look like when staff and patients are on board.
When I was talking about Adelaide House I mentioned that homes in the Outback often had a medical chest. Well this is what the chest looked like in 2008. Each item has a number associated with it. So a Doctor can talk to someone in the Outback, give an early diagnosis, tell them to take something (you know take one pill out of box 8) and then get on the plane to their house. A really good system if you ask me.
Once I left the Flying Doctors, I planned to walk out to the old telegraph station. I never made it. The weather was perfect but the trail was not so perfect and a little too overgrown and a little to deserted for me. I got far too nervous (my fear of snakes gets a lot worse when I’m not travelling in a group) so I quickly turned around and decided I would pack my bag instead (it still hasn’t learnt to pack itself).
The raised sidewalk crossing the Todd River. Not much water in it today but there never usually is. 95% of the time the river bed is dry. The other 5% of the time........there can be a whole lot of water and it doesn't take long for the water level to rise. This year the river has been flowing a lot more than usual due to increase rain. In fact locals were preparing for the 100 year flood. It never came......but the area sure is green.
Eventually I did some packing and then Deb and I headed out for dinner.
This is after dinner.
Thursday would be another travel day. Next stop Canberra.
Julie
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