We arrived in Alice Springs on schedule at 1100hrs local time.
Alice Springs is the third-largest settlement after Darwin and Palmerston in the Northern Territory. The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd (née Alice Gillam Bell), wife of the telegraph pioneer Sir Charles Todd. Known colloquially as The Alice or simply Alice, the town is situated roughly in Australia's geographic centre. It is nearly equidistant from Adelaide and Darwin, north to south and from Perth to Sydney west to east.
The area is also known locally as Mparntwe to its original inhabitants, the Arrernte, who have lived in the Central Australian desert in and around what is now Alice Springs for tens of thousands of years.
Alice Springs had a population of 33,990 as of June 2024 which accounts for approximately 10 per cent of the population of the Northern Territory. It straddles the usually dry Todd River on the northern side of the MacDonnell Ranges. The surrounding region is known as Central Australia, or the Red Centre, an arid environment consisting of several deserts. Alice Springs experiences a wide temperature range, with an average maximum in summer of 35.6 °C (96.1 °F) and an average minimum in winter of 5.1 °C (41.2 °F). It has had no rain since the end of May 2024 and it is so hot that our guide said "even the flies have given up and left".
If you would like to read more about Alice and the Aboriginal origins of the area then you can do so at this website:
The 3rd Photo is an Aboriginal Mural Depiction of the area around Alice Springs.
It is said that to be accepted in Alice Springs you have to have experienced the Todd River flooding three times which might take 30 years or more!
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