About Alice Springs
In recent times, with the upgrade of the airport at Uluru, Alice Springs has become a bit of a tourist Cinderella. It was once the major entry point to Central Australia. Now it is often by-passed by tourists eager to see sunrise and sunset over Uluru and rush off to their next destination. That is a pity because a committed traveller could easily spend a week in Alice Springs and not see all the sights and attractions. It deserves this amount of time because of the extraordinary beauty of the ancient MacDonnell Ranges, the excellent walks in the area (which only should be attempted in the winter months), the idyllic gorges dotted along the MacDonnell Ranges, and the range of attractions (particularly the flora and fauna of the Desert Park) which are easily accessible from the town centre.
It is the second largest town in the Northern Territory and still is an ideal starting point for any comprehensive overview of Central Australia because both Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) are within easy driving distance. Over the years Alice Springs has achieved almost mythical fame and has become a popular subject for poems, songs and novels of which the most famous is Nevil Shute’s A Town Like Alice in which Joe Harmon describes it as a ‘bonza place with plenty of water’. It is much more than that today (sourced from the Aussie Towns website – click for more).
Alice Springs Caravan Park
We only had 2 days in Alice Springs as the whole town was booked out for the Finke Desert Race. We stayed at the Big4 MacDonnell Range Caravan Park.
The shorter stay worked out OK as it gave us more time to see other places up the road. We had also previously booked into the caravan park at the Aileron Roadhouse, but were advised to give it a miss by other people we had met. They all said to free camp at the Devil’s Marbles.
The Aileron Roadhouse is also famous for the massive iron statue Anmatjere Man (see in one of our photos) and the Anmatjere Woman and Child created by the artist Mark Egan.
Merrisa had to go to the doctors on the morning we were heading out so we left a bit later than planned and had to hi-tail it to the Devil’s Marbles pronto.
The mighty Todd River
