Thursday, 23 April 2009
Thursday 24 April 2009: Fly to Alice Springs
We were up at the crack of dawn today to catch an 8.30 am flight to Alice Springs in the middle of Australia. We arrived to temperatures of 30 degrees plus which I found a nice change after the cooler temperatures in NZ and Melbourne. We arrived at 11.30 and went straight on a tour of the local area. Alice Springs was originally set up as a communication post to link the overground telegraph cables that were to run from Darwin to Sydney. Darwin was connected to Singapore already by an underwater cable and therefore this final link enabled Sydney to be connected through to London, thereby bringing the commonwealth closer together. It meant that London and Sydney could contact each other within 2 hours rather than a week! Today we saw the original telegraph station that formned the first settlement here. We also visited the Flying Doctors HQ and the School of the Air. The School of the Air provides education to children who live in the outback and can't access normal schools. They receive lessons every day on line and have personal tutors who are usually a parent or someone who is specially employed to give onsite help at home. We saw live lessons going on! It is a wonderful set up and clearly provides an invaluable service to those families that are cut off from other communities. A storm began to come by early evening so it will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings.
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