Today we have a day around Alice scheduled which started with us walking to Visitor information to get a better map than the one we currently have as it is a bit basic. I think Alice is my new favourite town not because there is a lot to see but because it is 26C and virtually 0% humidity to the point that we actually ended up wearing long trousers today. Town is only about 20 minutes walk away and it was nice to actually stretch our legs as well as not having to cope with melting within 10 minutes of being outside. We managed to pick up the leaflets we wanted from Visitor Info and a map that had the tourist sites we want to see on it so we set off for our first stop which was Adelaide house. This is the first hospital built in Alice Springs. It opened in 1929 and from what we could make out offered care to both the indigenous and western populations. Before we had chance to look round the house we met a woman called Patricia who is a local artist but also talks on both climate change and life as a native, we started talking to her and she told us the story of the ‘lost generation’ from her perspective. Both her parents were part of this lost generation as they was children from mixed parentage, their mother was indigenous and their father was white. The government made mixed race children illegal and took them away from their families and put them into homes. It turns out that her mother was living with her grandmother on the homestead owned by her grandfather but the police came round one day while he was out and tied them to a tree so they couldn’t escape while he rounded up others then when he was ready he came back and took them to town to put them in the home. Her Aunt managed to evade capture and went to her Grandfather to tell him what had happened and he spent a number of years trying to get them back but as this was the law there was nothing he could do so her mother grew up in a home which is where she met her father. They were not allowed to learn anything of Aboriginal culture and had no legal rights until they became citizens in 1968 up until them they had been slaves and had no rights and couldn’t access any benefits such as pensions, I hadn’t realised it was all so recent, admittedly they changed before apartheid ended in South Africa but it was still in my lifetime. She also explained a lot of the art to us and showed us a map of the Aboriginal countries that make up Australia, once the paintings were explained they were really interesting as they all tell a story. It turns out she is coming to Scotland in April next year to talk at a climate change conference as apparently Alice Springs now has ‘so much more rain’ than it used to which is strange as the taxi driver yesterday said that they had the first rain in 14months last week! We finally finished taking to Patricia then had a quick look round the hospital which is actually very small, downstairs there was a kitchen, a men’s ward and a drugs room, the key feature of this hospital is that it was built with ‘air conditioning’ an airflow system was implemented that started in the cellar where blocks of ice would be stored which caused the air to cool then be circulated around the ground floor of the hospital, although I think it treated both the white and indigenous population, I think that they used to be put in beds on the veranda rather than be treated in mixed wards. We finally left the house and went to our next stop which was the Town Gaol, this isn’t open to the public but is the oldest surviving building in the Central Business District (CBD) which is basically downtown. It was built in 1908 and served as the Gaol until 1939 when the new prison was built. Our final stop on this road was the Residence which was home to the governor of the Red Centre or Central district when it was a district before it became part of the Northern Territories. The Queen and Prince Philip stayed here when they came to visit in 1963 and that is when Air conditioning was introduced it was also where she spoke to the people in the outlying districts via the ‘bush radio’ that was invented for the flying doctor service but was a telegraph system that was powered by ‘peddle power’ It was a slightly strange layout as there didn’t seem to be any living rooms just a couple of bedrooms, a kitchen and a veranda although there was also what could have been a dining room so perhaps they sat on the veranda in the evening. We then stopped for a milkshake but it was a little disappointing as they had run out of Strawberry so I had Vanilla for a change which was actually very nice then we walked past the Cultural Mural Western Wall which is a Mural depicting the history of Alice Springs and to our final stop in town which was the Royal Flying Doctor service. This was established in 1939 although the idea had first been muted in 1917 by an Australian doctor who became a pilot in the First World War, sadly he died in the war and never knew that his letter to John Flynn who established the service, served as the founding of the flying doctor service. We watched a film about the creation of the service and received information on how it has changed over the years and how it is used. In the current service the central region is unique in that the doctors and nurses actually work at the local hospital whereas in the rest of Australia they work for the service itself. Originally they rented aircraft from Qantas at $2 per mile flown, the government paid half and the rest came from public fundraising, nowadays it is covered by Medicare. But the time we had finished looking round the museum we just had time to have some lunch before heading back to the hotel for a bit of a rest before our trip this evening. We booked on a visit to the Kangaroo sanctuary which is the one made famous by the Kangaroo Dundee series on TV. Our guide was actually Brogal who set up and runs the sanctuary and it was amazing. After a bit of a talk by him on the importance of checking road kill for Joeys as they can live for up to 4 days in the pouch of the mother even after she is dead we were introduced to our first Joey. He is currently looking after 14 Joeys and he only lets the public meet them on a rotation basis as the aim is to get release them into the wild but they are so cute! He was actually carrying it in a bag over his shoulder and to be honest you wouldn’t know he had anything in there until he brought him out. He cares for them until they are between 12 – 14 months old and then they are ready to be released although some decide they don’t want to be wild in which case they remain in the 200 acre protected sanctuary he has. He currently has just over 50 that haven’t been released, he always releases them in groups and the last group he released should have been 24 but 2 decided they didn’t want to be wild so he only released 22. After the talk we were taken through the building that he used to live in but doesn’t anymore as he got married last year and his wife decided a house would be nice rather than a shed with an outdoor bath and cooker – although the Kangaroos are adorable I can see her point! – and we were introduced to two more Joey’s who were sleeping undercover in a laundry basket with a couple of cuddly toys! Brogal then asked if the group wanted to hold them and there wasn’t a person there that didn’t or to be honest wouldn’t take one home with them. He handed out the three Joeys then told the group that we need to be fair and only hold onto them for about 5 minutes and pass them on so that everyone gets a chance to hold them. We then went into the enclosure and met the more mature Kangaroos. I fed one of the ones that had refused to be wild a bottle of milk although at this stage I didn’t touch her, later I did and they are so soft even as Adults, we walked round the sanctuary and met a number of different Kangaroo including Roger who was the dominant male that became famous as he constantly fought with Brogal and the film of this got the interest of all sorts of people including the body building association of America who for a very large donation used him in advertising and actually sent him a gold medal which is provided to the winners of the body building competitions. Roger is still alive although no longer the dominant male as he is 14 years old which is about as long as a Kangaroo lives but we got the chance to see him which was nice then we saw the new dominant male and the difference in size is phenomenal he has lost so much of his body mass. However, the highlight of the whole evening was holding the Joeys and to be honest as they love being inside so much I am confident that I could take one with me for the rest of the trip. I think I actually managed to hold all three of them at various times and I was completely hooked. They are so soft and so cute but even through the multiple blankets / pillow case combination you are holding them in you can still feel the power of the tail or at least the muscles they are growing. Unfortunately after a couple of hours it was time to get back on the coach. Brogal very wisely checked that he had all three of the Joeys back and we went back to our hotel what a fantastic evening well worth it yet another highlight!
