We had arranged to pick up the car a day early both so that we can make an early start tomorrow but also to give us the opportunity to go out to the MacDonald Ranges so we walked to the hire company which was probably a bit further than it looked on the map, having said that it is so nice being able to walk about in ‘normal’ temperatures although the breeze makes it a little cool most of the time it is quite nice. Picking up the car was nice and easy, we have a massive 4 x 4 this time as we are heading to the outback for the next part of the trip, in some ways it is very similar but it does feel quite large hopefully it will serve us well on our drive southwest! Our first stop this morning was the School of the Air, this was opened in the 50s after a teacher who had been visiting the outback was given a lift back by the flying doctor, she wanted to provide something that would help the children with their social interactions and believed the radio could be used to help children living in these remote conditions. The first children had lessons delivered by post where they received a mail bag with 3 months worth of books, lesson packs and materials and would work their way through this with regular interactions via the radio with the teacher. They would submit their work via the post and it could be six months from the time they did the work before they got the marked work back. The School of the air is for children who are 4 on or before 30 June and they stay with the school of the air through primary and middle school but they finish their senior education either through corespondance studies which in the Northern Teritories are provided from Darwin or they go to boarding school. The catchment area is 1,300,300 sq km or 10 times the size of England! They follow the Northern Territories curriculum and come with their teaching assistant – usually their mother but some families pay someone to visit from Alice Springs 3 times a year, they have a swim week where they have lessons and are taken to the swimming pool every day for a week so that they can learn to swim, and at the end of term they have a sports day of sorts where they compete against other schools in Alice. They have lessons by year but don’t have any sets and the school has an average of 120 pupils each year, some families are on their 3rd generation of school of the air! I hadn’t realised they actually meet each other but it makes sense if you are trying to build a feeling of community. Originally they used the pedal radios originally used by the flying doctor and the joke was that the children had 2 lessons in one, physical education and maths or english! Over time the service was upgraded and enhanced and in 2001 they introduced computers and changed where the children could learn from, now a dedicated classroom area has to be available to the students they have to have a home tutor (governess) They get a home visit from the teacher once a year and they have to attend the in-town events. The IT equipment is provided by the school and consists of a satellite and computer plus the the correspondence material needed. As well as attending ‘class room lessons’ each student has a 10 – 15 minute PLT – private lesson time with the teacher either by phone or computer and they get the same school holidays as children in a traditional school. It was really interesting and the teachers have the added benefit of being able to ‘mute’ the children if the class gets to noisy! From here we went to the Telegraph Station which was built in 1871 and was where the first telegrams between Australia and the rest of the world were transmitted along the route from London to Adelaide. The first telegram from Australia took about 24 hours to reach London and went via Indonesia, Singapore, India, Egypt, Malta and Gibraltar. The station master and his family lived in the area although some seem to have been more successful than others. One family that lived at the station had 7 children and the oldest Olive wrote a book about their time at the station during the late 1800s which I might read at some stage. This is where the ‘spring’ in Alice Springs is actually located we decided to have a slightly early lunch at the telegraph station as we are heading out into the MacDonnell Ranges. First we went to the West Range to Standley chasm. This is a walk along the creek that doesn’t have much water but there are spring-fed pools which mean that there are patches of very dark green on the way up then you are at the Chasm which is a sheer cut through the bright red rock. It was a nice walk and the Chasm was really nice with lots of different colours in the rocks. We walked back to the car then headed for the East MacDonnell Range where we visited Emily Gap Reserve, this is quite different as it is basically just a gap that you can walk through however there are some aboriginal paintings on the walls which are part of the caterpillar dreaming story, which tells the tale of how Alice Springs was formed. They were very different to others we have seen but unfortunately there wasn’t much information on the story itself so it was a little difficult to work out what was going on, and the indigenous people asked that no photos are taken so we only have the memory. It was then time to head back into town to pick up some supplies for the long drive tomorrow and back to the hotel for a bit of a relax before heading out for dinner later.
