Alice Springs is a great desert city in the middle of Australia. It used to be a telegraph station like Barrow Creek, Tennant Creek and other small places between Adelaide and Darwin, but somehow it took off and today it is a thriving city with 25,000 people. There are the Alice Springs Telegraph Station and Alice Springs Reptile Centre, Alice Springs Cultural Precinct and Museum of Central Australia; Boomerang Art Gallery, and the Billy Goat Hill lookout point. Alice is a favourite stopover on the way to Uluru or MacDonnell Ranges. Here is information on the city’s attractions, practical tips, Alice Springs restaurants, and in the end of the page is accommodation and an Alice Springs map.
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Courtesy of Tourism Northern Territory
Todd Mall and Adelaide House - Alice Springs Australia As with many Australian cities, there is a pedestrian shopping mall in the middle of the city, called Todd Mall. It’s a nice central shopping mall with restaurants, markets and shops in Alice Plaza; the John Flynn Memorial Church and the historical Adelaide House, one of the towns heritage buildings which was built in 1920s and is now the museum to John Flynn who founded the Royal Flying Doctors Service.
Todd Mall. Courtesy of Tourism Northern Territory
Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame - Alice Springs Australia North of the Todd Mall is the National Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame where you can learn everything about the early women in Australia. If you like Halls of Fame (the most famous one is the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach), there is another one: National Road Transport Hall of Fame 14km south of Alice.
National Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame. Courtesy of Tourism Northern Territory
Alice Springs Cultural Precinct and Museum of Central Australia West of the town centre there is an area called Alice Springs Cultural Precinct which includes many historical and cultural attractions. The Museum of Central Australia has exhibits of Aboriginal culture, meteorites and natural history including Australia’s extinct megafauna fossils.
Museum of Central Australia. Courtesy of Tourism Northern Territory
Boomerang Art Gallery - Alice Springs Australia The Alice Springs Cultural Precinct also includes the Araluen Arts Centre with the famous Albert Namatjira Gallery which has paintings from West MacDonnells National Park and other spectacular desert areas around Alice Springs. Alice is in the middle of the colourful outback country with red soils and sunsets which inspire artists and there are many other art galleries in town such as Desart, Mbantua Gallery, Gallery Gondwana and Boomerang Art Gallery and Artist Studio.
Alice Springs Aviation Museum - Alice Springs Australia Alice Springs Cemetery and the Alice Springs Aviation Museum which exhibits the history of pioneer aviation in Northern Territory also belong to the Alice Springs Cultural Precinct. Not far from the Alice Springs Aviation Museum is the wreck of a plane called Kookaburra that crashed in Tanami Desert in 1929. In the Alice Springs Cemetery there are tombs of the famous artist Albert Lamatjira and prospector Harold Lasseter who died here in harsh conditions while looking for gold deposits.
Aviation Museum. Courtesy of Tourism Northern Territory
Billy Goat Hill and Alice Springs Reptile Centre There are two lookout points with good views over the town centre: Anzac Hill in north, and Billy Goat Hill in south. Near Billy Goat Hill south of the city, are the Royal Flying Doctors Service that flies doctors to the remote outback farms on calls, and the Alice Springs Reptile Centre (Alice Springs Reptile Park - one of the best places to get close to Australian reptiles, including snakes. The large python on the following photo is a totally harmless snake.
Alice Springs Reptile Centre. Courtesy of Tourism Northern Territory
School of the Air - Alice Springs Australia Talking Royal Flying Doctors Service, there is another interesting institution in Alice that is unique to Australian Outback. With distances too long for remote kids to go to school, they are connected to teachers by radios (and nowadays of course computers) from their homes. You can visit a School of the Air in Alice and see teachers talking to kids over thousands of kilometres. There are also guided tours and you can have a look at kids’ drawings in the world’s largest classroom.
School of the Air. Courtesy of Tourism Northern Territory
Alice Springs Telegraph Station - Alice Springs Australia North-east of Alice Springs is the historical Alice Springs Telegraph Station from the 1870s when Alice was nothing but just that – a telegraph station. There is also a blacksmith shop and a homestead; and here is also the starting point of the long bushwalking track Larapinta Trail that goes all the way to West MacDonnell Ranges National Park.
Alice Springs Telegraph Station. Courtesy of Tourism Northern Territory
Alice Springs Desert Park - Alice Springs Australia Five kilomtres west of town towards MacDonnells is the Alice Springs Desert Park – the best attraction in Alice Springs according to many travellers. The region’s plants and animal life is presented in different habitats such as woodland, sandy desert and riverine ecosystems. There are walk-in aviaries to see birds, and a nocturnal house to watch nocturnal animals. There are ranger talks about the animals in the park, and Desert Park Transfers will take you there from Alice, although it is only a short walk away from the town. Just south of town across the Todd River is the Olive Pink Botanic Gardens where you can explore the flora of arid ecosystems.
Alice Springs Desert Park. Courtesy of Tourism Northern Territory
Alice Springs Restaurants Some good Alice Springs restaurants include Pub Caf, Casa Nostra, Bluegrass Restaurant and Cafe Mediterranean Bar Droppio. There are also some good drinking holes in town, the most popular is Bojangles.
Henley on Todd. Courtesy of Tourism Northern Territory
Henley on Todd and other Alice Springs Events There is a surprising amount of festivals and events in Alice Springs, the silliest one being Henley On Todd in late September where bottomless boats are carried along the dry Todd River in a race, but it is as fun as it is silly, and a lot of beer is consumed. Other Alice Springs events include Alice Springs Cup in May, Finke Desert Race on the Queens Birthday Weekend in June, AS Beanie Festival in June-July, Camel Cup in mid-July, and AS Rodeo in August.
Here's an Alice Springs map, where I have tagged the places that I mentioned on this web page. You can click on the tags to see what places they are, and double-click anywhere on the map to zoom it in and see the places closer. Drag the map to move around, and if you want to see the satellite image with Google Earth, click on "Sat" in the top right hand corner.
NOTE: This website is written in British English, which is the English we use in Australia. You will find words like "traveller", "harbour" and "realise", and they are all correct in the language used in Australia.
