Alice Springs

The central Australian capital of Alice Springs is a pleasant combination of heritage and modern facilities. Within easy reach are colourful outback culture, ancient Dreamtime lore and fabulous nature.

Few visitors to Uluru return unchanged. It’s easy to see why the rock and the surrounding land has such huge spiritual significance for the Anangu Aboriginal people. It lies in Australia’s red centre like an enormous, moody heart.

Uluru is 9.3 kilometres in circumference, and the icy-green and grey vegetation at its massive feet offer a refuge for wildlife. It is immense in size - yet more than two thirds of the rock is actually hidden beneath the ground. Then there’s its sheer beauty: it outshines even the brilliant sunset, arraying itself in a multiplicity of hues from black to purple, blue to brown, orange and red throughout various times of day and weather. It makes a spectacular contrast with the relatively flat sand plain that surrounds it.

Uluru’s cousins, the Olgas, or Kata Tjuta, make another sacred site just 32

kilometres away: a collection of 36 steep, rounded, russet domes over around 3,500 hectares.

Both these splendours are encompassed by Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. At its entrance you can find all sorts of accommodation for your voyage of discovery, from campsites to luxury resort stays. Then here are so many ways to encounter the land around Uluru. A hike up the rock, or a campfire dinner, where you can savour barramundi, emu or kangaroo underneath an incomparable starlit sky. Drink in the sunset while you sip champagne, or encounter the landscape on a Harley Davidson. Or see it from a grand height - either a light plane or a camel’s back!

The urban heart of central Australia is Alice Springs, a free-spirited, sunbaked, open-skied city that never fails to charm. Sitting between the east and west MacDonnell Ranges, Alice is a paradise of slender white gums and grey-green foliage, against rose-hued earth and hills underneath a dazzling blue sky. The locals are the friendliest you’ll find - chat to them and you’ll discover that many were once just visitors who fell in love with the town and could not leave. And why not? The climate is warm, the air is pure and the pace is relaxed.

It’s a neat little city of around 30,000 people, born in 1862 with the creation of an overland telegraph line. The arrival of The Ghan railway in1929 kicked Alice Springs forward into development and prosperity. Cattle stations spread outwards from the town as settlement expanded and gold was discovered. Now it is a town that

you can visit either on your way to the red centre’s outback icons, or to enjoy just by itself.

In and around the city centre the Arrernte people share insights into their culture. And right outside the city, the Alice Springs Desert Park brings you face to face with the mysteries of the desert communities, rare plant life, scurrying native fauna and free-flying birds of prey. Adventure is never far off. Some 18 kilometres out of town is Simpson’s Gap, a walk through rocky gaps and steep ridges, and tours frequently leave for other wonders such as Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), Uluru, Kings Canyon, Finke Gorge, Ormiston Gorge and Pound and Rainbow Valley.