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> Alice Facilities
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The
Alice Springs Area:
It's a beautiful huge area, Alice Springs
is an isolated township, within driving distance for camps and activities
we see desert sands, mountain ranges, gaps and gorges in the MacDonnell
Ranges, dry creek-beds, spinifex (spiky grass) country, rock-holes,
clay-pans, salt-pans, caves and gold-mines
Bear in mind, that for us, 150 kms is less
than a 2 hour drive, because there are no towns to pass through and
no traffic lights.
In fact, once we leave town, we may
not see more than half a dozen cars all day...
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Salt lake
Rock Hole
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Rainbow Vally sandstone hills - 70 km from
Alice.
Environment
Our district is actually the southern region
of the NT - it's almost the size of Texas.
(Enlarge - Nortern Territory, Texas, France)
Alice Springs (pop 25000) is in the centre
of Australia.
Nearest capital cities:
Darwin NT (1400 km north)
Adelaide SA (1600 km south)
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McDonnell Ranges viewed from Alice suburbs
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Nearest towns with Scout groups:
Tennant Creek (pop 2000 – 513 km north)
Woomera (1050 km south)
It’s an Arid area, which means it’s very
dry. Average rainfall is 250mm per year.
Our Creeks and rivers are usually dry,
unless it’s been raining recently.
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Spinifex country Ormiston Gorge
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Lifestyle
In the winter,
temperatures can be freezing at night to 5 degrees Centigrade below
zero, but by the afternoon it averages at 20.
In the Summer,
the averages go from 21 to 36, which means it can go as high as 45,
but that’s when you stick to the shade, and we don’t go camping much.
There are heaps of places around Alice
to go camping, though. The MacDonnell Ranges have Gaps and Gorges, offering
shade from the heat.
There are plenty of waterholes in the dry
creeks, just the spot to practice canoeing for a trip away, or a swim
to escape the afternoon heat
There is red sand dune country, great for
rolling down. We are careful of the fragile wildflowers that grow there
though.
There are clay pans, which are flat hard,
dried mud flats or floodplains, perfect for land yachting. We don’t
have standards for bonnet surfing behind a car, so we DON’T do that
as a scouting activity.
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This
is what it's like to live in the Alice Springs area
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WestMac Nat. Park. |
Large dry salt lakes have also been used,
but when the yacht tips over, you skin your knees, and get salt rubbed
in which really stings!.
The ranges are not high ( mostly less than
300m) and are geologically very old. For rock climbers, that means crumbly
and you have to be careful.
For abseiling, there are quite a few good spots, close to town, where
you need most of your 50m rope to zip down a steep rock face.(more)
There are caves,
too, not too far out of town, and we sometimes go to the old goldfields
at Arltunga, to explore the mines, and pan for gold.
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It's
beautiful here..
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Quarantine Valley - just behind Zeil St. |
Facilities in the Alice Springs town
Isolated? Yep, perfectly! That makes us
very self-sufficient.
Because we can’t drive to the next town
to do stuff, Alice has almost everything in town.
The bush is never far away, in fact, it's
often only a kilometre in any direction.
Our favourite places to go are:
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We
love it
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2 Hands - no flies.. |
The Dustbowl 10 pin bowling - good
for a social outing away from the hall.
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Rifle Range (pistol shooting too)
Date Farm – great for day trips,
they have really nice date ice cream date scones and cakes and cappuccino
for the adults!
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The Camel Farm – short camel rides,
activities and displays about the Afghan cameleers of our pioneering
days.
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The Ghan Preservation Society has
a 1:1 scale railway station and steam train set. They have a diesel
engine and carriages too.
Sometimes we go on night-time dinner trip or afternoon there-and-back
picnic run to Ooraminna siding.
Indoor Go-Karting, motorized go
carts tearing through a shed, and around an industrial site.
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Simpsons Gap bike trail – 21 kms
- an excellent bitumen cycle path that winds though the open woodland
and gentle hills to the next Gap in the ranges.
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YMCA Rockwall, complete with instructors
and all the climbing gear!
No falling rocks, so you don't need a helmet!
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The Desert Park (Largest nocturnal
house in the world, and plants and wildlife displays in natural habitats
– It’s WORLD CLASS! – we’re really lucky to have it.
Reptile World – where we get to
pet or feed snakes and huge lizards.
Town Pool – an Olympic sized one,
and a medium one for the joeys.
Newland Park Road Safety Centre
– Some kid size bitumen roads with traffic lights and road signs, stacks
of bikes to ride for Joeys and Cubs
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Other places we can go include:
Speedway and Motorcycle racing
at Ilparpa
Offroad buggy racing at Ooraminna
(35 km south)
Bond Springs Aerodrome for Gliding
Camel trekking
Ballooning
Desert quad motorcycle adventures
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