Day 26 - Alice Springs to Tennant Creek

Royal Flying Doctors
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The Day promised to be very hot, 34 degrees in Alice Springs and 38 degrees in Katherine (roughly in the direction we were to travel). However, before noon we spotted a sign indicating that it already reached 39 degrees. The first stop on our tour was the Royal Flying Doctors. The reception was friendly and the information good. The only negative point from my view is that the presentation was pretty commercial and advertising for Royal Flying Doctors donation. Well, I guess they need to get their money somehow, but I would have liked some more background information. However, it was amazing to see the distance the Royal Flying Doctors cover and the services they provide. In average they have 6 flights from Alice Springs a day and didn’t have a day without flights for years.

The School of Air classroom
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The second stop was the School of Air. This is was amazing. The school of air provides education for grade 1 to 7 to kids in the outback that have no possibility to go to a regular school due to the distance. In the past (up to 2001), this service was provided by two-way-radio and material sent by mail. However, today they provide the service via Internet. Every pupil will have a PC, printer, scanner and internet connection funded by the school. The teacher broadcasts the lesson live with webcams. The kids can ask questions in return via chat. Hopefully by next year, the connection will be better and for the first time in the history of the School of Air the teachers will see the kids. The first thing we saw when we entered was a live session of an arts class. It was nice to listen and to watch the live broadcast session. There was as well a documentary and the best thing was one of the teachers (Lisa) came to us after the movie and explained in more details what they do and answered our questions. We were also lucky to meet one of the pupils which lives 300 km away and was in town because her parents were here on business. There is so much we could write about the school of air, but the best thing is to experience for yourself.

Roadtrain.. although a smaller one, we have seen some with 4/5 trailers
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We started our drive towards Tennant Creek which is 500 km from Alice Springs. We crossed the tropic of Capricorn just a few kilometres north of Alice Springs. That’s where the sun reaches the southernmost point in summer and turns back towards north. The first stop we made was at Barrow Creek. This is a roadhouse with a bar and a quite funny bartender named Michael. The bar has notes with names on it all over the walls. These are from people leaving a bit of cash behind so they have enough for a beer the next time. Well, our five dollars are there too now. We had a nice cold beer and a good chat with Michael (which joined us for a beer).

Crossing the tropic of Capricorn
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About 100 km before Tennant Creek are the devil’s marbles. This is a rock formation that features round rocks standing next to each other or on top of it. They are all over the place and I guess that is how they got their name. They are the reminder of a layer of hard stone which through erosion got carried away. It is worth while a visit and directly on the Stuart highway. The best time is around sunset.

We reached Tennant Creek just around sunset (or rather a bit later). The temperature is very hot, must be more than 40 degrees. We got our camping ground and started to make dinner. With the sun set, the temperature slightly decreases and the wind that started about 10 pm made it bearable, but still hot.