"A Town Called Alice"

By the time I arrived in Alice Springs on the evening of July 4, 2018 we were five days into our road trip from Melbourne Airport to Darwin. And there we were, roughly in the geographical centre of Australia, almost equidistant between Adelaide and Darwin …1,500 kilometres in either direction.

Rather than detail every aspect of our journey, I’ve chosen to break it up into ‘bite-sized’ chunks, starting with the Alice Springs Show, which was held on July 6 and 7.  My photo essay follows.

We’d gone a long way in the lead up to getting to Alice Springs– over 600km from Kulgera, just north of Northern Territory border, out to Uluru on the Lasseter Highway, back out to the Stuart Highway and on up to Alice Springs – over 10 hours of  amazing sights.

It wasn’t meant to be that way, but when you get a puncture, one kilometre south of the Northern Territory border, in an area with no cellphone coverage, plans change. Luckily my travelling companion was very capable when it came to changing tyres, but then, without a spare and noticing our two front tyres were bald on the inside, we stopped at Kulgera for an unplanned night, cancelling our accommodation at Uluru.

It took 24 hours to sort out the rental company and the insurance company, and to get two new tyres sent down from Alice Springs; but then we were on our way to Uluru, and thereafter, Alice Springs.

Alice Springs, commonly known as Alice, serves as a gateway for exploration of Australia’s vast Red Centre. It was established in 1872 as part of the Overland Telegraph Line construction and in 2016, it had an estimated population of around 24,000, approximately 19% of which is made up of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

It is the third largest town in Australia’s Northern Territory and is known as Mparntwe to its original indigenous inhabitants, the Arrente people, who have lived in the central desert areas around what is now Alice Springs, for tens of thousands of years.

The Central Australia Show Society was formed in 1960 to establish an annual agricultural and pastoral event that would showcase the best of the central region. The first show was held that year.

A partnership was formed with the Centralian Beef Breeders Association in 1970 and the show maintains a strong cattle farming presence.

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In 1980, the show moved from Anzac Oval to its current location at Blatherskite Park and it was clear from the beginning that it’s a big weekend for Alice Springs.

People come ‘into town’ from miles around to catch the best exhibits and to make the most of all the family fun the show provides. Huge crowds wandered through the dusty park – a happy mix of multiple races and a cacophony of sounds – including multiple Aboriginal languages.

I, personally love a good show. They have a character like no other event and they bring together a wide cross section of people. It’s a little ‘snapshot of society’ and in Alice Springs, where a greater percentage of the town’s population identify as Aboriginal, that was particularly interesting to me.