Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
from spiffy resorts, comfortable motels, and basic cabins to shared bunkhouses,
tents, or swags (sleeping bags) under the stars. Most pack the highlights into a
2- or 3-day trip, though leisurely trips of 6 days or more are available. Many
offer one-way itineraries between Alice and the Rock (via Kings Canyon if you
like), or vice versa, which will allow you to avoid backtracking.
Among the reputable companies are
AAT Kings
(
&
1800/334 009
in Aus-
tralia, or 03/9274 7422 for the Melbourne central reservations office; www.aat
kings.com), which specializes in coach tours but also has four-wheel-drive camp-
ing itineraries;
Alice Springs Holidays
(
&
08/8953 1411;
www.alicesprings
holidays.com.au), which does upscale soft-adventure tours for groups;
Sahara
Outback Tours
(
&
08/8953 0881;
www.saharatours.com.au), which conducts
camping safaris in small groups for all ages; and
Discovery Ecotours
(formerly
Uluru Experience and Alice Experience) (
&
1800/803 174
in Australia, or
08/8956 2563; www.ecotours.com.au), which specializes in ecotours for groups.
Coach operator
Greyhound Pioneer
(
&
13 20 30
in Australia; www.greyhound.
com.au) provides good-value, large bus tours. One of these is a 3-day tour from
Alice Springs to Uluru, Kings Canyon and the Olgas costing A$279 (US$181).
A 2-day tour including Uluru and the Olgas costs A$250 (US$162).
Tailormade Tours
(
&
08/8952 1731
) and
VIP Travel Australia
(
&
1800/
806 412
in Australia, or 08/8956 2388; www.vipaustralia.com.au) customizes
luxury tours in limos, minicoaches, and four-wheel-drives, and offers treats like
desert barbecues and champagne tailgate dinners overlooking the Rock or the
Olgas.
You can book Sahara Outback Tours and Tailormade Tours via
Alice Springs
Tour Professionals
(
&
08/8953 0666;
www.alicetourprofessionals.com.au), a
one-stop shop that represents a number of Alice Springs-based tour and sight-
seeing companies.
Aboriginal Desert Discovery Tours
(
&
08/8952 3408;
www.aboriginalart.
com.au), owned by Alice Springs Aboriginal people, teams up its Aboriginal
guides with Alice-based tour companies to offer tours with an Aboriginal slant.
2 Alice Springs
462km (286 miles) NE of Ayers Rock; 1,491km (924 miles) S of Darwin; 1,544km (957 miles) N of Adelaide;
2,954km (1,831 miles) NW of Sydney
“The Alice,” as Australians fondly dub it, is the unofficial capital of Outback Aus-
tralia. In the early 1870s, a handful of telegraph-station workers struggled nearly
1,600km (992 miles) north from Adelaide through the desert to settle by a small
spring in what must have seemed like the end of the earth. Alice Springs, as the
place was called, was just a few huts around a repeater station on the ambitious
telegraph line that was to link Adelaide with Darwin and the rest of the world.
Today Alice is a city of 27,000 people, with supermarkets, banks, and the odd
nightclub. It's a friendly, rambling, unsophisticated kind of place. No matter
what direction you come from, you will soar for hours over a vast, flat landscape
to get here. That's why folks are so surprised when they reach Alice Springs and
see low but dramatic mountain ranges, rippling red in the sunshine. Many peo-
ple excitedly mistake them for Uluru, but that baby is about 462km (286 miles)
down the road. The hills that jut their craggy faces up close by are the
Mac-
Donnell Ranges.
Many tourists visit Alice only to get to Uluru, but Alice has charms all its own,
albeit mostly of a small-town kind. The red folds of the MacDonnell Ranges hide
