Day 14: The Old Telegraph Station and the Royal Flying Doctor Service

We travelled on to the Old Telegraph Station, where the township began. Discovered in 1871, when a water source called Alice's Spring was found, Alice Springs became the base for a few pioneers who were stringing the wires for the telegraph, which eventually linked Adelaide and Darwin, 3000 kilometres away.






As the most important employee, the Station Master had a fine house, elegantly but sparsely furnished. Not very surprising since most household items arrived by camel!





Inside the Telegraph Office which linked the remotest parts of Australia to tge outside world.






In the 1930s a number of mixed race children were take from their Aboriginal mothers and brought to live on the site of the Telegraph Station. Most of their white fathers wanted nothing to do with them, and only a very few ever managed to trace their mothers. This reminded me of the Philomena story.





In 1935 Maise Robb took up the position as teacher. In her mixed age class were 82 students......












Our third stop was at the original headquarters of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

In the entrance was a map showing the location of all the RFDS planes, both in the air and on the ground. It updated every 90 seconds.






A modern plane, with all the equipment to provide intensive care. We watched a film about a young boy whose liver transplant was made possible by the RFDS.





The early planes looked very flimsy.






Everything in the medicine chest was numbered to make dispensing much less complicated.

All the places we visited were evidence of the extremely hard and isolated lives people lived in the remote areas of Australia, as the outback gradually opened up. On cattle stations, in roadhouses, in National Parks and in remote aboriginal communities a significant number still depend on the School of the Air and the RFDS.

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