GFE Stumpes: Alice Springs, AU (9/5/2025)

Friday, September 5, 2025

We walked to the Royal Flying Doctors Service
Visitor Centre that is located in the original 1939 building,
which housed the first RFDS radio operator

Royal Flying Doctors Service/RFDS logo (KSS)

A holographic video presentation had founder
Rev John Flynn take us through the history of the service,
which provides medical care to the remotest areas of
Australia, including dental and nursing, primary and
mental health services in addition to emergencies (KSS)

Early outback communications by radio

The 1939 Operations Communication Centre for RFDS

The revolutionary foot pedal-operated
radio (c 1929) invented by Alfred Traeger,
allowed Australians living in the remote
outback to contact the RFDS

RFDS Medical Cabinet from 1968

Mockup of a Pilatus VC-12 (c 1994);
RFDS now has 70 aircraft operating out of 23 bases

Tamiko inside the Pilatus VC-12 that
could transport three patients (KSS)

Statue (2010, by Mark Egan) of John
McDouall Stuart, the first European to
cross Australia north to south

Barnardius zonarius/Australian
Ringneck Parrot (KSS)

Eremophila hygrophana ‘Blue Bells’/aka Blue Emu (KSS)

We returned to the motel to get the car and drive to
the School of the Air (est 1951) Visitor Centre (1978)

Mural at the School of the Air Visitor Centre

Art project including the picture at top left
from a student who then became
a police officer

A generation later, the son did the metalwork project on the left

Initially children living in remote areas were educated by
correspondence sent via the postal system; then with
the pedal-operated radio, families were able to
communicate more easily, and lessons were provided
over the radio; now they do have books and workbooks
sent by post, but get lessons by something like "Zoom"
with other students through the internet via satellite

The weekly schedule for five studios

A teacher is on air with cameras on her face and
directly above her workspace; to the left is the art corner

Next a stop at the Alice Springs Telegraph/Repeater Station
(1872), an important communications link with Darwin

We never saw a dingo...

Anzac Memorial (1934) on Anzac Hill

View south from Anzac Hill (KSS)

We had to have lunch at Stumps Café!

Araluen Cultural Precinct (1999) is a complex of museums
and galleries, including the Araluen Arts Centre (1984)

Cowboy Life (2018, by Kunmanara Pompey)

The Albert Namatjira Gallery:

Ghost gum and ranges, Central Australia (c 1955)

Fleeing euro (1937)

Special Exhibit from the Araluen Collection: Deviate:

Carcass (2009, by Alison Alder) (KSS)

Camp dogs at Pine Gap (1991, by Rod Moss) (KSS)

Big Corroboree dreaming (c 1973,
by Old Tutuma Tjapangati) on loan from
the National Gallery of Australia

Water dreaming (1972, by
Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri) on loan from
the National Gallery of Australia

Egret dreaming (1972, by
Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula) on loan from
the National Gallery of Australia

Ulbatja/Port Lincoln parrots (1997, by
Carol Panangka Rontji and Vera Williams)

Wild Rooster (2021, by Roxanne Petrick)

Sculpture Garden:

Crowned Land (2019, by Franca Barraclough)

The language of stockmen (2019, by
Johnny Young Perrurle and David Wallace)

The Grand Circle Yeperenye/Caterpillar Dreaming Sculpture
(by Dan Murphy and community)

Work by local artists and children in the caterpillar

Aviation Museum:

Royal Flying Doctors Service De Havilland Drover (1952)
nicknamed "John Flynn" for the founder of RFDS

Kookaburra Memorial (1979) is dedicated to pilots
Keith Anderson and Bob Hitchcock who died after
their aircraft Kookaburra crashed in the Tanami Desert
and was not found for 14 days; ironically their mission
was to search for Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm
who had disappeared on the first leg of their
around-the-world flight, but they were found alive