Alice Springs is the third largest town in the Northern Territory, Australia. Popularly known as "the Alice" or simply "Alice", Alice Springs is situated in the geographic centre of Australia near the southern border of the Northern Territory.[2] The site is known as Mparntwe to its original inhabitants, the Arrernte, who have lived in the Central Australian desert in and around what is now Alice Springs for thousands of years. "Alice" in the English language was named by surveyor W. W. Mills after Lady Alice Todd (née Alice Gillam Bell), wife of Sir Charles Todd. Alice Springs has a population of 28,605, which makes up 12.2 percent of the territory's population.[1] Alice Springs is nearly equidistant from Adelaide, South Australia and Darwin. The town straddles the usually dry Todd River on the northern side of the MacDonnell Ranges. The surrounding region is known as Central Australia, or the Red Centre, an arid environment consisting of several different deserts. In Alice Springs temperatures can vary dramatically with an average maximum temperature in summer of 35.6 °C (96.1 °F), and an average minimum temperature in winter of 5.1 °C (41.2 °F). In 1861–62, John McDouall Stuart led an expedition through Central Australia, to the west of what later became Alice Springs, thereby establishing a route from the south of the continent to the north.[citation needed] A European settlement was started ten years later with the construction of a repeater station on the Overland Telegraph Line, which linked Adelaide to Darwin and Great Britain. The OTL was completed in 1872. It traced Stuart's route and opened up the interior for permanent settlement. The telegraph station was sited near what was thought to be a permanent waterhole in the normally dry Todd River.
The settlement was optimistically named Alice Springs after the wife of the former Postmaster General of South Australia, Sir Charles Todd. The Todd River was named after Sir Charles. It was not until alluvial gold was discovered at Arltunga, 100 kilometres (62 mi) east of the present Alice Springs, in 1887 that any significant European settlement occurred.[9] The town's first substantial building was the Stuart Town Gaol in Parson's Street which was built in 1909 when the town had a European population of fewer than 20 people. Many of the gaol's first prisoners were first contact aboriginal men incarcerated for killing cattle.[10] Central Australia's first hospital, Adelaide House, was built in 1926 when the European population of the town was about 40. It was not until 1929 when the train line to Alice was built, that the town's European population began to grow. Aboriginal centralians outnumbered European Centralians until the mid-1930s.[11] Until 31 August 1933, the town was officially known as Stuart.
My favourite all time. Spent three years here when I only intended to stay a week. Met my Canadian wife here. Still have a few friends in town. Kata Tjuta is 360km away [link]. 2,000,000th geocache was placed here.
The four caches you need to find are
GC52ZZY; Sydney
GC5302P; Queenstown
GC53064; Jasper
GC5306F; Cortina d'Ampezzo
You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com.