Before I address your question etc. I'd like to say
Sorry for the long rave & that I'm not paying out on you or trying to insult you in any way, I'm only going to talk about this in the hope to educate anyone who reads it.
I choose to 'Ride Motorcycles' here for a reason, Passion! & also because it's
Bloody Awesome country to ride in & see (Or Drive for that matter) & it's very dissapointing for me as a tour guide, to know 97% of visitors to my Town are not really seeing the REAL Alice Springs.
blues2cruise wrote:CentralOzzy, now that you mention it, I believe we did go to the mighty McDonnell Ranges. Is that where King's Canyon is?
NO! not even close. Kings Canyon is nice but hugely overrated, it's just a tourist trap on the way to Ayers Rock which is the ULTIMATE tourist trap. The Rock & the Canyon are perfect for this type of thing because they are both isolated formations in the middle of nowhere, which make them perfect for captivating the visitors.
What I mean is, you go there & that's it! Nothing much else around, except Ayers Rock which has the Olgas formation, but that's still in the same area.
So you go there with 'perhaps' a little too much time, when you could be spending more of it at other wonderful, less marketed places as well such as the Macdonnell Ranges. Central Australian Tourism is actually designed this way to maximize you spending your money in the places selected by the powers that be.
It's not about
'YOU' having the best time, it's about where
'They' want your dollars to be!
blues2cruise wrote:We were there on a bus trip and we got to climb down into the canyon and then climb back up to the top to some very interesting rock formations. I got some good photos of them.
What if I told you that the Mac's (MacDonnell Ranges) ARE IN ALICE SPRINGS? would you know it? NO. Most people who visit the Alice have no clue that they are
standing in the middle of the
Oldest Mountains in the WORLD! Pretty significant place to be in the middle of & not visit eh? Kings Canyon is a 3 hour plus drive South from Alice Springs.
blues2cruise wrote:While in Alice Springs we also saw the site of the annual boat race....in the dry river bed....
Oh, and did I mention flies....lots of flies.....
For the Locals of Alice....I'd say that most of them have never been to that event. It took me over a decade to go there myself & I only went there because my cousin wanted to check it out.
Anyway it's an Annual event & if your here at that time, sure all aboard for the fun but if not get out of the town & see the beauty that awaits.
In the early days of my Motorcycle business (1992) people came to Central Oz for an average of 7 to 10 days. This way they allowed themselves enough time to see & experience most things worth seeing & left here happy. If people come here with 3 days to spare it's a huge waste of time & money. Better off waiting until you have the time to invest....then you can leave happy as well.
Isn't it ridiculous that people from all over the world travel all this way to get to OZ, then travel all the way to Central OZ to go 3 hours to Kings Canyon & 5 hours to Ayers Rock only to miss seeing something that was around them....that is equal if not better than the places they spent hours to go & see?
SO....What would most visitors say if asked, "What did you do in Alice?"
"Nothing" is the most common answer....followed by "I rode a Camel" &/or I did a Balloon flight". Nothing wrong with that, but interestingly, most of
my clients who have done all 3....say "The Harley tour into the Ranges was easily the best thing they did" - Viva Le Motorcycling!
Oops, I was late getting back. (still had the learners at that point)
