Less than a decade after the pre-eminent explorer John Stuart had completed his survey of a south to north route through the centre of Australia, the South Australian Government in 1870 set about building an overland telegraphic link to connect the bottom and top halves of the continent.
At the time the 3000 kilometres of overland telegraph was an amazing engineering achievement. Messages were transmitted 24 hours a day using Morse Code and 12 relay stations along the way. The settlement of Alice Springs was founded as one of these stations. The restored telegraphic station at Alice Springs is a wonderful monument to the importance of communications especially at a time in history when a letter could take 3-4 months just to get to England and of course as long again to receive a reply. The marvels of a telegraph, even although very costly, guaranteed getting a response in as little as 24 hours!
Nowadays communications using the Internet cover almost every corner of the globe, are virtually instant, include realtime images and above all do not cost a fortune.
Route of the overland telegraph
Morse Code sender key
The restored Alice Springs telegraphic station
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