Alice Springs – it's the heart of Australia, just about exactly at the nation's geographical centre. It's also a town with a heart – people who live here love the warmth and friendliness.

“The Alice”, as it is known, is an outback town with all the modern conveniences, comforts and diversions you’d find in a good-sized city. It has great shopping, bars, cafés, restaurants, markets, live entertainment, a casino and a convention centre.

Living is easy, either in tree-lined streets in the older parts of the town or in modern suburbs like any major Australian city. There’s a big choice of housing from budget-priced units to large, new, well-designed houses.

The people of the Alice enjoy their time off. The climate promotes a healthy outdoor lifestyle, and locals take part in a range of leisure activities. Around town you’ll discover spectacular gorges and waterholes. You can access them by road, walking trails and bicycle tracks. There are excellent venues and facilities available for almost every sport and age – and Alice Springs even has  one of the top ten desert golf courses in the world.

There is also a large range of organisations, clubs and groups – whose members get together to enjoy all kinds of activities including the arts, theatre, dance, music and craft.

Alice Springs is a diverse community made up of people from all over the world. The Aboriginal presence here is strong – 20 per cent of the population is Indigenous.

In the Centre, desert certainly doesn’t mean deserted. The abundance and beauty of the Centre’s native vegetation is amazing. River red gums thrive in the beds of the Centre’s many underground river systems, marking where the region’s hidden waters lie. Other trees of infinite variety decorate the landscape, from desert oaks and mulga trees to palms and cycads that have survived the millions of years since the Centre was a tropical forest. At times, brilliant wildflowers create oases of colour throughout the region. Alice Springs is a perfect base to explore the stunning MacDonnell Ranges, visit Uluru (Ayers Rock) or Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), fossick for gemstones and enjoy the vast unspoiled wonders of Australia’s Red Centre.