A great stay in the wonderful town of Alice Springs (Alice Lodge Backpackers (Australia))

Member Name: aylawarner

Product:	Alice Lodge Backpackers (Australia)
Date:	10/03/09 (78 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great value, close to town, provide everything you need

Disadvantages: Cold in caravans, padlocks don't keep doors locked

Alice Lodge Backpackers is a small and quiet lodge in the small desert town of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia. There are only a few hostels to choose from here and Alice Lodge is one of the best.

The lodge has dorm rooms and caravans. We stayed in a caravan (double at $63/£30 a night) which was nice having our own little room but personally I wouldn't recommend staying in one as they were freezing at night. That's the thing about the desert - even though it's baking hot in the day, at night temperatures rapidly drop and it's freezing! We had a small radiator in the caravan which was kept on constantly but that didn't do much to heat it up we had to wrap up in trousers and jumpers under the covers. Other than that the caravan was lovely and it also contained a fridge and a table and chair. It had a padlock on the door but only a small one and we found that the door could be opened without the padlock being unlocked which obviously wasn't very safe but you're really not likely to get any robberies in the tiny hostel. The dorm rooms ($22-25/£10-12 per person) looked nice with bunk beds and they were much warmer!

There was a cosy communal lounge with comfy sofas and a TV and a range of videos that you can watch for free or you can play your own DVDs. There are two computers with free internet access (the only hostel in Alice Springs with free internet) although this was quite slow as you're in the middle of nowhere.

The kitchen was a good size with enough space and utensils for everyone to use. There was a big fridge for everyone to keep their food in. The fridge makes an interesting read as it's covered in post-its and sticky labels with other guests comments on it. A few had mentioned a mouse that lived in the kitchen which I thought odd as the kitchen seemed clean enough to me. It wasn't until the morning of our trip out to Ayres Rock that I saw this mouse. At an early start of 5 am, being very tired and still half asleep, I went to make some toast. I put the bread in the toaster and pushed the knob down to switch on the toaster and as soon as I'd pushed it down it popped back up again and a mouse came flying out of the toaster, landed on the floor and scuttled away under the cabinets. I almost had a heart attack it made me jump so much! And it may also have given the poor little mouse a heart attack as well! But I can say that I definitely did not use that toaster again - it may have been a cute mouse but there was no way I was eating out of somewhere it had been sleeping! Just make sure you give everything a wash before you use it and make sure you don't cook the mouse!

The lodge also has a swimming pool, laundry room, communal showers and toilets which are clean, bike hire, and prices include continental breakfast. There are also a few picnic tables in the garden area where it's nice to eat lunch on a hot day.

Trips to Ayres Rock (Uluru) and the other sites can be booked either at the hostel or in town and the vans pick you up from the lodge (as I said above at an early start of 5 am) and drop you back off here when your tour finishes. You can store your luggage for free in a locked up storage room in the lodge.

There's free transport from the airport to the lodge but you have to pay for a ride back to the airport which isn't much but I thought that was a bit cheeky. But there's no other way to get to the airport so you have to pay it! The Alice Lodge van goes into town a few times a day so you can get a free ride to and from town but it's not a far walk being about 10 minutes out of town but at night I'd recommend paying for a cab back as it can get a bit dangerous in Alice Springs at night. This is because of the large amount of Aboriginal people that live here. There are always police out roaming the streets in the centre of town as soon as it gets dark but when you go out of town there aren't any. We had a few Aboriginals shouting things at us that we couldn't understand and it can be a bit scary so we just jumped in a cab. Guide books will tell you not to go out at night and to get a cab if you do and some local people we met also told us this and they didn't go out at night either.

Alice Springs really is a lovely little town and well worth a visit as there's nowhere else like it and Alice Lodge Backpackers is a great place to stay.

Summary: A great value stay in one of the best hostels in Alice Springs