The Singing Line

In 1855 an impoverished young scientist from Greenwich told his guardian that he was off to chance his luck in Australia – as Government Astronomer and Superintendent of Telegraphs for thesmall colony of South Australia. With him went his young wife Alice – after whom Alice Springs would be named. For Charlie Todd was following a dream – the near impossible task ofstringing a telegraph wire across one of the last uncrossed colonial wildernesses, and finally connecting Australia with Britain.

In 1997, their great-great-grandaughter, Alice, followed in their footsteps. Her plan was to track the telegraph and her ancestors, from Adelaide over the thousands of miles of desert, outback, swamp and mountains that Charles Todd had crossed in the 1860s with his 400 men.