The two-day 50th annual Alice Springs Show, a morale-booster for the region, drew between 13,000 and 15,000 patrons through the gates.

Cattle worth $1.17 million changed hands in just over an hour on Thursday, at the blue-ribbon Roe Creek store cattle sale.

Restockers and feedlotters knew it was one of the few places to find large lines of well-bred cattle and pushed prices to rates being paid in southern Australia, with the 1684 milk and two-teeth steers averaging $582 and 418 yearling heifers averaging $452.

A pen of 50 milk-teeth Angus steers from Tieyon Station stole the limelight, making $2.03 a kilogram (highest c/kg price).

This put wide grins on the faces of many Akubra-wearing pastoralists who had wrestled with drought conditions for much of the past decade.

The 2008 sale was cancelled but stations were thrown a lifeline when between 90 millimetres and 200mm of rain fell late last year.

Many of the cattle were in forward-store condition with a good dry feed base.

Centralian Beef Breeders president and vendor of the sale-toppers Paul Smith said, "If you look at the prices paid and add the freight, it was one of the best sales held in Australia," he said.

The buoyant sale was "uplifting", with pastoralists in need of large cattle cheques after four very hard seasons.

"We might have only had one rain but it is good to see the quality and breeding decisions and the willingness to stick with the cattle, have been vindicated by the prices," he said.

The Alice Springs bull sale also returned this year, with 11 South Australian studs selling 33 of their 38 sires to $6750 and averaging a very solid $3348 - up $106 on 2007.

Central Australian Show Society vice-president Harry Cook said it was a "colossal" event and that entries had been excellent.

All external trade sites had been fully booked and there were many new rides.

"The tourist and caravan parks were overflowing and the businesses really supported us as they do every year," Mr Smith said.

* Full Alice Springs coverage in Stock Journal, July 9 issue.