Paperjam

Letter from Australia 4

Travel // Vanessa // 10th August 2003

G'day all!

Foreign correspondant here alive and well and reporting from Alice Springs. Have actually begun the travelling part of my travels now, accompanied with a frustrated husband (i'll tell you why later) and a slightly knackered Harry the cowpervan. (Yes, the sticker is a Coventry City one..courtesy of the last owners who were from the ... beautiful..erm..city)

Half an hour out of Sydney and every town we have passed has been hicksville. Radio frequency is nil and fashion really doesn't matter (good for me then!)

Now been on the road for two weeks and have seen dozens of dead kangaroos (resisted the temptation to bag one for a campsite bbq..)Many of them without heads, several dead cows and eveen a dead wild horse minus the head, lying on the roadside. But on the bright side, also seen two live kangaroos, two live rock wallabies and a wild emu while plodding along in our state of the art cowpervan, doing 70km per hour on the highway. Even caravans are overtaking us!

Spent some pleasant nights in some strange places, one of which being the town of Willcannia in New South Wales. With only 750 people, many run down and boarded up buildings, this place has a petrol station which kids loiter around because there's no shopping mall. The camp site wasn't much better, with several over-active rottweillers guarding the entrance. And me shitting my pants decides not to have a showerthat day because they look like the tolets from Trainspotting. But slightly better things were waiting for us further into our journey and Coober Pedy, an opal mining town 535km north of Port Augusta(the last port of civilisation-if you can call it that).
Just to paint a picture, Coober Pedy is the place they filmed Mad Max III (something about the end of the world?!), Pricillia, Queen of the Deset, Pitch Black and many other happy, colourful films.

Despite this, Coober Pedy is actually a brilliant place to visit. By far the best we've been to yet. it's tiny, covered in dust and pebbles (no soil in sight) and lots of opal shops. The surrounding landscape of Coober Pedy has been mined so much, you can't go outfor a walk at night in case you fall into a mine shaft. Everyone lives underground because it's just that little bit hot in the summer (in excess of 50 degrees) and everyone living there is hoping to hit that million dollar jackpot of opals in their patch. The great thing is, you can do it too. All you do is find yourself a bit of land, register it and dig. Oh, and they teach you how to make dynamite on their mine tours too...handy for those occasions when you want to get someone's attention I think! Was a bit disappointed that we couldn't camp underground because we had no tent, so while everyone else was cosying it up in the holes in the ground, the happy couple and Harry spent the night fighting gale force winds on the above ground campsite.

North of Coober Pedy and really in the middle of nowhere is Ayer's Rock. Now, this place, I really do think, has been hyped up so much that when you finally do see it, you want to turn around and go home. It's an impressive rock, yes, and it took us 3 and a half hours to walk around (we decided not to climb out of respect for aboriginal beliefs..how good of us!). It was bloody boiling and 2km from the end, frustrated husband realises he's lost the car keys and makes me power walk back to the van where his keys are happily sunning themselves on the passenger seat of the car!

Moving swiftly onto the Olgas. A more impressive range of mountains and another three to four hour walk. Lots of flies. The problem is beginning to become an annoyance. Onto Kings Canyon. Now this was impressive. If ever (and I know this is wishful thinking Jim) you do venture out to the Australian outback, Kings canyon is a must. Amazing views, another four hour hike,views for miles but thoroughly satisfying.

And that brings me to here. Alice Springs. A town where Aboriginal people (grown up mind you) loiter around with nothing to do like kids hanging around a shopping centre. All tourist places will tell you not to buy alcohol for them as they can't handle their liquor (less than me it seems) and the Aboriginal leaders are trying to sober them up. The whole thing is quite sad and you only realise how badly they've all been treated since the bloody English (that bunch of land-grabbers again!) went over there and still are by the Australians. The Aussies try and make it up with Sorry Days, can you believe it!

It's getting hotter and now we get to the frustrated husband. After having driven about 3,000 kilometres, Harry dear has decided to get sick and isn't starting up too well. He's now at a dodgy mechanics who we are sure is going to rip us off stupid. frustrated husband will probably not destress until Harry is now sold (if ever) in Sydney . So this trip is looking like it will actually become the adventure I was hoping to find. If you don't hear from me in two weeks' time, it means Harry's died at the side of a desert road, Garry's killed me and dumped me a mine shaft and he's gone awol after losing his mind.

I'm actually beginning to enjoy this trip! (and I have to admit I'm missing Sydney a bit too..)