Alice Springs YHA, complete with outdoor movie screen
Alice wet now and again
The ANZAC memorial
Next morning I arise far too early, the excitement of long distance rail travel undiminished. Spurred on by my successful interview with Emily I spot one of the train managers and decide to try my questioning skills once more whilst it is quiet.
‘G’day. Did you sleep okay?’ she asks me as I approach her. I see from her name badge that she is called Hayley. The badge is attached to a very smart khaki uniform, worn by all the staff on board the train. They all lined up on the platform at Adelaide, posing with easy smiles for photographs but at the same time ready to spring into action and beat the crap out of any scumbag trying to sneak from Red Class to Gold Class.
‘Yes, fine thank you.’
Hayley, who I take to be in her late twenties, chats amiably about weather and what’s on offer for breakfast but I want more than mere trivia. I wade in with my killer question:
‘Does anything exciting ever happen on the train?’
'God, yes, ' she relies. 'Mainly around the mining towns. We get some rough characters getting on board and they do get out of hand. Fights often break out. We chuck them off the train, them and the smokers.'
What? I'm not exactly pro-smoking, especially in a confined space like a train, but to be thrown off in the middle of a desert and left to fend for yourself sounds like a harsh punishment for lighting up. Judging by what I have seen out of the window even Crocodile Dundee would have trouble making it through the day.
Fortunately Hayley clarifies that they only get thrown off at stations and the police are waiting when they get there. Nonetheless, Hayley’s words present me with an image of the police in Australia that it very different to the one I am used to.
Much crime goes unrecorded in Britain as people often perceive the police to be too busy or disinterested to make it worth the effort of reporting something. It is a perception that is not undeserved. I know of many instances where a person has reported a crime only to receive a standard letter telling them that it will not be investigated further. To ensure the insult really hits home, the letter is often addressed wrongly and the name of the person misspelled.
Things appear to be different in Australia where it seems that even the minor offence of having a quick fag in the bog will render you worthy of the attention of a police welcoming committee. I’m not sure which response causes me the most distress.
Luckily there are no brawlers, drunks, druggies or surreptitious smokers on the train today, so when I get off it at Alice Springs there is no sign of a posse of burly cops with cuffs and dogs.
I say goodbye to the lovely Emily, pick up my backpack and stride off into the late afternoon heat, which is notably several degrees hotter than it was in Adelaide.
The youth hostel at Alice Springs used to be an outdoor movie theatre and the hostel maintains the tradition by screening a movie every evening. I am welcomed by the staff and directed to my four bed dormitory. I pass the swimming pool on the way, which in the afternoon heat is very inviting, but I have less than 24 hours in Alice so I need to take in the sights.
My room is neat, tidy and thankfully it has air conditioning. It also has a very friendly German bloke in it.
‘Hello, my name is Rudolf. I am pleased to meet you.’
‘Hi,’ I say, shaking Rudolph’s hand. ‘I’m Bryan. Have you been in Australia long?’
‘Yes. I am being here two months now. I have travelled all the way along the East Coast and I am now making my way north to Darwin.’
‘Good. And are you enjoying your stay?’
‘Yes, I am enjoying the trip. I am making the very good friends in Sydney so now I have somewhere to stay. I am going back to Sydney and I will stay there for three more weeks.’
‘That’s good,’ I say. It’s nice to meet you.’
I know that I should have milked Rudolph dry for information and funny anecdotes to spread out over the next two pages and I am sure L. Peat O’Neil will be disappointed in me, but as I have said, I am keen to take in all that Alice has to offer.
I stow away my luggage, splash on the Factor 6 and grab what I need for a few hours of aimless wandering.
‘See you later, Rudolf.’
The first thing I notice as I make my way along Leichhart Terrace is that there are far more Aboriginal people here than I have seen so far in Australia. And well there should be. The Arrerente people have been living in and around his area for 50,000 years. The first white man, John McDouall Stewart, did not arrive until 1862.
The name of the town indicates a great deal of optimism by early white settlers who mistook a waterhole in the Todd River for a permanent spring. They named the town after the wife of the former postmaster general of South Australia, Sir Charles Todd and the river after Charlie boy himself.
The Todd River runs roughly north to south and forms an obvious border along the town. I fancy a game of pooh sticks so I cross the street to check it out. Instead of finding a raging torrent I discover an extremely dry, sun baked stretch of clay.
As Emily had explained to me on The Ghan:
‘They say that you have to see the Todd River in full flow three times before you’re considered to be a local in Alice. I know people who have lived there for 5 years and not seen it flow three times.’
As I said, naming the place after a spring was a tad optimistic. Then again ‘Alice wet now and again’ doesn’t quite have the same ring and Mrs Todd might have felt a bit insulted.
To the south of Alice there is an even more formidable barrier – The MacDonnell Ranges, a 400 mile long mountain range running east-west through central Australia. The Aborigines call the ranges Aranda. John McDouall Stewart may have been a great explorer, but he was clearly a bit of a bum kisser too and chose to rename them after the Governor of South Australia at the time. There seems to be a lot of that in former British colonies.
If the town is unfortunate to be named after a non-existent water feature it is at least blessed by being right next to the one and only gap in the MacDonnell Ranges, known locally in a triumph of modern Australian simplicity as: ‘The Gap.’
‘G’day. Did you sleep okay?’ she asks me as I approach her. I see from her name badge that she is called Hayley. The badge is attached to a very smart khaki uniform, worn by all the staff on board the train. They all lined up on the platform at Adelaide, posing with easy smiles for photographs but at the same time ready to spring into action and beat the crap out of any scumbag trying to sneak from Red Class to Gold Class.
‘Yes, fine thank you.’
Hayley, who I take to be in her late twenties, chats amiably about weather and what’s on offer for breakfast but I want more than mere trivia. I wade in with my killer question:
‘Does anything exciting ever happen on the train?’
'God, yes, ' she relies. 'Mainly around the mining towns. We get some rough characters getting on board and they do get out of hand. Fights often break out. We chuck them off the train, them and the smokers.'
What? I'm not exactly pro-smoking, especially in a confined space like a train, but to be thrown off in the middle of a desert and left to fend for yourself sounds like a harsh punishment for lighting up. Judging by what I have seen out of the window even Crocodile Dundee would have trouble making it through the day.
Fortunately Hayley clarifies that they only get thrown off at stations and the police are waiting when they get there. Nonetheless, Hayley’s words present me with an image of the police in Australia that it very different to the one I am used to.
Much crime goes unrecorded in Britain as people often perceive the police to be too busy or disinterested to make it worth the effort of reporting something. It is a perception that is not undeserved. I know of many instances where a person has reported a crime only to receive a standard letter telling them that it will not be investigated further. To ensure the insult really hits home, the letter is often addressed wrongly and the name of the person misspelled.
Things appear to be different in Australia where it seems that even the minor offence of having a quick fag in the bog will render you worthy of the attention of a police welcoming committee. I’m not sure which response causes me the most distress.
Luckily there are no brawlers, drunks, druggies or surreptitious smokers on the train today, so when I get off it at Alice Springs there is no sign of a posse of burly cops with cuffs and dogs.
I say goodbye to the lovely Emily, pick up my backpack and stride off into the late afternoon heat, which is notably several degrees hotter than it was in Adelaide.
The youth hostel at Alice Springs used to be an outdoor movie theatre and the hostel maintains the tradition by screening a movie every evening. I am welcomed by the staff and directed to my four bed dormitory. I pass the swimming pool on the way, which in the afternoon heat is very inviting, but I have less than 24 hours in Alice so I need to take in the sights.
My room is neat, tidy and thankfully it has air conditioning. It also has a very friendly German bloke in it.
‘Hello, my name is Rudolf. I am pleased to meet you.’
‘Hi,’ I say, shaking Rudolph’s hand. ‘I’m Bryan. Have you been in Australia long?’
‘Yes. I am being here two months now. I have travelled all the way along the East Coast and I am now making my way north to Darwin.’
‘Good. And are you enjoying your stay?’
‘Yes, I am enjoying the trip. I am making the very good friends in Sydney so now I have somewhere to stay. I am going back to Sydney and I will stay there for three more weeks.’
‘That’s good,’ I say. It’s nice to meet you.’
I know that I should have milked Rudolph dry for information and funny anecdotes to spread out over the next two pages and I am sure L. Peat O’Neil will be disappointed in me, but as I have said, I am keen to take in all that Alice has to offer.
I stow away my luggage, splash on the Factor 6 and grab what I need for a few hours of aimless wandering.
‘See you later, Rudolf.’
The first thing I notice as I make my way along Leichhart Terrace is that there are far more Aboriginal people here than I have seen so far in Australia. And well there should be. The Arrerente people have been living in and around his area for 50,000 years. The first white man, John McDouall Stewart, did not arrive until 1862.
The name of the town indicates a great deal of optimism by early white settlers who mistook a waterhole in the Todd River for a permanent spring. They named the town after the wife of the former postmaster general of South Australia, Sir Charles Todd and the river after Charlie boy himself.
The Todd River runs roughly north to south and forms an obvious border along the town. I fancy a game of pooh sticks so I cross the street to check it out. Instead of finding a raging torrent I discover an extremely dry, sun baked stretch of clay.
As Emily had explained to me on The Ghan:
‘They say that you have to see the Todd River in full flow three times before you’re considered to be a local in Alice. I know people who have lived there for 5 years and not seen it flow three times.’
As I said, naming the place after a spring was a tad optimistic. Then again ‘Alice wet now and again’ doesn’t quite have the same ring and Mrs Todd might have felt a bit insulted.
To the south of Alice there is an even more formidable barrier – The MacDonnell Ranges, a 400 mile long mountain range running east-west through central Australia. The Aborigines call the ranges Aranda. John McDouall Stewart may have been a great explorer, but he was clearly a bit of a bum kisser too and chose to rename them after the Governor of South Australia at the time. There seems to be a lot of that in former British colonies.
If the town is unfortunate to be named after a non-existent water feature it is at least blessed by being right next to the one and only gap in the MacDonnell Ranges, known locally in a triumph of modern Australian simplicity as: ‘The Gap.’
People of few words - direct and to the point I guess?
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