Diary 27

2005

 

 

 

A town called "Alice"



Hmmm that was frustrating!! I just wrote this whole story and got to the end and my little PC crashed and I lost the lot!!! oh well I will just have to sit here by the pool watching the ladies sunbathe in the blazing 35 degrees temperature and re-write it!! Perfect blue skies and a very chilled out atmosphere, they have had no rain here in Alice for 10 months!! Its a small town in the middle of nowhere but the main place for hundreds of miles in any direction. Here I plan to settle for two weeks and work at my newly acquired job. I am going to join a building company at 6.00am on Monday laying concrete with a gang around an industrial unit in town. Its work that I have done a thousand times before but not in this hostile environment!! Should be interesting!! Have got myself a lunchbox and am all set to work now, and the money is quite good.
The journey was good from Adelaide and Fanny behaved herself very well. I travelled from Adelaide to Port Augusta (the gateway to the outback) the first day, taking the smaller roads and passing through tiny one horse towns like "Gladstone" where locals were pleased to stop and chat. Then I clipped the Flinders range and onto "Coober Pedy" the next day. "Coober" is about 600k north of Port Augusta into the outback. By far the most unusual town I have seen so far. It gets so hot and inhospitable in this little opal mining town that most people live underground. I did a quick whirlwind tour of the town before retiring to my underground backpacker dorm room. The flies were as expected UNBELIEVABLE!! All over you like a rash hunting for moisture and pestering you like crazy!! The next morning I rode of early on my 700k ride up to "Alice" totally different weather that day and after 100k I had to stop and put my sweatshirt on!! It seemed crazy after yesterdays hot hot ride through the desert but the clouds had cooled it down a lot. Another 200k up the road and I was very hot again and the sweatshirt had to come off. Petrol stations or "roadhouses" as they call them are about 200ks apart and the furthest I had to travel for fuel was 258k. Fanny was behaving herself very well and we cruised at 150-160k all the way (90-100mph) there are no speed limits in the outback but I was in no hurry and I didn’t want to run out of fuel out there!! The scenery changed dramatically every few hundred k's from desert to fairly lush countryside and once over the border into the "Northern Territory" hills and mountains rose on the horizon. I spotted camels wandering around and the odd EMU and well over 200 Roo's... All dead!! (road kill) from the huge road trains that thunder down the outback road. Infact I never saw 1 live roo all the way up to Alice. So that’s it, I am now here in "Alice" all sorted out ready to work on Monday and spend 'til the end of the month here before I ride back to Sydney via the East coast and the Great barrier reef. Plenty of time to see "Aires Rock" and "Kings Canyon" hopefully with little Skye when she eventually gets here ;-) I have met a crazy man from the UK in the next room to me that would like to send a message to you all via my website!! It is as follows :-
"John sends you love and light so that true light shines bright, to empower your true self to realize your dreams" hmmm well it is hot out here!! I have met lots of really nice people John being one of them and also in his room is Victoria from Crawley, we made a mean BBQ last night good team effort ;-)
 

 

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