When does a moderate 16C feel bitter cold? I’ll tell you when. You’ve spent the last week in the 36C humidity of Darwin, then hiked in the searing sunshine dry 40C of Katharine and Alice, and you’ve just this moment descended the wonderful Ghan for a windy platform in Adelaide displaying that shivering mid-teen temperature.  Oh dear, didn’t expect this.

We enjoyed an OK evening in Adelaide, sporting an extra layer and grumbling at the ‘cold’. A curry and red wine to warm us up! However our minds weren’t really focussed on exploring the South Australian capital. We were both excited and impatient for the next episode of our Australian adventure. New territory for us both in more ways than one. Tomorrow we would collect our home for the next week, our camper van which would give us the freedom of the national parks and coastline of South Australia and Victoria. Up close access to unique wildlife and iconic geography.

We were camper van virgins. A smart hi tec van (ensuite of course) would provide for carefree days of laid back immersion in the Aussie road trip experience along the Limestone Coast and Great Ocean Road. Pausing as opportunities arise to wonder at the landscape, walk on the beaches, watch the wildlife and perhaps, purchase some of the latter for the van’s built-in barbie. Then turn off the engine in a cosy clearing in the bush, and to the reddening twilight of the setting sun, light the evening’s fire. Lubricated by a fridge-chilled Coopers Pale, grill the day’s surf or turf to eat al fresco, whilst watched all the while by inquisitive and optimistic eyes, flickering in the undergrowth. Our outdoor culinary feast would be raised to dizzy heights with a bottle of meticulously paired wine, purchased direct from the roadside ‘cellar doors’ of the Barossa or Coonawarra. Then shuffle a little closer to the fire, sit back and gaze upward to seek out unfamiliar southern constellations, whilst giving way to that slow soporific wash of nature’s ambient soundtrack. And when all done, retire inside and curl up together in the cosy double bed, illuminated by soft moonlight and the distant Southern Cross. Fresh air, nourishment and that wonderful ‘physical tired’ inducing a deep, joyful slumber. An incongruously exhilarating state of relaxation.

So that’s the plan, but then again – fate is inexorable.

The word wanderlust, meaning the desire to travel, has German origins. However Deutsch has an expression for which I don’t believe there is an equivalent in the English language. The term fernweh moves this desire to travel to a painful need. A ‘far-sickness’ and apposite to hiemweh or home-sickness. Over recent years, the more I’ve been fortunate to travel, I’ve felt my moderate wanderlust edge closer to a sensation of fernweh. I love my home and all connected with it, and need to know it’s always there, my constant – my North Star. However no sooner have I returned from a trip afar, I need to be planning my next. And I’m unable to rest until all its pieces are secure. Planning our bespoke four week Australia escapade was a jigsaw of many pieces. Of course pick out the corners first – Darwin, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, then find the sides. The Ghan neatly and reliably completed our western side. It was the southern side of our puzzle whose pieces needed precise placement on the board if, almost counter-intuitively, the journey was to deliver the sense of freedom we were seeking. That illusion of freedom to wander. Our smart Maui camper van was the means to that end. However the notion that you can simply pick up a van, fill the tank and hey presto, the freedom of a far off continent is yours, is a complete, and dangerous, myth.

The more high-spec your new mobile home, the more aspects you need to be aware of, monitor and manage. So for example – the simple matter of H2O. How many types of water could there possibly be? OK – drinking water (potable) and washing (non-potable). Then there’s the waste water, and of course if your free spirit travel companion (aka Jacky) isn’t sufficiently free to camp at one with nature without en suite facilities, there’s the notorious ‘sewage cartridge’. An unpleasant but necessary device which sits snugly under the equally snug loo. A compact and smartly presented little box for which those same ‘free spirits‘ appear to possess a convenient spiritual aversion. Then there’s the power supply. Simple isn’t it, just turn on the engine and charge up the DC battery? Not quite I’m afraid. Two DC batteries, one which is charged first when driving and feeds the electrical systems as with a typical car, then when satiated, a second DC battery charges which for a limited time can provide power to your basic camper van utilities, such as water pump, internal lights, and fridge. However this DC energy will only allow you, at the very most a couple of nights loose in the isolation of Australia’s wonderful and wild national parks. After that you need to hook up to an AC supply, normally on an organised powered camp site, to charge up your DC – and perhaps take the opportunity to use some of the AC van features you paid for but haven’t yet used, such as that microwave, TV and music system. Oh and then there’s your gas supply to watch, especially when feeding your hungry external grill and barbie. And whilst watching all that lot, don’t forget to keep a full tank of fuel, a fridge of essential foods and that stash of ales and wines without which you may as well catch the next plane back to Blighty.

Probably the most diminishing aspect of your grand road trip idyll is the discovery that you cannot simply park up for the night wherever or whenever your fancy takes you. Unless on a registered site you can well expect a stern, yet stylishly uniformed, ranger at your van door at some random point in the evening, or worse, early morning with a ‘ticket’.

With so many basic and essential resources to manage, I’m afraid your carefree escape needs forensic research and construction, piece by precious jigsaw piece. However don’t be discouraged. If you can live with the contradiction, with meticulous planning and pre-booking securely put to bed, you can create for yourself, once you turn that key on your camper, a convincing illusion of that freedom you were seeking. Your very own, most blissful, ‘sense of wander‘.

My earliest childhood memories involve summer moments exploring a vast wonderland which appeared to have no limits and which I could wander as I chose. The fact that my wonderland was set in a tiny garden secured with unseen fences was, for a short and precious time, invisible to me. My parents had unwittingly introduced me to that intoxicating, exhilarating sense of wander. So now, sixty years on, with new boundaries in place, I turned the key and we set out to explore, seemingly ‘at will’, that vast wonderland framed by the beautiful coastline of southern Australia.

Our ‘carefree’ road trip from Adelaide to Melbourne would cover around 1200km over six days. Heading first southward into the windswept wilds of the Fleurie Peninsula, then east along the Limestone Coast and in due course join the Great Ocean Road. We’d planned our daily destination points, and secured camp spots from over 10 000 miles away. The Australians are well-organised in this regard. The National Park sites are available to book online, with detailed descriptions and photographs of individual pitches. Hence from the other side of the world you can secure your own perfect pitch and when the time comes, when you roll up as the light is beginning to fade, having squeezed every whisker of wander out of your fantastic day, your chosen pitch is ready and waiting for you. That imposing pink gum tree is just where you knew it would be, and those fat green Xanthorrhoeas, with their tall spikes whose seeds are going to attract flocks of colourful lorrakeets, will indeed provide the windbreak you’d anticipated.

Can’t wait to be let loose.

First stop a ‘cellar door’ on the gorgeous west coast of the Fleurie Peninsula. We’ve a couple of nights of bush camping ahead of us!  Wyrd bid ful araed.

 

 

The Terrible Ten were a cool gang of TV Australian kids who rode their own horses around the outback, getting into and out of scrapes with malicious adults. They never seemed to have to go to school or be back home for a deadline. In fact I’m not sure they had homes at all. But then again, someone must have bought their clothes, made them wash their hair and clean those ever bright white TV teeth. In amongst them was a dark haired girl with whom, around my eighth birthday, I became infatuated. I so wished to invite her to my party, show her off to my friends and help her win at blind man’s buff. But to have the slightest chance of competing for her affections with those horse riding, outback savvy boys in the Terrible Ten team, I needed to have something special up my sleeve. Fortunately for me, I was very special. I first secured the attention and admiration of the girl in the Terrible Ten by demonstrating how uniquely special I was. I could fly. And I was the only boy around that could. This special power literally lifted me above the cocky and generally bigger boys of the TT gang. Whilst I swooped, looped and dived in the air above them, they’d gasp and yell ‘whoa look at that kid, how’s he do that?’. My dark-haired girl would just look up at me with a knowing and connecting smile whilst musing ‘Yep I like that boy, he’s brilliant. How cool will it be to have a best friend, a boy friend, who can fly!’.

From that first airborne performance we were inseparable, more than mates. To be fair, the boys of the Terrible Ten didn’t appear to resent me or see me as a freak or alien. Rather they seemed to consider it neat (and perhaps useful) to have a kid who could fly in their gang, even if he did talk strangely and have the skinniest legs. Flying was my ticket to ‘in’. Although once ‘in’ I don’t recall the rest of the Ten actually featuring in our adventures. It was mainly her and me getting into scrapes, tracking and hiding from the disproportionate number of outback villains we chanced across on a daily basis. Very quickly of course, she was able to see beyond my super powers to like and admire me simply for the great and fun person I was. So I stopped flying and became a normal kid, but a kid who’d secured the girl in the Terrible Ten for his special friend and soul mate. A ‘bezzi’ who mysteriously never had a name. We didn’t use names and didn’t need them. But we did hold hands just now and again.

We were having such a great time. Those summer days together were brilliant, and I never went home for tea or had to obey a curfew. I was in charge of my life and she of her’s, and for that innocent and blissful early summer we two were one. Until, one after another, more distracting and irresistible forces bounced their way into my life. These new friends did have names, like football, rugby and cricket. So sadly, albeit inevitably, by ‘eight and a half’ (fractions of years were very important then) I’d forgotten my girl from the Terrible Ten. No fall out, no big statement, no big closure, no scribbled clumsy note, we just grew out of each other and let go. Relationships sometimes go that way. My new ‘bezzi’ was a very real and equally cool maroon track suit, with two statement thin white v’s on the front. My prized 1963 gift from Santa, I was special in that ‘tracky’ and flying whenever inside it. We were inseparable, getting into scrapes chasing and tackling the opposition, scoring last second cup winning goals and hitting Test clinching centuries to the whooping adulation of cheering fans, ‘whoa look at that kid, how’s he do that?’

Around 230 years ago aliens landed in Australia. Their impact has not been quite so benign or their presence so easy to dispatch, as that of the infatuated flying kid.

Australia’s isolation over millennia evolved its own unique catalogue of flora and fauna, many cute, many lethal and many both. But all playing their part in a rich, balanced and sustainable ecosystem. Then just over two centuries ago arrived a disruptor. The European. Whilst no doubt many of these new arrivals had laudable intentions and undeniably strong spirit, few understood the fragile equilibrium of the new land on which they were about to feast. Names such as New Holland (for mainland Australia) and New South Wales were early signals of what was in store for this bountiful island and its unsuspecting inhabitants.

Australia has the highest mammal extinction rate in the world. Thirty native mammal species have become extinct since the arrival of Europeans, including the elegant toolache wallaby, the cheeky-chopped broad-faced potoroo and the cute desert rat-kangaroo (or oolacunta). Birds have fared little better. The paradise parrot, black emu, Lord Howe Warbler are just three of the twenty-four bird species which became extinct following European settlement. The demise of the Lord Howe Warbler by 1920 is attributed directly to the introduction of black rats from the SS Makambo after grounding on Lord Howe Island in 1918.

Despite the sad irreversibility of these losses, infinitely more challenging to Australia’s sensitive balance are the species the disruptor has unkindly added to the mainland’s own unique collection.

In a previous blog I discussed the introduction of the camel, which is now here to stay and firmly feral. One million of the ravenous humped beasts in Australia by 2008. After a cull, numbers were reduced to an estimated 300 000, yet still continue to grow by around 10% a year. So the high population of a decade ago is unlikely to remain a hump in the graph for long. By 2016 their numbers were already estimated to be back up to 750 000. Remarkably Australia now has the largest population of camels in the world. A mass which empties water holes and munches trees and grasses to destruction. On ranches, an estimated 80% of maintenance costs are attributed to camel damage of fences, water tanks and machinery.

However the number of camels having a wild time in sunny Australia (when they’re not evading the cullers) is a power of 10 smaller than that of the feral pig, or ‘razorback’ population. Official estimates suggest there are now 23 million feral pigs in Australia, so outnumbering the continent’s human population of 21 million. These wild hogs are descendants of those domestic porkies which early explorers released as a living larder for future expeditions. The beasts found food aplenty, an agreeable climate and no natural predators aside from the occasional ‘salty’ and piglet-pinching dingo. As a consequence they’ve grown bigger and tougher than their domestic ancestors, weighing in at up to 150kg, with fierce tusks capable of goring any passing Aussie to death. It seems if you aren’t already on the world’s most lethal species list, a short stay in the antipodes will soon get you there. And given their abundance, if you’re wondering why roast razorback isn’t by now an Aussie barbie staple, to diminish the beasts’ popularity even further, their meat is not fit for human consumption due to worm infestation and disease. What delightful, irresistible creatures.

Most people will be familiar with Australia’s ongoing rabbit problem, precipitated by the arrival of the first furry buck and doe in 1787, alongside the (no doubt) equally furry convicts, civilians and sailors of the British First Fleet. By the early 20th Century, the scale of the country’s accelerating leporine challenge necessitated the 2000 mile Western Australia rabbit fence, and was truly hammered home with the deliberate introduction of the lethal myxomatosis virus in the early 1950s. The latter inducing a slow protracted bunny death through deep skin tumours and in some cases blindness, before giving up to fatigue and disease. ‘Bright eyes, burning like fire‘.

However not so well known are the significant ecological problems caused by the shipping of another of our popular household pets – the pampered pussycat. In Australia today, there are estimated to be 2.7 million domestic cats enjoying life in suburban homes and no doubt, securing their share of the family ‘barbie’. These privileged few, with those endearing pussycat names such as Max and Molly, are unlikely to venture far from the back garden due to the now ubiquitous Aussie wild cat, of which there are estimated to be over 18 million at large on the mainland. These feral descendants are reputed to be killing almost one million birds a day and most notably, responsible for the extinction of the beautiful paradise parrot. On the plus side, should a positive be sought, due to their numbers and appetite, wild Maxes and Mollys are enthusiastically doing their bit to slow the continued rabbit explosion. Australia’s ecosystem is changing and finding new rules and players.

It’s not only released alien creatures that are threatening the new land’s natural balance. When buffel grass was introduced from Africa for grazing livestock, it had all the characteristics required of pasture for the challenging Australian conditions. In particular its rapid growth and ability to thrive in a hot, arid climate. Unfortunately that growth is now pretty much out of control, dominating entire regions to the exclusion of other species and threatening biodiversity. Furthermore with buffel grass extending across natural fire breaks, trees which would previously have survived the normal cycle of bushfire are being burnt out, together with their connected, symbiotic wildlife.

Now for the tricky bit. The matter I don’t feel I can blog about my travels in wonderful Australia without confronting. That difficult piece I want to get right. The topic that, until the National Apology of 2008, was Australia’s ‘elephant in the room’. For over 40000 years the five hundred or so different aboriginal ‘nations’, many with their own distinct language and practices, enjoyed life in this bountiful country. Their numbers were never sufficiently high, nor their technologies sufficiently developed to pose the slightest threat to the natural balance of this massive island. When the first Europeans arrived it is estimated there were at most one million indigenous inhabitants. That population is now around 650 000, just 3% of the total population of Australia. To put it mildly, the long-established aboriginal peoples have not thrived in the Australia shaped and named by those aliens who first landed just over 200 years ago. A new ‘Australia’ with not only alien ways, but alien creatures, crops and ecology.

Nowhere is the hapless plight of many of that indigenous population more stark than in the parks and malls of downtown Darwin. Wretched, disheveled groups sit in shade, lacking purpose, mostly bickering and occasionally fighting with one another. Close by, an empty grog bottle or two is never difficult to spot, discarded in the dusty Darwin dirt. A fractious cast playing out a repetitive daily tragedy, in the midst of an alien community fixed on its own busy alien routines. Two distinct populations each living out their day as if the other were invisible. Mutually alien cultures existing in the same place and time, but as if in a parallel universe.

When my daughter Francesca first arrived to work in Darwin she described, via WhatsApp, how upsetting she found the situation of the indigenous groups on the city’s streets. The conditions that most were living in and the way in which they appeared shunned or ignored by all other ethnic groups. However on visiting her in Darwin six months later, she explained how what she now found significantly more upsetting, was the realisation that in such a short time living and working in the city, she herself had stopped noticing ‘them’.  And yet Francesca rides unicorns.

At national and local government level, much is now being done (albeit belatedly) to engage the indigenous peoples as stakeholders in the future of their ‘new’ country, and to recognise their contribution to the culture of the ‘old’. However, whether those two ‘countries’ are so alien to one another that it’s impossible to bridge the divide, time will tell. That clock is ticking fast. Until then the parallel universe default is likely to stay – whilst one is slowly emptied of its occupants and required no more.

Meanwhile, somewhere in another parallel universe, locked in space-time, a skinny flying kid is still chasing dreams.

The concept of space-time is both scientifically and spiritually appealing. All that has ever happened anywhere and at any time still ‘exists’, fixed in time and space and laid out on one continuous four dimensional carpet. The good and the bad. The boy in the maroon tracky can forever be observed scoring that last minute winner by simply looking from the right place. Occupying a considerably larger piece of space-time carpet than both the infatuated flying kid and tracky boy, is the land that isn’t yet Australia. Long before the alien arrival under that ‘radiant southern cross’, species evolved and some became extinct. The latter included the magnificent meiolania – a horned tortoise the size of a small car.

Without digressing too far, let me just tell you this. Tortoises are simply land-dwelling turtles. They have evolved from the same family (order Testudines). I’m personally fascinated by turtles and their lifecycle, the depth of which is another dedicated blog. However, before my adrenaline pulsing days as the flying kid or Pokemon style evolution to tracky boy, I was the stubborn non–swimming son. My father and I would fight a weekly battle. Early each Sunday morning, on his own precious day of rest, he’d wake me to cycle together to the local baths where he would endeavour to teach me to swim. The swimming baths in question were just outside our home city of York, and as was common at the time, were outdoor and unheated. Not favourable conditions to a refusenik seven year old for whom ‘aquanaut’ did not feature in his under-developed list of life goals. Had the Terrible Ten been a cool gang of pearl diving kids off Western Australia then things may have turned out different, and much easier for my sorely tested father. However our weekly unedifying performance would go like this, give or take the odd expletive. Both wearing early 1960s comedic ‘cozzies’ we approach the poolside, shivering only slightly more in February than in July. Father enters the water whilst I wait for him to diminish himself once more with his weekly lie. A process which allows me to assess the standard of today’s method acting and his level of commitment. Yes he could suppress his body shiver whilst allowing himself enough air to utter the predictable untruth ‘come on, get in, it’s not bad today – I’m warming up already’. Meanwhile I remain firmly glued to the poolside while he repeats his instruction, until the game is given away when his lips once more display that hint of blue and his nose a deeper shade of red. The signal that, not only is he now really cold, but things are about to blow. So time to release some pressure, by feigning to sit at the poolside in readiness for entry. ‘Oh no I need a wee Dad’. It’s the thought of cold water that does it you know – at this very point every week. So I trot off to the urinals and endure their familiar nauseating smell as long as possible to max out Dad’s time in the cold water and if I’m lucky, for him to start to get the excruciating  ‘shin pain’. When I suspect he’s moving to poolside to extricate himself I skip back. ‘That’s better – massive queue Dad’ – always is this time on a Sunday. So now I have to demonstrate compliance by moving quickly to sitting position, with toes given the occasional tentative poke under the water’s surface film. Through uncontrollably chattering teeth I mutter ‘It’s fffffreezing’ whilst simultaneously producing the slimiest nostrils and upper lip. Subliminal – you’ll be in bother with mum if I can’t go to school tomorrow with a cold. Slowly, slowly maintain the challenge whilst managing the pressure.

After further repeated paternal instructions to ‘get in’, each a tad more insistent than the last, you sense another tipping point is about to be reached, and so at the optimum split second slip into the water. Obviously accompanied by dramatic yelps, convulsions and my now perfected ‘electrocuted frog’ impression. The latter being particularly effective as it allows you to appear to have swallowed much of the pool, and use your subsequent wrenching to plant the seed that – you’ll be in trouble with mum if I can’t go to school tomorrow with diarrhoea. Just one more subconscious nudge. And so it would continue, Instructor Dad moves his arms with feet on floor, I move my shaking arms with feet on floor. Dad moves his arms and legs, I move my arms and sink. ‘No, move your legs like this’ he’ll extol, demonstrating one more time. ‘No you’re not watching, this time watch’. He does it again and I begin to see light at the end of the tunnel. It usually starts to kick in about now. He’s getting a touch out of breath and starting to tire. Shouldn’t be long now. Two or three more extended demonstrations and it’s time to lift the feet and let the crazy frog takeover. First it’s a repeat of the attention grabbing electrocution scene, but this time on full volume. Whilst familiar to my resilient father, this act never fails to disturb onlooking parents and especially their sensitive and most precious under-fives. Fragile early pool confidence about to be crushed. Then it’s a switch to the suddenly silent – still – drowning frog. A reliable crowd stopper. I was never sure whether frogs and other amphibians could drown, but no one ever seemed to stop to think it through. I’d stay under as long as I possibly could, just leaving enough breath to launch myself up through the surface, my startling coughs and chokes accompanied, when I got the timing spot on, by shrieks and cries of younger children splashing frantically to cling on to their mums or dads and never again let go. The more the better. At this point my dad would give up, exhausted by the experience and finding himself once again unwelcome in the pool. Mission accomplished I’d joyously dry off and change for the silent cycle home. Back to a gloriously warming and well-earned Sunday dinner, head kept low for the duration, and then do my own stuff while Dad fell asleep in his armchair. Ready for another week.

So back to the turtle and the tortoise. Baby turtles in their thousands hatch from their eggs at almost the same time on the beach where they’ve been buried by their mums. All as one then scuttle frantically and clumsily towards the moonlight above the breaking sea. What if on just a few of these occasions, amongst those thousands of hatchlings was just one stubborn non-swimming son (or daughter). Refusenik young turtles. The awkward ones that said ‘No I don’t fancy that’. ‘Looks cold, wet and rough to me. Think I’ll take my chances out here. Do my own stuff’. And maybe they did, and maybe their dads weren’t happy about it, and some survived to find their Sunday dinner elsewhere. And just maybe that awkward kid, that refusenik turtle, became the first tortoise. And he met a like-minded refusenik girl turtle. They  have great times together, running about beaches, getting into scrapes avoiding malicious seagulls, not going home for tea, becoming soul mates and, most crucially not growing out of each other.  They just do their own stuff and become Adam & Eve to a species of tortoise.  What a great a story that would be. Requiring a scientific re-examination of Darwin’s theory of evolution. It wasn’t always the advantageous mutations that did it, in some cases it was just the awkward kid who wanted to do his or her own stuff – and spotted an opportunity. Maybe that would precipitate a search for ‘the refusenik gene‘. If only space-time could show me that!

Meanwhile in that vast region of space-time which holds the land that isn’t yet Australia, remarkable flora and fauna feed off and on one another, building this massive island’s own distinct food chain, and an extraordinary ecology finds it’s equilibrium. A unique ecosystem which includes its extensive catalogue of marsupial mammals, colourful and bizarre birds of all sizes, towering trees and an uncomfortable multitude of venomous creatures. As well as a place for 500 different indigenous ‘nations’ and cultures. While kangaroos hop and koalas snooze their way to the space-time carpet’s present day edge, the aliens are only just visible yet their impact already beginning to disturb and tear at nature’s deepest roots. The inescapable space-time carpet will hold on permanent record their long-term impact – whether that be a progressive disruption or ecological destruction. Observable for all eternity by those in a position to see.  Be they aliens at home or afar.

Our land abounds in nature’s gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;
In history’s page, let every stage Advance Australia Fair.

Such responsibility.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Morning my lovely. What shall we do today? I know, let’s get showered and dressed and make our way down to the Queen Addi for breakfast. Then we could visit one of the most remote towns in Australia and take a stroll in the hottest of mountain ranges before returning for cooling drinks and a spot of lunch eh?”. “That sounds most agreeable my dearest. You showering first? I’ll just snooze here a little longer and count kangaroos and camels through the window. Don’t dally though dear, I’m feeling a tad peckish.” It’s tough waking on the Ghan contemplating an equally tough day ahead.

Lying in that bunk, big challenging questions begin to trouble you like “should I go for the smoked wild Tasmanian salmon and eggs hollandaise, or the full cooked breakfast this morning?”. You won’t find ‘full English’ on the card, not in Australia. They just wouldn’t afford the poms such national recognition. As it happened I’d already enjoyed the most exquisite Tazzi smoked salmon and eggs hollandaise, draped on and around lightly toasted Turkish bread, for our first breakfast in Darwin, when I had an early bite at the Fannie Bay Cool Spot. Fannie Bay is a popular spot to eat of a morning in the Top End, and I for one could have gone back for more. However you can have too much of a good thing, so this particular morning on the Ghan I went for the ‘full pom’, with extra toast of course.

Today’s stopover was at Alice Springs and we’d chosen, alongside a mere dozen other travellers on the entire Ghan, to enlist for the guided hike in the West Macdonnell Ranges which sit about 20km west of Alice. On descending from the carriage we first posed for the essential ‘Welcome to Alice Springs’ platform shot.  Grinning in our respective trek attire, Jacky and I stood side by side, chic by cheap. We had been advised to dress in long trousers as the occasional taipan or ‘common brown’ had been known to enjoy life in the terrain we were about to explore. As we fought our way to our excursion’s dedicated minibus, against the overwhelming flow heading for numerous large coaches assigned to the alternative ‘about Alice’ tours, I began to wonder if the other 300+ passengers knew something we didn’t.

Alice Springs grew from a water hole which sat conveniently half way between Adelaide on the southern coast and Darwin on the northern. It’s positioned pretty much at the geographical centre of Australia. The original ‘Alice’ was the wife of the telegraph pioneer Sir Charles Todd. I’m sure she was quite thrilled to find herself a member of a select club of ladies who’d had distant water holes dedicated to them. How grand and socially elevating is that? How envious her friends must have been.

The 28000 doughty inhabitants of Alice Springs represent a wide range of ethnic groups and also nationalities. For example 2000 residents of the Alice Springs District hold US citizenship, many connected with joint US-Australian geological research and satellite tracking projects. However bubbling underneath the cosy tourist imagery of quintessential Australian outback happy place, as depicted in Nevil Shute’s 1950s novel A Town Like Alice (and the subsequent movie with Virginia McKenna and Peter Finch); all is not so jolly in Alice at the moment. The Alice Springs of 2017 is experiencing high levels of crime and social disorder. Alcohol abuse, street brawling and domestic violence are sadly rife, predominantly (whilst not exclusively) within sections of the indigenous community, which forms one third of Alice’s population. Night time disturbances, sadly involving groups of mainly indigenous youngsters, are reported to be a regular occurrence. In addition crime statistics for the year to October 2017 recorded a 22 per cent rise in house break-ins. There’s currently much to do to mend a town like Alice.

Our ‘minibus’ was a high lift all terrain vehicle with tough tyres and similar attitude. It bounced us to the foothills of the West MacDonnell Range where we commenced our trek, benignly tagged by the guide book as being ‘of moderate difficulty’. Firstly through flat sparse bushland, on by distinctive ghost gums and then up into the hot red foothills of the mountain range. Our guide took us steadily and cautiously up to exhilarating viewpoints and then ultimately into the beautiful Simpson’s Gap. The ‘gap’ being a narrow gorge break in the mountain range, which is occupied by a permanent water hole and frequented by amongst others, black-foot rock wallabies. It’s a tranquil, sheltered space and a sacred spiritual place for the indigenous Arrernte people. Within the echo chamber of the high Gap walls our guide expertly played the didgeridoo. Its deep sounds, designed to mimic those of its surroundings, swirling around the space between the high rock walls. The Gap’s birdsong increased in intensity as if in direct and customary response.

The sense of being in a very unique and special place was palpable. As our guide slowly brought the didgeridoo’s low frequencies down to the smoothest of landings, and its soft vibrations escaped from the body, our small group applauded appreciatively and turned to walk back in search of further rock wallaby shots. I hung back, and once more stroked that ancient sandstone rock. Again hard yet soft, tough yet smooth, neither warm nor cold. Yet again, as at Katherine, I felt what could only have been an imaginary tingle, the mind once more playing tricks. I was touching something that predated not only the oldest living species but almost life itself.

I recall quite vividly as a young boy, lying in summer fields gazing at cotton wool clouds, their movements certain yet almost imperceptible, and experiencing a similar, almost thrilling sensation. As a young adult I’d experience that same consuming sense of wonder looking up through the Milky Way on a clear summer’s night and, if really lucky, half glimpse the tail end of a shooting star. And now, as a not so young adult, I recognised that same almost ‘outer body’ sensation from just stroking and contemplating that rock. A confusing, contradictory recognition of my own insignificance and yet greater relevance. Of greater distance and yet deeper connection. If that’s the ‘spiritual’ then it’s complicated and probably best left out there in that wilderness wonderland. Let’s keep things simpler and easier to share. Like a drink and stories with strangers in the club car on the Ghan. Time to get back on board – kick off the boots and shed the long pants. Adelaide awaits tomorrow and a new home on wheels.

“Goodnight darling that was a most interesting and stimulating day don’t you think?” “Yes dearest it was, but please try not to snore so much up there tonight, I can’t hear the train clatter and clunk”.

Yes I think the ‘spiritual’ is safely back out there in wonderland. Waiting to kiss and confuse the next unguarded passer by.

My recent blog ‘The great Ghan’ received an appreciative response from Yorkshire reader Tony (see comment). However he did take issue with my assertion that the Barmah bush hat doesn’t work for non-Aussie males in the same way as it does for the national. My quote: “Non-antipodean guys in a Barmah, or worse cheap imitation bush hat, simply don’t cut it. Wrong hat, wrong head, wrong hombre. You can tell a ‘wannabee’ a mile off.”

In submitting evidence to support his challenge, Tony kindly provided a pic of himself sporting his very own Barmah. Very kind of you indeed Tony, and hope you don’t mind my taking the liberty of publishing it here. See feature pic above. To be fair Tony I think it’s a good effort, but without wishing to lose your valued readership, I do think it serves to support my case. Others may no doubt come to a different view. I recognise the hint of ‘cool’ and definitely the ‘rakish’ demeanour. However what gives it away is the curl of the ear. That head does not live in that hat, unless (and do forgive me if this was the case) your ear is unfortunately fixed in that position due to playing hooker in pub level rugby or from regular physical chastisement as a child. Fortunately in more recent times, the excruciating parental ear twisting seems to have been replaced by withdrawal of pocket money. At the time however, I think I would have gone for the short-lived stinging ear twist, rather than losing my cash for the weekly 3d bags of pineapple chunks and aniseed twist.

Anyhow, on examining you in your hat, I couldn’t help thinking that’s what Lord Lucan might have looked like if hiding incognito out in Humpty Doo or similar. Whilst you obviously look far too young to possibly be the disappeared aristocrat, can I just check – you’re not him are you? How wonderful it would be if my casual blog comments on a hat had provoked the long hunted Lord to blow his cover. There’s not a reward out for you is there?

My second thought is that your look would be perfect for an Arthur Daley Australian spin-off. And following the sad loss of George Cole, who better to play the part  than yourself Tony? “The world’s your Moreton Bay Bug Tony” as the Aussie Arthur might say.

My third and final thought was of the Cat in the Hat. Interestingly he was characteristically cool and rakish.

As further evidence to support my case that the Barmah bush hat should be left where it belongs – in Australia, in the bush and on an Australian head, I include images demonstrating some epic fails from personalities who really should have known better. I leave you readers to judge, but Tony please don’t throw away the hat!

Most intriguingly can I say, I find the Barmah style looks good on the fairer sex wherever they lay their hat.

 

 

 

 

Today I woke with the sense of excitement I recall as an impatient child on Christmas Day or the first morning of a long anticipated summer holiday. The Ghan was on my bucket list and it was now waiting for me at a specially extended station just outside Darwin.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a train addict, spotter or collector. Whilst I respect anyone’s right to do so, I can assure you I’ve not spent one minute, never mind a precious day, standing with pencil and notebook in hand, sandwiches and flask in ‘sack, peering into the mist from the lonely end of a platform in the likes of Crewe or Doncaster. But the prospect of sitting in the comfort and ‘unreachable’ privacy of my own cabin for several days; watching the landscape morph from deep green tropical to arid red desert and on to the mediterranean greens and golds of the temperate south, all in the secure knowledge that at any point in time I could stretch my legs to reach a vintage club car with all-inclusive bar; I have to say ticked several boxes for me. This was the way to see Australia I thought, and the way to taste it, as the restaurant also came highly recommended. Travel bliss I tell you. If that makes me a train enthusiast then so be it, sell me the tee-shirt.

Whilst back in the middle of the nineteenth century the driving vision was for a North-South rail passage through Australia, the original track connected Adelaide on the southern ocean to Alice Springs in the red centre. Alice, due to its central position, as important as it is uniquely remote. The Ghan takes its name from the labourers and camel drivers imported to construct the track in such a challenging environment. Mostly from Central Asia, they were considered Afghan, hence the Ghan. Camels are not indigenous to Oz and were first transported from India in the mid-1800s to support exploration and construction. They carried many of Australia’s early European explorers, whose names now label highways, rivers, mountain ranges, creeks, passes and towns across Australia. Names such as Stuart, Sturt, Simpson, Currie, Horrocks, Hume, Wild and of course, Thomas Mitchell of downtown Darwin’s Mitchell Street fame. Unfortunately several perished in the process, such as Burk and Wills, Oxley, Kennedy (accompanied on his fatal trip by the memorably named Jackey Jackey), and the mysteriously disappeared Leichhardt. Some of their camels probably fared a little better.

Work began on the original Ghan track to Alice in 1878 but wasn’t completed until 1929. Travellers would at that time often continue the journey to Darwin by uncomfortable camel. It may be that the strange walk I noted on Darwin’s Mitchell Street late on a Saturday night, is a hereditary remnant of those long distance camel treks, now absorbed deep into the NT DNA. It seemed particularly exaggerated in the guys from Humpty Doo. Maybe back then, some folk couldn’t take one step more of camel hump splitting their butts like some mediaeval bock* torture, and the point at which this excruciating ‘wall’ was reached on that long dry road to Darwin was where they laid their hats (and no doubt their sorry butts). And fittingly named that place Humpty Doo. What a wonderful story that would be. You never know. Stranger things have happened – especially in the outback.

Some camels went feral after escaping their toil, but most were simply released into the wild after motorisation replaced them. As a consequence, groups of wild camels can now be spotted throughout the red centre and desert areas of central Australia. In 2008 their numbers were estimated to have grown to over one million, so a subsequent cull reduced this to around 300000, although their number is still thought to be increasing by around 10% a year.

Due to lack of cash, the arrival of the Great Depression and the national engagement in the Second World War, the remaining half of the south-north rail link was conveniently forgotten. Not until the next century was the original vision realised, with the Alice Springs to Darwin leg opening in 2004. The namesake Ghan now runs once a week, covering the 3000 kilometres between the two state capitals of Darwin and Adelaide, in a journey spread most enjoyably over three days and two nights.

The Ghan is hauled by one majestic red beast of a locomotive engine. Well two of the powerful monsters actually. The double pull required in no small part to the immense length of the train, which on our trip was almost 1.2 kilometres. Yes that’s a snake of carriages of over one full kilometre. On arrival at the station we visited the front end where the two huge powerhouses were warming up, forcing the ground to vibrate with the deepest and most rhythmic purring, as if gigantic cats preparing to roar. The lead engine wore the Ghan’s glorious red livery with attitude in the bright NT sunshine. We were then taken to our designated coach by minibus, which actually drove out of the station, joined the highway, then came back to the track to deposit us at the rear half of the train. Such is the size of the Ghan.

The train’s organisation, with its 60 staff aboard, is localised so that you are never going to be far from your section’s hospitable 24 hour club car. In fact most conveniently for Jacky and I, we were in the very next coach.  Jacky is a free spirit, and the spirit was free.

Our cabin was a work of efficient design and gadgetry which fitted seats, wardrobes, bunks, bathroom with sink, shower and loo, plus even your personal safe, all into one tidy, polished compartment. Whilst you’re at evening dinner it’s magically transformed by invisible elves into a double-bunk bedroom ready for your unsteady return from a late nightcap in the club car. In the morning you can be greeted with a wake-up cup of tea delivered by an unidentifiable arm and anonymous voice. Then, whilst back in the Queen Adelaide restaurant car enjoying your sumptuous breakfast, those same elves restore your room to its daytime ‘let’s watch the world go by and spot strange creatures’ mode. How truly brilliant and how life should be!

On boarding the train we bade a temporary goodbye to daughter Francesca and Sam, as for the next fortnight we would venture alone. They are both far too young to be exposed to the indulgent excess of the great Ghan – their formative years could be irreparably damaged.

Having familiarised ourselves with our personal cabin and the view from its window, the drinks card at the club car and of course the fine Queen Adelaide restaurant coach over lunch, we prepared for the afternoon stop at Katherine. I dressed ‘outback contemporary’, with Jacky leaning more to ‘outback chic’. The result being that Jacky quite looked the part. I simply looked as though I’d not thought it through, which of course is precisely the case. My inner ‘conservative Yorkshire’ just wouldn’t allow me to sport the classic Australian Barmah bush hat. Even without the kitschy hanging corks. Not for real anyway. Perhaps at one of those parties back home, when that dangerous point is reached when every sad item of holiday-relic clothing is pulled out of that special ‘party drawer’ and distributed amongst those resilient enough (and sufficiently inebriated) to see the night through. Not a quality Barmah anyway, far too expensive. Although a didgeridoo I’ve found, goes down reliably well at such events. The epic fails at generating the slightest sound, never mind mastering the circular breathing required, accompanied by that familiar expression of imminent thrombosis, always gets the collective tears flowing.

Don’t get me wrong, the Barmah can present most stylishly. On Australian men, and only on Australian men. There’s something about the way they wear it, what they wear it with, and the angle of the head. They make it look cool and even a tad rakish, whether for work, for shopping or even for a night on the town. Non-antipodean guys in a Barmah, or worse, cheap imitation ‘bush’, simply don’t cut it. Wrong hat, wrong head, wrong hombre . You can tell a tourist ‘wannabee’ a mile off. On an Aussie the Barmah contributes to expressing the whole. On me it expresses asshole. And trust me, I know one when I look in a mirror.  Interestingly however, as an 8 year old I had no such qualms with headgear in my innocent yet gloriously exciting adventures with the girl from the Terrible Ten. We chased around the outback, building camps and hiding from villains, with our identical leather bush hats hanging on our backs, casual cowboy style. This was so much better than adventures with mates, different and somehow deeper.

Just east of the town of Katherine (population 10500) is its namesake Katherine Gorge in the Nitmiluk national park. Well it’s in fact a series of 13 gorges, some with their sheer faults through red sandstone standing over 100m high. We took a boat through each of the first two major canyons and walked along the ancient red rocks between. An almost imperceptible breeze flowing through the gorge gave just a little respite from the 38C heat. The traditional landowners of Nitmiluk are the Jawoyn. On one high cliff face, faint but still visible, was an enormous painting that had been created at some point in the 40000+ years that these indigenous peoples had looked after the land prior to the very recent arrival of europeans. We touched the smoothest and shiniest sandstone rock, simply too old to hold any vertebrate fossils due to being around 1600 million years old. Neither warm nor cold, it’s probably the oldest thing I’ve ever placed my hands on. A strange feeling of connection with something much more significant. I don’t normally give way to this sort of thing, but am I getting close to that spiritual feel I’ve heard about?  Probably just an illusion on a hot day, after a liquid lunch. You can think (or drink) yourself into such places.

Safely back in the air-con cool of the Ghan, it was time to test out the shower, dress for dinner and take a seat in the club car for a sundowner. And share stories with strangers. All against that slowly moving backdrop of increasingly alien landscape. A  vast panorama which made even the immense Ghan appear small and vulnerable. What a privilege.

Tomorrow we stop off at a town like Alice. In the meantime there’s an evening in the Queen Adelaide to savour. “Yes I’ll take the Coonawarra Shiraz with that lamb rump thank you Kai. Of course it’s fine to leave the bottle. You’re a good man”.

I begin to hope that negotiating my top bunk later tonight (as allocated by DSO Jacky – Dir of Sleeping Ops) doesn’t bring me down to earth with a bump. However we’ll climb that ladder when we come to it. For now seize the moment. Wyrd bid ful araed. Fate is inexorable.

 

*The bock was a horrendous mediaeval torture and punishment, which caused slow and agonising death in a manner too excruciating for me to describe on this page. Of all the earth’s species, only homo sapien has the inherent sadism to think this one up. If you really want to go there search it yourself. But you’ve been warned. Make sure you’re sitting comfortably.

 

Where we stayed.
The Ghan (Gold) North-South: leaves Darwin weekly Wed am. Arrives Adelaide Fri pm.
South-North: leaves Adelaide Saturday. Arrives Darwin Monday.
Where we ate.
The Queen Adelaide restaurant car. The Ghan. Stylish, excessive and indulgent. You can have too much of a good thing.

 

 

The Kakadu National Park has World Heritage status. It’s the size of Wales and is home to a quarter of Australia’s freshwater fish, 300 types of birds and 75 species of reptile. And then there’s the ubiquitous wallaby, the various species of which are adapted to forest, billabong, grassland, rocks and the more arid desert areas. The park is rich with over 1000 types of plant, each which not only appear to have their favourite time of year, but also time of day. As a consequence the entire ‘park’ is a naturalist’s dream.

Wildman Wilderness lodge is a small and most welcome oasis on the edge of Kakadu. As with relief, you turn off that aggressive red earth track, you’re greeted by a suddenly watchful mob of wallabies. Yes that is the collective noun. There’s a co-ordinated freeze – a sort of marsupial ‘mannequin challenge’. But all eyes (and ears) are on you. After risk-assessing our threat, which quite clearly was on the low end of their scale, they relax and resume their daily routine in the mid-day heat of this remote place. I suspect they recognised our slow disoriented exit from the essential 4×4, the awkward stumble and uncertain step, and the discernible quiver as contact with firm ground gradually damped the natural frequencies to which our bodies, for the last two hours at least, had been compelled to vibrate. ‘Yep, no threat from this lot boys. As you were.’

The strict condition and deal breaker for persuading Jacky to camp out in the wilderness was a level of luxury and bush tucker cuisine not normally demanded by those seeking to be at one with nature and its rough edges. Fortunately the Wildman Wilderness Lodge had recognised this niche demand. En suite tent, gourmet restaurant and infinity pool allowing you to observe Mother Nature and her diverse variety of unfamiliar children at play, the latter enjoyed of course whilst drinking prosecco, or depending on your palette, a chilled Coopers Pale. The sort of place I suspect Bear Grylls and his team enjoy between shoots.

That afternoon we ventured out to various spots in the Mary River wetlands. In each location the range of flora and fauna on display, getting on with their individual and collective business, was immense. Whilst watching a couple of large black-necked storks on the riverbank opposite, we spotted a ‘salty’ in the mud. Jacky observed that it appeared to have its mouth wide open; a trick crocs do in the process of managing temperature. However the binoculars revealed a very different story. This was late October, the salty’s mating season. The distant open-mouthed croc was in fact two having a ‘humpy do’. And it clearly wasn’t going to be snappy. Starting to feel uncomfortable at our resulting voyeurism, we withdrew. An action I guessed wasn’t going to happen across the water for some time yet.

Early evening, back at ‘camp’, we sat on the decking at the rear of our tent and sipped chilled Squealing Pig whilst the sun obligingly set over the vast red plain conveniently laid out before us. Nature’s various antipodean children gathered as the shadows slowly lengthened and the heat began to leave the day – just a little. Some for a final forage and, depending on age, some to play before bed. My own mother would call it ‘their mad half hour’. The wallabies were top performers. A hopping, bouncing mob of around 60-70 joeys, jacks and jill’s. That’s right, whilst the term ‘joey’ is common parlance for a young kangaroo or wallaby, a ‘jack’ is an adult male, and of course therefore, you can work out the ‘jill’. The older joeys were particularly entertaining. They actually do kick-box. Holding one another by the shoulders and then launching the best blow they can release from those developing and crucial hind legs. And I can tell you they don’t hold back! My own eyes were watering just watching. Part mirth, part empathy. Then there were the vast flocks of white yellow-crested cockatoos, surging and circling in a cacophony of threatening squawks and cries. Magpie geese trailed giant ‘v’s’ across the sky above us. Other birds of various sizes, colours and calls came and went, each knowing when it was their turn in the daily sunset pecking order. And as the sky took on a deeper red hue, so did our wine. A very special bottle of soft deep Rusdens Good Shepherd from the Barossa Valley. A bottle brought along especially for the occasion by Francesca. My daughter having won it in a reckless wager with her manager on the outcome of another boxing bout, the Mayweather – McGregor ‘event’. A pointless farce compared to which the adolescent scuffles of the wallabies in front of us had far more purpose.

The sun below the horizon, it was the turn of the bats, not that jumpy darting tiny pipistrel type we have in the UK. Those that fly as if excited mice who’ve just discovered they’ve been given a pair of wings. But large dark majestic creatures which fly slowly and assuredly with long fingered wings which beat an easy rhythm. It was all glorious, truly glorious. As was the Rusdens Cab-Malbec.

And so to dine.

Our quartet represented one half of the reservations at the Lodge that evening, rendering the entire experience especially exclusive. So it was at our feeding time. Having enjoyed our own ‘mad half hour’ (or so) on the Squealing Pig and Rusdens, we settled down for our own end of day forage. This began with a truly bush tucker tray of grilled crocodile, buffalo and kangaroo. Whilst all were quite delicious, the kangaroo was exceptional. Which makes me wonder why so many of these big fellas are still hopping around across this blessed country. Then on to a stunning ‘main’ of wild barramundi. As caught truly wild, this thick, white muscular fish was as succulent as it was flavoursome. The very best wild sea bass ‘squared’. Dessert was a perfect NT mango and vanilla panna cotta, which as well as tasting quite delightful, held perfect texture and cleared the palette superbly. What a meal.

At this point it was time for me to pay a call. And I don’t mean of the communications type. The wilderness doesn’t do comms that well – although I was a tad disconcerted to note how much my iPhone ‘maps’ knew of the tracks across it. I wonder if there’s anywhere left in the world not covered by iPhone maps? Please tell me there is. There was a single loo outside, a short walk from the small central dining room. I part-jokingly advised the table that I would be ‘checking under the seat’. As I walked out into the now dark night, a small wallaby mob instinctively went into mannequin challenge mode. On this occasion however, they appeared to be communicating a collective ‘He’s not really going in there is he? This should be fun boys’.

On entering the outdoor closet I firstly checked for any immediate signs of wildlife. Such as the poisonous butt-eating spider of the ‘furry fanged scuttler’ genre, awaiting my arrival from corner web, or the bored snake coiled around pedestal base. As you do. After giving myself the all clear on that one, I tentatively lifted the toilet lid. Peering up from the depths of the pan, sitting at the point where water meets air, long-fingered hands stretched upwards on white porcelain, was a frog. Large glassy boggle eyes fixed on me, not menacingly but almost pleadingly. Now I admit to not being an expert on frogs of the NT wilderness, and what little I did know I certainly wasn’t going to put to the test by helping this little fellow from what I viewed as his (or her) unfortunate predicament. Come on, you’re currently digesting the most gorgeous meal prepared in the most unlikely of places. Would you seriously stick your hand down a ‘public’ loo on the edge of the wilderness, to pick out an unknown species of frog which may or may not have the potential to render you comatose within half an hour? Such a reckless action firmly rejected, having locked eyes with the peering amphibian, I just couldn’t bring myself to use the facility in the manner I’d intended. I couldn’t do it to the little fella. Not even a fall back number 1. I resigned to take the long walk back to our canvas and use the much-ridiculed en suite facility, but not before taking a pic of the boy. Once more, the shared selfie just wasn’t going to happen!

Whilst we savoured the fine panna cotta, our genial hosts prepared a fire pit outside around which they’d positioned deep-cushioned sofas. Was this for real? We spent the remainder of this most perfect evening basking in the glow of that fire, listening to the night orchestra and watching lightening crack the skies high above very distant Darwin. All whilst sipping a nightcap of Aussie Bundaberg dark rum, prepared of course old fashioned style “with a sprinkle of bitters and just the faintest scent of lime skin run around the rim please – if you’d be so kind”. Oz’s own dark rum, or ‘Bundy’, is good whilst not quite in the same league as the Caribbean El Dorados or Diplomaticos, but hey ho sometimes you just have to compromise. Pinch me and tell me I’m not dreaming, what a special, unique and mesmerising day.

And so to bed, and to sleep above wallabies doing the very same under the stilted floor of our tent. Goodnight little Skippy.

Fate is inexorable – and lead us to this glorious place.