The Ghan, The Alice & The Rock

Hello from Alice Springs!

I arrived in Alice on the Ghan Railway, which runs from Adelaide in the far south to Darwin in the far north. The journey between the two is just over 48 hours, and the main stop in the middle is Alice, so I got off here for a few days in the red centre. Despite the fact that 24 hours on a train is appealing to almost no one, it was a fabulous way to see the outback and the vaste amount of Australia that is totally unpopulated. The sunset on the first day was a mixture of burnt orange and dusky yellow, which gradually gave way to this incredible lilac light that you can only truly find when you are in the middle of bloody nowhere. The Ghan itself is quite nice really - despite being in the most economy seats (most people opt for tiny cabins) there was loads of leg room and the seats reclined quite a long way. The man in the seat next to me (who was large and mustachioed) disappeared during one of my naps and never returned, so I had a bit of room to myself. One of the funny things about such a long trip is that you can take people watching to the next level - instead of glancing at the people walking past the window of Starbucks, you get to see a window into a day in the life of your train buddies. My favourite was Lanny, who was about my height, had a huge flower arrangement in her hair, two pierced eyebrows, two nose rings and bright blue finger nails. She was about 70. Nearby were a Japanese couple who had three pairs of shoes each around their feet, including (but not limited to) trainers, crocs, slippers and heels. They also seemed to have brought a kitchen with them, as across the 24 hours I saw them produce 2 loaves of bread, 1 pot of jam, 1 squeezy mayo, 2 whole lettuces, 4 tomatoes, 4 pints of milk and a box of cereal. Very strange.



I have worked out that the train takes so long for 2 reasons - it chugs along at about 60mph and it stops for up to 3 hours at a time randomly along the route. One such example was at Port Augusta (a town I can safely say is not worth visiting) where we were told we could 'explore the station and not stray far' for an HOUR. Never one to find a barren station all that interesting, I trotted off to town and got myself some dinner before returning to find that some people hadn't even left the train! Back en route we were treated to regular tannoy announcements about our whereabouts and sights outside (shrub, shrub, shrub, wild horse!, shrub, shrub) which was amusing. We were invited at the start of the trip to have our photos taken with the train crew, who were each introduced with a round of applause. To my shock a queue formed and people were duly snapping pictures of the crew - so that gives you a little idea of what they are like. I can only assume this is for the Americans. (By the way, none of these photos are my own as I have been an arse and forgotten my camera cable!)


In the morning when we woke up we were in the outback, which is very nice if you are looking at it from an air conditioned train, but not so nice if you are stranded out there on your own as it is one of the most hostile environments in the world. If the heat doesn't kill you, the snakes, spiders and other such beasties probably will. The outback does have a rugged charm of its own, though I can't imagine swapping my leafy dreams of suburbia for a small station out here. The earth is richly red which is of course one of the iconic elements out here. All in all, The Ghan was a great way to see some of the middle of Oz, and I can look forward to another 24 hours of train when I shimmy up to Darwin on it tomorrow.

Alice Springs is the biggest town for hundreds of miles, which ought to lend it some charm, however I have not been greatly moved by this place. My hostel, The Haven (clearly a misnomer) is close to town which is great, but the atmosphere is a little lacking and the bathroom in my dorm smells like swamp. I had to tell the disdainful voice in my head (which had started up a round of oh god, oh god) to shut up, and I reminded myself that I am woman, I am invincible etc etc. The first person I met here was a Brit from Harrow of all places so it was obvious from the start that I am going to meet many, many Brits. I made some friends with the girls in the dorm and we went out for a beer and whathaveyou which was great. Unfortunately they all left at 5am the next day, so I spent Friday wandering around Alice on my own, which was surprisingly good. The shopping sucks but I went to the Pioneer Women's Hall of Fame which was so good. It is only small and run by volunteers, but in the middle of rural ish Australia there is a place dedicated to celebrating the fantastic achievements of little-known women who worked the land, fought for Aboriginal rights and raised scores of orphan children as their own. It was lovely. I left feeling very inspired and feministy. I then dropped into the Reptile Centre (despite hating most reptiles on the basis of fear) and was told not to worry if a big lizard was strolling around the place, and that I could stroke his back (!) but under no circumstances was I to touch his head or tail. Lovely. I stared uneasily at all the most deadly snakes snoozing in their tanks, and hoped there were no parceltongues strolling around for a Chamber of Secrets sort of a moment, then went outside to meet Terry, who is a saltwater croc from Darwin. He was not very friendly but he obligingly snapped his huge jaws in my direction for a photo. They did a talk too, and I managed to shake off my fear and hold a beared dragon and let a blue tongued thingy lick my face! Australia is doing funny things to me clearly. I also (much to my own surprise) volunteered to hold Barry, a huge olive python, who promptly wound himself around my body and licked my neck. I am so proud. I am woman!, etc etc.


Yesterday I took a day trip out to Uluru (also called Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (also called The Olgas). The park out 460km southwest of Alice and it is the equivalent of driving to Newcastle from London for a day trip (clearly foolish as Newcastle is best at night). However two five hour coach trips did not scare me (24 hours on a train makes 5 hours seem like a picnic) so I left Alice in the dark corners of 5am to head south. Uluru and Kata Tjuta are both very sacred to the Anangu Aborigines, who have lived in the area for 10,000 years plus, and it is generally regarded to be one of the key things to do on a trip to Oz. I met an Aussie called Janine on our tour and we got on like a house on fire which was great. (I have learned that I am a great person for sharing - I love to share experiences with everyone, and when you have no friends in a country thousands of miles away, you have to befriend everyone in sight in order to do so. It also helps because it is not easy to take a pic of yourself in front of a huge landmark without some help.) Anywho, we headed to Kata Tjuta first of all and went for a walk around it. It is quite different to Uluru as it is made up of several domes (Kata Tjuta is in fact Anangu for 'heads many') but it is also very impressive, and it has a great presence. The whole area around it is wonderfully tranquil.


Uluru is however the main attraction and it is exciting to see it standing solemnly on its own. It is such an iconic, familiar image that you cannot help but stare at it. It is so sacred that the Anangu ask you not to climb it, but unfortunately idiot people ignore them and there is now a visible white scar on the face of the rock where they have walked. We went for two walks around the base with our guides (which was great as there were only 10 of us in our group)and saw lots of Aborginal cave paintings. There are so many stories behind the rock - every crevice, wave or indent has a tale behind it (often of an angry snake or a naughty lizard). It is very powerful, that is for sure. We had a sunset BBQ (the sunset that never happened due to a thick cloud base) and headed home, watching Crocodile Dundee en route - a movie that, despite being iconic, has very little in the way of a plot. Once we were back in the middle of nowhere, the clouds lifted and we could suddenly see thousands of stars and the milky way. I don't know if it was the rock, the stars, or the exhilaration of the day, but I felt charged with energy, and spent the last two hours of the trip staring up out of the window at the perfect sky.

Adelaide

So I have finally found some time to sit down and regale you with what I have been up to since I arrived in Australia some 10 days ago. I am currently living it up in Adelaide with my godfather and his family which has been amazing. Given it is my first time backpacking - and backpacking alone at that - it has been so comforting to have somewhere to call home while I settle in to the Aussie lifestyle (which as it turns out is not so different to English life, except for good weather and better wine). I have to confess I really scoffed at the idea of it being 'winter' here, having seen on the weather that the Adelaide winter is often about 17 degrees this time of year but it has been bloody chilly since I arrived! Having packed almost no warm clothing (it's Australia for crying out loud!) I have pretty much lived in the only two jumpers I brought with me. Often worn one on top of the other while I huddle with the dog by the fire in the lounge.

Aside from the hurricane style winds and rains that accompanied my first three days here the weather has been fairly decent considering this is the coldest winter Adelaide has seen in decades. It was quite a balmy 20 degrees (only one jumper required) this weekend at the coast, where I went to my godfamily's beach house in Carrickalinga (which has to be the best name for a seaside town in the world, ever). I saw my first kangaroo on the way down which was really exciting, followed my my first sight of kangaroo roadkill, which was only slightly less exciting. My GF took me out on his boat for some 'touristing' and some fishing, which is one of the highlights of the trip so far. We found a whole load of sealions sleeping on the rocks on the cliffs (I really wish I hadn't asked about the great white sharks at this point as sealions and seals are literally their bread and butter, and as my GF cheerfully told me, they do indeed come this close to the shore and yes they are still around this time of year). We also went fishing for snook (best name for a fish ever?) and caught one, at which point my triumph withered away into yelps of DON'T GET IT NEAR ME! as it flopped about in my GF's hands. Squid are very popular here and are often served BBQ'd with salt and pepper (why, god, why?) and we (my GF) caught three, including one that inked everywhere. You have never truly seen it all until you have watched a squiggly slimy creature shoot mucus-y ropey black snot all over the back of a pristine white boat. Ick. The best bit of the trip for me was when we found a pod of wild dolphins (infinitely more successful at catching squid than yours truly) and played with them for a good 15 mins. They came up very close to use and even swam along side us under the bow. I have never seen anything like it! The fear of great white sharks dissolved as I found myself hanging off the front of the bow to watch these beautiful creatures play. It was truly a magical moment!


Adelaide itself is reknown for being very beautiful, which is very true in some parts (alas not in the main shopping street of Rundle Mall, which looks like the place 60's architecture came to die). Its Saturday Market is a fantastic hub of local life and character, and I had a lovely Malaysian meal with my GF and his wife down in the China town area. The River Torrens runs through the city, and it's catchment creek thingys are all over suburbia - the parks all have these gorgeous streams which makes walking the dog totally idyllic. Architecture aside, the shopping in Adelaide is pretty good and though I haven't really bought anything yet (what with saving my dollars for food and shelter and all) it has been lovely to see the Aussie fashions and whatnot. I have also realised that one of the benefits of being a literature student (or indeed anyone who loves reading) is that wherever you are in the world, you can feel totally and utterly at home in a good book shop. I like to visit the books if I get a wave of homesickness! A nerdy but comforting Mecca - and Borders even has a little Paperchase which was way more exciting than it should have been. :)

Adelaide also has the Adelaide Hills on its doorstep and my GF's wife and I went up to Hahndorf in said hills this week. Hanhdorf is a popular tourist trap as it is an old German settlement. It is pretty and would be quaint if there weren't signs screaming about bratwurst and other German wares, because as we all know, bratwurst was designed to be a hilarious word, and not in any way cute or charming. The village looks more North American than anything I have ever seen in Germany! We found the most incredible shop at the very end of the main street called Chocolate at No. 5 (like Chanel!) and I had the single best coffee I have ever had! In the UK an iced latte is just milky coffee with a couple of ice cubes, but I was presented with a tall glass decorated with frozen melted chocolate, filled with gorgeous coffee and topped with ice cream! I am starting to like this country rather a lot.

We also went for an amazing organic lunch and then an amazing glass of vino (Australia has seduced me with its Reisling wines!) and we went out to Mount Lofty viewing platform to view the view. You could see everything! Truly beautiful (even in the rain) and so expansive. Australia is so BIG. You just don't realise when you look on a globe because it is so removed from all the other big countries, but it is huge.


So what next? Well I have decided to completely reverse my original route since I don't want to be cold and wet any longer than I have to, so I am now heading up towards Darwin next. I am taking the Ghan Railway up to Alice Springs on Wednesday - it is a 24 hour train journey through the outback and it is meant to be one of the most breath taking train journeys you can take. I am thinking of it as the Orient Express of Oz, though I will of course be slumming it in coach as opposed to living it up in the private suites (which cost about $3000 compared to my super awesome deal of $149!). I am staying in Alice Springs for about 5 days and I am hoping to get out to Uluru (Ayers Rock) for a day as it is meant to be stunning. I am then jumping on the Ghan again for another 24 hours up to Katherine, then Darwin. Got about a week in Darwin where I am hoping to get to Kakadu National Park to see some crocodiles and whatnot, then flying to Cairns on 20th Sept for who knows how long. They money will be pretty thin on the ground by then so I am planning to get a job in Cairns and stay there for a while. It's reputation as the party town of the north makes me nostalgic for my own party toon of the north so I have a feeling I am going to fit in just fine. :)

Just want to end by thanking some folks. First of all, Ma, Pa and Sis for being incredibly supportive and very good at emailing. Second of all, to all you lovely folk who wrote me plane letters - I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are all warm, kind and hilarious people and I will cherish those letters forever. And finally, and most importantly, I dedicate this blog (not much to offer but I have made them cupcakes!) to my godfamily for being so welcoming and so kind - you have put me up for two weeks and you have made my first taste of Australia really wonderful. It means the world to me.

That's all for now folks. Oodles of love to you all back home xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

PS - to all who were concerned, they DO have crumpets here and they are HUGE. at this rate i will be emigrating here. :) xx
PPS - photos to follow soon hopefully!

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

As most of you are aware by now, I am moving to Australia next week for nearly 6 months. Having spent several months listlessly looking for jobs and even going to 5 or 6 interviews, I have decided to veer off course and try my hand at something I have never done before – traveling alone.


While my familial lifestyle has enabled me to live abroad during my childhood and travel a bit with my family (do holidays to Portugal count?), I have never actually travelled. You know, backpack on, map in hand, where-the-hell-am-I-going-next sort of attitude. So instead of following the path to employment and London living, I am following a whim – which will hopefully help me to uncover parts of the world (and maybe parts of myself) I have never experienced. And of course there is always the distant hope I might also uncover Hugh Jackman somewhere along the way.


So this is a very brief little blog, to tell you that for the next few months, I will be blogging from down under. I will be hopefully sharing some adventures and experiences (which will be a nice change from my cynical musings) and keeping those of you who might miss me informed of what I am up to. Thanks for being a fabulous reader base by the way – it is so so lovely getting notes and messages about the blog from random people I would never have expected to follow it! You are all wonderful shiny people and I thank you. Wish me luck folks.


Next stop, Adelaide!

LGB Tease

I have always been a great believer in the fluidity of sexuality. You only have to look at the first person I ever remembered being attracted to to understand that…



Yeah, exactly. In all his gender bending glory, Jareth the Goblin King was my very first love. Perhaps it was the mind games, perhaps it was the ruffled cravat, perhaps it was his enormous, shiny blonde mullet – whichever it was, I remember falling madly in love with it when I was about six or seven. It was probably a fairly good sign that I was never going to settle for being all that conventional. And being six or seven, I thought I would automatically be entitled to whatever or whoever I chose.



Of course, turns out I am not actually entitled to a piece of David Bowie, which after many years I have come to accept, however I have maintained since then that people should be free to love and marry whosoever they choose. I am so grateful to have been lucky enough to have grown up with parents who have made it clear that my sister and I are free to be exactly who we want to be (though my mother’s vision of me did not include the tongue piercing I got a year ago, and incidentally removed 6 months later). So after years of believing that life and love are about freedom, imagine my disappointment in finding that the world continues to be incapable of fixing the archaic injustices that are inflicted on many people of the LGBTQ world.



I am not an overtly political animal - I don’t find myself in heated intellectual debates about the economy, I don’t read the news every week and I don’t have high brow discussions about foreign policy, the MP expenses scandal, or Milliband’s choice of tie. If it’s on Huffington Post, I might be aware of it. I might see the odd piece of political news on my way to Caitlin Moran’s column in The Times. I might even spot an article or two if it’s highly topical on Twitter, but I stress that I am not overly intellectual when it comes to political issues. However I have been following the gay marriage – or ‘marriage’ as I like to call it – journey for some time now, and all I can see is that my inner six year old is thoroughly disappointed.



While we in Britain have civil partnerships and a few of the states in the USA now allow marriage between same sex couples, it is hardly a great victory that a handful of places in the Western world offer LGBTQ people the chance to marry. The religious dimension of allowing gay people to marry is relevant but essentially redundant – the bible’s rules on life also insist shellfish is evil and that we reserve the right to kill disobedient teenagers. These arguments have been made a hundred times (the shellfish one is a personal favourite) and have had little impact on the religious types who uphold marriage as sanctity between men and women. But non religious heterosexuals marry all the time – so what’s to stop LBGTQ people who are actually religious from doing the same? My experience of religion is that it aims to teach a meaningful and positive way of life – and since when did ‘love thy neighbour’ come with an asterisk?



I don’t know how I am going to be able to look my children in the eye and explain to them how it took so long for the world to accept LGBTQ folks as equal citizens. I just don’t understand how a world as evolved as ours can be so backwards in so many ways. It’s a naïve standing point to say the least, but why can’t people just celebrate other people falling in love? Regardless of the politics, and the bullshit and the religious garbage, shouldn’t we be teaching our children to believe that everyone has the right to love and be loved by whoever makes them happy? And if marriage is the most popular way to express that love, why stop them? Oh and don’t even get started on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.



So as Pride Month ends in the USA and Pride season kicks off in Blighty, lets hope the future generations of politicians the world over get a grip and give some of the finest people I know the chance to show the world how much they love their partners. And as for Pride itself, I will be up in the Northern version with a daiquiri in one hand and a big ass flag in the other.

Happy Pride everyone – show those political robots how fucking fabulous you are.


P.S. yes I totally stole the title of this post from The L Word. <3

Fear Itself: Me and My Maternal Side

My life is punctuated by moments which are, on reflection, rather alarming. I am, as my friends/family/strangers-on-the-street can attest, a somewhat maternal person, which for most people involves a certain need to nurture, a tendency to worry and an inevitable desire to (one day) have children. The fully fledged maternal types are out there with their yummy mummy Bugaboos, their organic, home made baby food and their eco friendly, terry cloth nappies. This is the Western middle class vision of motherhood and it promises beauty, wonder and many, many decaf lattes in the Mecca that is Starbucks. Of course the playdate swapping, bugaboo pushing elements aside, motherhood is notoriously one of the most gruelling, stressful and hardcore things a woman can do. The difficulty of being a mother is not lost on me, though of course these things cannot be truly appreciated until experienced. But back to my original point – my life is littered with WTF moments that suggest my maternal instinct is running about six degrees hotter than normal, and it is really starting to scare me.

I have always been one to coo at a cute baby passing by, or glance admiringly at a pregnant woman’s belly, sighing to myself about the miracle of life. I have always loved looking at my own baby pictures, and picturing myself some day sitting in a rocking chair, babe in arms, looking impossibly gorgeous (soft focus of course) and just being a wonderful mum. I would be part of the latte tribe, pushing my designer push chair around Hampstead Heath, stopping to chat with my fellow yummy mummies about diaper rash, cradle cap and the latest of our various familial dramas. Picture me, wind machine in place, swanning around in a maxi dress (maxi dresses involve an obligatory amount of swanning) with a smiling happy baby on one hip, while I simultaneously make organic salads and grow my own vegetables.



I even have an alternate reality as a single mother, in which I basically live out my own version of the Gilmore Girls, complete with sleepy American town and lovable local characters, raising a daughter who magically becomes my best friend.



At what point did the fantasy go too far..? The salad? You got me there – I don’t even like salad. But I am that scary – I want all of these fantasies so much that I like nothing more than a good long session picturing a dream version of motherhood. I am the scary childless woman that finds herself wondering around Mothercare on a Saturday afternoon; I am the woman who is already trying to decide between Pampers and Huggies; I am the woman who can tell you the name, price and ingredients of most ready made baby foods. And you thought it was bad that you’d already picked your future kids’ names.

At what point did I become this scary? I have worked out a vision so elaborate, so unlikely, that I actively crave it, despite the fact that I am broke, unemployed and to top it off, single. Don’t get me wrong – I have no plans whatsoever to have babies for at least ten years. It makes absolutely no sense in terms of my life plan, my situation… everything. I can only attribute this desire to some strange biological need which surfaces every time I wonder past Mamas and Papas on Regent St.

And it’s not just the scary fantasies, or the freakish knowledge of the baby market – I find myself actively worrying about people all the time. The moment someone is an hour late and un-contactable, I see car crashes, accidents, kidnappings – I work out scenarios of how to react, what to do, how to deal. In worst case scenarios, I call local hospitals to make sure the offending late-comer has not been admitted, because by the time I have wondered if they are there or not, I can’t convince myself to stop worrying. Are my kids going to love me, or what? I might just be the world's scariest mother.



So there you have it – a frightening insight into a scary brain. Don’t worry though – for now, only a tiny part of me is concerned with rocking chairs and baby food. The dominant parts of me are concerned with the grave prospects of finding a job, a place to live… the usual things required for general human survival. There’s no part of me that believes a baby is what I need. No part of me whatsoever.

For now.

Belgium: amusing things I have seen

they have some very tiny pineapples.


...but their peppers are huge.


they have some really creepy maternity clothes.


i have no idea what this is either. it looks like a cross between a melon and a grapefruit.


lol.


ketchup is apparently mexican?


i still haven't found out what this is but it's everywhere.



they add strange things to juice and call it 'essential'. (essential for yoga, apparently?)


they picked a much more apt name for twilight.


they have a sense of humour.

All in all, Belgium is proving to be quite amusing. Dear old Daddy is moving here, hence the slightly random visit. Goodbye Pa for now. Enjoy your time on the continent!

Stella Artois s’il vous plait, or ‘the worst skiing of my life, and why I’m loving it’

Picture the scene: beautiful sunshine, fresh white snow, manicured pistes and a mountain that looks like a freaking postcard. The piste-bashers are out constantly, carving out that gorgeous corduroy snow, and people everywhere are smiling and feeling smug, saying ‘this is what life is all about.’

Yeah, that was last year. Not long ago in sunny Vail, on what was one of the best weeks of my life, I thought I might just be the luckiest girl in all the world – and to be fair, I was probably in the top ten. This year however, minus a quarter of our family unit, I optimistically ventured out with just Ma and Pa to the French Alps for a week of pure skiing bliss.



By the time we reached the queue at Gatwick (note, we were queuing outside the terminal at 6:30am) I started to wonder why we hadn’t picked a different airline. An hour into the queue later, I sat on my 20kg bag of boots and thermals and wondered why we hadn’t gone to Tahiti instead.

A short flight to the world’s most inefficient airport later (thanks Chambery for that thrilling hour), we were on a coach to the mountains. The lack of snow was a little disconcerting, but we figured we would see snow once we got to our resort. Before long we were at the chalet, and shown to a room small enough to rival Harry Potter’s cupboard under the stairs. With three tiny single beds crammed into a tiny room, I felt like Goldilocks meets Alice in Wonderland. Fourteen people staying in a chalet that should probably sleep eight is also rather interesting – I have already made enemies with a fat man that used the term ‘fagotty’ in front of me. If you’re going to be a dick, mate, at least use a real freaking word.

And then there is the snow – slushy, sugary and in many cases non-existant, the snow is the worst stuff I have ever attempted to ski on. Gone are the days of carving gorgeous turns in the pristine powder – now I am lucky to make it down a blue run in one piece without snow plough. And skiing is something I consider myself to be not bad at – pistes that wouldn’t phase me have become ‘too narrow’ or ‘too steep’. Painkillers for breakfast and Stella for lunch is the only real way to make it through the day without crying. Combine the slightly permanent grimace with the French plaits I have been wearing and I look like I have recently enrolled in the Hitler Youth.

But alas, it is not all bad. The three course meals in the evening have been pretty darn good and the endless amount of wine is highly agreeable. We have even played the odd round of Articulate with some of the nicer guests, though I did struggle to contain the freakishly competitive side of me when it comes to board games. And though my legs ache, my feet hurt and my morale is shot to shit, I am having a wonderful week away. Promise.

Aside from discovering I do in fact still speak French, I have also discovered I have completely abnormal posture (thank you lovely French man for sorting out my boots) which makes skiing more painful. Typical – and all that time people thought I was being a drama queen! Imagine! And even though my sister is not here, the fact that Ma and Pa and I are in it together makes it rather amusing. From exchanging looks across the dinner table to sneaking off for a cheeky vino, mummy and daddy dearest have once again proven to be more than your average parents.

Though next time they tell me they’ve booked a really great chalet for skiing, I will think twice about believing them.