Where's the Beach? A Journey Across Australia

Central Diary - Links

Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5 - Day 6 - Day 7 - Day 8 - Day 9 - Day 10 - Day 11 - Day 12
Lyrics to Yellow Man - Final Note

INTRODUCTION

This is very long, and often tedious, just try to look amused. Really long.

I arrived back on the Wednesday night of the 11^th of April and started writing this account on the 15^th of April. I have just finished it, 10 p.m. on Wednesday the 18^th. In the days between my arrival home and the conclusion of the diary I have read bits of two books. “Benetton: Life In The Fast Lane”, written by a mechanic of a Formula 1 team telling of an entire F1 season, is roughly the style I have adopted. I tend to elaborate on certain events and skip quickly over other less important events or ones I can’t remember well. The other book is Jackie Chan's autobiography titled “I Am Jackie Chan”. This is a perfect example of many simple English errors, many of which I am trying to avoid like the plague.

As a result, my detailed account of those twelve days will be remarkably different, not just from perspective, but in a weird patchwork style of writing which is not the fluent stuff Mrs. Homersham would want me to write. At this point, I cannot be bothered separating this into twelve different pages for a web site, but I might in the future, with accompaniment by pictures from the digital camera.

If a point needs clarification or you think something I have written is particularly ignorant and obnoxious, then you’d better tell me or email me at sopat@start.com.au. Send me some emails of support so I can post them on the main page, like the foreword of a book. Thanks for reading!

DAY ONE

As I stepped out of my mother’s car, bags in hand, I couldn’t help but think that something was wrong. I wasn’t ready. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten my pillow, which I had, and promptly sent my mother off to fetch when I got hold of her, it was something else. It did not feel good to be going on a twelve day trip not feeling right. I wondered if I ever would be ready.

It was just over four months ago that I had dismissed the idea of going to Central and just over three months ago that I had backflipped and finally accepted the offer. I had waited until my good friend Ben had returned from North America, and to my surprise discovered that most people were going. Obviously I had spoken to the wrong people. Ben and I nearly coaxed Marko into accompanying us, as I had heard there were tents of three, but Marko did not travel with us. Whispers around the camp said that he might be off to “the Mother Country” later this year, and thus, would not pay for another trip. As it turned out, only two people stayed in each tent, so I gladly joined Ben. I dare say that if he had not gone, I would too have stayed.

Robert, my good comrade, had decided from the first mention of Central that it was not his cup of tea or plate of nachos, one would say. However, he had provided Ben and I with a bag of goodies the day before our departure. These goodies would prove that Robbie had an influence on Central, even when he was two states away. So for the next twelve days, Ben and I would take care of his digital camera and equipment and his meowing toy cat, Cristiano. He only had Cristiano for a couple of weeks and was keen to get a few photos of him in popular tourist spots around the country.

It was this digital camera that would entertain me for these couple of weeks, I immediately took to it like a mother to a baby or a confused teenager to an Antonio Banderas blow up doll. I didn’t like strangers to touch it, nor wear down its batteries, of which I soon discovered had very short lives. I had played around with it the night before, with some success I thought. Ben had other ideas about my photography skills. I felt I could take a few artistic shots on this trip. I was sick of dull, posed photos. Sarah (or Milly), always complains that I have the same cheesy smile in all her photos. I tried to mix it up a little this trip. Little was I to know that I would be hunted by our own travelling paparazzi along this trip, with posed group photo after posed group photo. This was one of the frustrations that ultimately triggered some of my signature psychotic behaviour. Maybe not psychotic, but enough of that.

I took a photo just before 6:30 a.m. of Brodie waiting for everyone else to arrive. We didn’t really know what to say, we just sort of looked around and tried to look awake. I sensed that he, like myself, was not incredibly psyched about going, was not bouncing off the walls in anticipation and perhaps was also questioning why he was up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning and about to spend 12 days with a bunch of colleagues. I envisioned Robbie sleeping in a warm, cosy bed. I then remembered my big sister’s last words to me some 20 minutes ago: “Most importantly have fun!!”. She’d just caught a taxi back home after a night of clubbing and looked better than I did at that time of the morning. But I would have fun. I would make sure of it.

The remaining passengers soon arrived and the girls attacked us in a frenzy of hugs and excitement. Keep in mind that Briony had packed a week in advance, as opposed to my hurried cramming at about 10 p.m. the previous night. Most of the guys were surprised enough that they were awake and were not in a definite social sort of mood. I’m sure one of the girls is nodding their head and saying “they weren’t in a social mood the whole trip!” at this very moment, yes?

We boarded the white coach, which we branded as “our coach” and was later named “Uterus the Love Bus”. I could get into the naming process, but it is hardly worth the time. Let’s just add that the other coach, the red coach was named “Rochelle Rochelle”. There was inevitably a sense of excitement which did not calm down for an hour or so. The FOX radio blaring did not ease any initial tension that I had. I kept reminding myself that radio reception runs out somewhere.

First stop and we're already into soccer. Not that it's a bad thing.

Our first stop was at a petrol station after about 1 and a half hours of travelling. While the women had already formed an immense queue to the toilets, some of us picked up Cokes from the servo and I took out the soccer ball from my backpack and we formed a small circle and juggled the ball, like playing hackey sack with a soccer ball. This was to set the tone for our entire trip, or at least the first week. Most stops took this appearance. The original 15 minutes quickly turned into 30-odd minutes because the ladies’ toilets queue did not ease up. I discussed with Ben, Brodie and Travis why the women had to stop so soon. No solution arose.

I obviously remember all that quite vividly, unlike most of the trip, which soon became monotonous. I spent most of the bus trip to our overnight camp at Mildura listening to Ben’s discman or playing with the digital camera, which I did for most of the bus time. We had Robbie burn us six CDs of our favourite songs, which he also added in his personal finds. Some of these finds would become camp anthems, others were just crap we quickly avoided and skipped over. Nothing personal. We listened to these CDs a lot during the trip. I attribute holding on to my last threads of sanity to these CDs.

We spent lunch playing hackey sack and wandering down to the supermarket, with Ben, Brodie and I in our Akubra-imitation hats we bought from K-Mart the weekend before. Politely taking your hat off and saying “Howdy par-ner” in a bad Chinese accent (as in Shanghai Noon with Jackie Chan) had already become a catch-cry before we boarded the bus. Ben and I had taught Laurence, the French assistant, to say “Howdy partner” a few days before, much to the amazement of our French teacher when Laurence walked out and said “Howdy Madame!” Laurence didn’t know many of us, but we greeted each other with a “howdy partner” as our paths crossed along the trip. (This might be because she forgot our names. We told her off later and she remembered them after that.)

Ben and Pat with everyone's favourite toy cat that belongs to Robbie, Cristiano.

Ben took Cristiano (that’s the cat, remember) off the bus at lunch. When you squeeze his tummy, he meows three times. We’d taken him to French class and Niki had already fallen in love with him. We took him to Eastern Zone volleyball and Frankie seemed adamant not to give him up then as well. Cristiano was a very cute little toy and I promised Robbie I’d take care of him. People had a good feel of him, squeezing him even though they knew he’d just do the same thing … meow again. I think that was when people begun getting irritated with the constant meowing. Ben put him away, in the seat pocket on the bus, so he could stare out at us on the bus trip.

I felt that the stops were too long and that we weren’t getting anywhere very quickly. However, we did arrive in plenty of time. We stared at the fast food restaurants as we passed them in Mildura, but the bus did not stop. On the contrary, we kept travelling further and further out of town until we reached the Riverbend Tourist Park. Mr. Castles gave us a stirring rendition of how to correctly set up a tent, but we wouldn’t really know until we tried it ourselves. Initial confusion was overcome and I felt a sense of achievement knowing that we could put up a tent, although Ben did most of the work.

Mr. Castles gives a great demo of how to put up a tent, to our applause.

Ben, Brodie, Simon (or Salty) and I played our juggling the soccer ball game while just about everyone else investigated the beach, which was apparently the best one on the trip. No big loss for me. When everyone returned, we got a game of soccer going and Eric, the Brazilian exchange student joined in. It was quite clear that he was good and that he missed “the World Game”. Soccer was the only thing we had that all the trendier kids didn’t have. Briony stood next to me in goal, drooling over Eric, who was playing without a shirt, another trend that we saw often throughout the trip. By the end of the trip, she no longer screamed and caught the ball when it was coming her way, but it was quite clear that her soccer skills were not going to impress Eric. Nor were any of ours. After a while, he stopped passing it to the crappier players and then he just stopped passing it as much, preferring to showcase his own skills, which were in abundance compared to our simple methods. And before you say it, yes, I am very jealous. Those who have seen me try to juggle would compare it to an unco-ordinated Irish dancer or a poorly balanced chicken with dislocated knees.

We quickly socialised with our coach driver, Greg, and his wife, Deb, who astoundingly wanted to learn our names, along with the rest of the 50 students and teachers going on our coach. This simply amazed me. Dinner was carbonara, which was not very appealing. I don’t know what the hell that “ham” was, but it was weird. And I would have to get used to eating salads. I really don’t like salads or just about anything. In our house, we gradually rotate through meals every couple of weeks, so I get used to everything. Some say a change is as good as a holiday, but this was coincidentally change and a holiday. Change makes me nervous, I like to feel in control of things or at least be able to predict things (a natural meteorologist, eh?). I did not raise my disapprovals, as it seemed the meal went down well with most people. Mr. Castles sat next to me and gobbled it up in a whirlwind. I am a slow and picky eater, there will always be something left on my plate when Mr. Castles finishes, even if he gets served 20 minutes after me.

We spent time after dinner around a camp fire, sharing stories and calling home. I sent a message to my big sister and got a quick reply. There wasn’t much to say yet, really, despite how much I have written already. Everything well at home. All well in Mildura. Several girls got their hair done in dredd-like fashion, which stayed for the entire trip. I set about drinking some of the plethora of soft drink that was weighing down my backpack and taking up valuable space.

Rangi had thrown up on the bus, an unfortunate thing to happen on the first day. That must have been a bloody difficult start for her and she did well to put on a brave face about everything. I was hoping it was someone we hated, so I could slag them off for stinking up the bus, but Rangi’s too nice for that sort of thing. Smell didn’t last long anyway, because someone had some Febreze or something. She sat next to me around the camp fire and something was obviously bothering her, she was sick. I think the only reason she kept chatting to me was because I did not once mention that she’d been sick or if she felt better or needed help. I imagine she would get very tired of 80 people trying to help her and not letting her put it behind her. So many people offered condolences that it felt like a family member had died.

After a shower, in which I managed to avoid the redback spider that was apparently there, Ben and I set off for bed at 9:30. The teachers made sure that we shut up by 10, which was standard procedure after that. Go to bed and half an hour after that lights should be out, no noise at all. A final sip of my Solo and I turned the torch off, with Cristiano separating my sleeping bag from Ben’s.

DAY TWO

Breakfast was good, even though people were eating spaghetti on toast, which remains a mystery to me. I could see that I was going to enjoy breakfast more than any other meal, just like at home. We get the choice of cereals and the option of toast. That means control. Unfortunately, the milk was only that UHT crap and the coffee was International Roast. Giving up chocolate milk and coffee for 12 days would suck.

We got away at a reasonable time, after we shabbily packed away the tents and Ben’s pillow was taken for a short time. Although someone just picked Ben’s pillow up, he got it back and that was the end of it. I was baffled as to why someone would take a pillow just because it was unattended, but Ben wanted no further arguments, just his pillow. This cool approach would be required later that day.

Travis looks confused, Brodie thinks something certainly is funny.

Brodie unveiled his cheap Jinmao brand batteries in the morning coach trip, once again on Uterus the Love Bus, which earned it’s name that morning. These Jinmao batteries were $2 for 16, which is outrageously cheap. We soon discovered why. The digital camera batteries ran out, as I had taken so many photos (most of which were erased because they were crap). The Jinmao batteries proved an unworthy replacement, lasting about 45 seconds. After that we cried out the brand name of this cheap Chinese crap many times.

We stopped for lunch in Burra, which in case you are wondering is absolutely nowhere important, somewhere in South Australia. We passed the border earlier that morning, adjusted watches and disposed of fruit. You know what they say about South Australia being 20 years behind, so we entered 1981 provisionally…

The rest of the group explored the town, the supermarket or the toilets while we stayed exactly where the coaches had stopped and juggled around the soccer ball. We weren’t far from a large slope leading down to a river and a few stray passes headed down the hill. As this happened, we screamed out “Jinmao!!” in unison, for no apparent reason, as shouting did little to help save the ball. The long reeds at the river banks saved the ball three times, thankfully. I didn’t want to lose my ball on the second day.

Lunch was hot dogs, and Brodie, Ben and I ventured down to the supermarket (only to find it closed for lunch!) and took the long walk back to the coach for another hot dog. I felt pretty good after that, it put me in a good mood and made the bus trip go well for me.

A final stop in Hawker was longer than anticipated when the red coach, Rochelle Rochelle, developed a flat tyre. There was nowhere to play soccer, as we were in the intersection in the middle of this small town, so I bought batteries for the camera and treated myself to a chocolate milk. I told myself that I wouldn’t waste money, but the chocolate milk was really good and I made a note to do it again when necessary. We got going soon enough after the tyre though.

Prior to our stop in Hawker, Cristiano had been sitting in the seat pocket in front of Ben, like the day before, but when we got back on, he had gone. The meowing of Cristiano kept going, driving people insane, but it wasn’t us! Mr. Edwards threatened to find the cat and rip it apart, but took it no further. Cristiano was not returned. Now this pissed me off right and royal, because I’d promised Robbie to take care of him. At least I knew someone still had him. There were wild accusing fingers on the bus as to who really took Cristiano, but I couldn’t even pick the location of where the meows where coming from. I’m quite certain people were leading Ben and I astray as to finding the whereabouts of Cristiano. In the end, we settled with accusing Lauren, who to this moment stands as the prime suspect.

When we reached our destination for two nights camp, Rawnsley Park, there was a look of utter horror on people’s faces. The whole thing was brown dust and brown rocks, not a shade of green anywhere. It overlooked Wilpena Pound, our trip for tomorrow, but it was a shocker of a place to camp. Ebony said it had no showers and the toilets were drop toilets. Brodie and Ben’s bad memories of Outdoor Education camp came reeling back (their trip was useful, Ben knew his stuff about tents). However, both of Ebony’s statements were completely untrue, just rumours and we should have expected nothing less from Ebony. She thought you could drink sea water like normal water, didn’t know what aviation was and later argued that goats don’t have anuses and that Central Australia was a state. She’s as dumb as the proverbial outhouse.

Before we even got off the coach, Matt and I were the last to leave (being the politest of them all and letting others go before). To my shock, I stepped down the first two steps and saw the door shutting in front of me! I momentarily contemplated squirming through, but there was no way I would fit, and Matt would still be on the bus! So we waited and waited. For about 10 minutes. I was wondering if they’d noticed we were still on board. Nobody seemed to be doing anything about it. Greg did come and open the doors, but it was still a nervous experience.

We ran off into a bit of scrub to get some good photos of Wilpena Pound from a distance, but the digital camera wasn’t build for scenic photos, so mine’s pretty ordinary. When I returned, along with nearly everyone else, I found that Cristiano had been tied in a noose position to my tent. The tent has many laces to tie the sides of the tent back. It was the centre of attention for a little while, then I untied the noose and it appeared that whatever message the catnapper was trying to send us was either to kill it or there was no message. Of course, I suspected Lauren or Hannah. Ben was sliding back and trying not to get too involved. There is always tension between Lauren and Ben. You can sense it, feel it.

After I had accused Lauren and Hannah, I let them know that if they were trying to piss off Ben to not take it out on me or Robbie’s cat. Ben had done something to offend them. I heard from a feminine source that they were going to do something to Ben later that night, which never eventuated. I buried Cristiano under my cap, bag full of cutlery and Akubra hat, out of sight.

Dinner was schnitzel, the hardest schnitzel I’d ever tasted, but still pretty good. I also started to work out who the six vegetarians were. I was just curious. Later, I discussed with Rangi and Georgia about their decision and it was good to see they were fair dinkum about it.

Brodie had to go phone his mummy so she could tape “Trainspotting” for him, so Ben and I escorted him. The line was long, but tolerable. I think it was when we got back from the public phones that I discovered there was a “ransom note” in the middle of the tent, written in poor block letters (an obvious attempt to not give away handwriting), ironically on “Hello Kitty” paper: “THAT WAS NOT SCHNITZEL. BYE BYE KITTY”. I gave out a comical screech and checked for Cristiano. He wasn’t there. They’d rifled through my stuff to get him. That, plainly, was fucking rude. There was a certain degree of desperation involved with wanting to go through my stuff just to get a cat just to piss me off. I thought there was some sort of an unspoken code not to go into other people’s tents uninvited.

This was apparently even funnier than before. It was dark by then and nearly time for bed. Even Mr. Castles came around when everyone had left and the note was handed to him. He laughed his “dirty old man” laugh as I had labelled it, which severely gave me the irrits later in the camp. I started rambling on about how they’d gone through my stuff, stolen something, made off with it and here he was laughing at it! Once Ben and I were in our sleeping bags, complaining that we wanted the cat back, we heard the three meows of Cristiano. He had been placed in front of our tent, the returner long gone from the scene.

Oh well, at least we had Cristiano back. Ben literally buried him in his backpack, I don’t even know where he was, at least a few minutes of scrounging through that bag before you’d come to him. We then tried to get to sleep. I wondered what they would do to Ben, which turned out to be nothing.

They never touched Cristiano again. I don’t think I let many people touch him after that. Cristiano stayed in the backpack for a couple of days and we lent it to Niki to take care of. Consequently, apart from the first two days and Ayers Rock, there aren’t many pictures of Cristiano.

I saw the same sort of people taking Hannah’s toy camel Giorgio. The frantic search for a hiding spot, the laughter when Hannah came in and found her camel was gone, it was all what I’d expected. Later they hung Giorgio by a noose made of a cutlery bag. Ben said something to Hannah like “it hurts, doesn’t it Hannah?” I didn’t even look at her. I knew she was involved with Cristiano’s snatch and I hoped that they would do something a bit worse to her camel. Let Brodie lick it or something. Even later in the trip, the last day in tents, day 10, they put him under Ben’s pillow. Obvious. I just attributed the entire thing to the fact that Lauren wanted to do something to Ben and that the onlookers, predominantly women, were running short of “soapie” entertainment. The characters were the people on that bus. It so happened that we were the centre of attention at times. They would become bored of that, they had no new ideas at all. If it’s not you Lauren, then you’d better clear your name before I slander you any further. If you know it’s not Lauren, quietly let me know who it is then, so I can get rid of this page.

Judging from my writing style, I was and am very angry about this. This put me in a bad mood. For the rest of the trip, I can and will blame every single instance of me becoming rude, upset, selfish, angry, sexist, cynical or tired due to this incident. And that occurred often. You simply do not piss me off on the second day of a twelve day trip! Not like that.

If you don’t like that explanation, then print out this piece of paper and shove it up your arse.

DAY THREE

I was still quite peeved off about the previous day’s “catnapping”, as it had been labelled. It annoyed me most that nobody told me who it was and that nobody apologised for rummaging through my belongings and taking Robbie’s cat. Nothing gives people that right. Nothing.

Today was the first day of walking, up to St. Mary’s Peak. We made our own sandwiches for lunch consisting of chicken loaf, ham and/or salad. We would come to see a lot of these sandwiches as the creativity of the meals eroded away. I saw this walk as another good opportunity to get rid of some Fanta. It was an appealing idea to be sipping a Fanta after a long walk, gazing over the trees and I did so.

The walk seemed to go pointlessly along flat sections until we finally reached a rocky part which was steep. The walk went much slower in the steep section. Not long after the steep section had begun, we arrived at the “saddle” of the mountain. Thankfully there was not enough room for a huge group photo. There were enough great views to capture on film. I sat drinking my Fanta and pondering if I should go to the top of the Peak. The teachers had just advised against it, but that didn’t deter many people. I decided to take the walk back with Ben, Brodie, Trav, Frankie and Elyse (amongst others) and the remainder were left to climb the Peak.

The walk was actually just over 10 km. This was not brought to my attention earlier. It was a bloody long walk. I made my way across the rocks at the front with Trav and Frankie and it was at this point that I should have seen the inevitable: they were courting. Briony is probably having harsh words with me as you’re reading this, as we both obviously have differing definitions of the word flirting. Once we were over the rocky section, we had to wait for the slow ones to catch up, which was fine because I wanted to have a chat with others too. During this wait, we discussed what we missed most and pizza seemed to keep coming up. Frankie said there was a good pizza shop in Coober Pedy, our next night’s stay, so we would go there and get pizza.

I walked up ahead with Ben, Brodie, Trav, Frankie and Elyse, but went ahead with Brodie a few times. He also wanted to just get back to camp and was also becoming irritated at the slow rate that the people were travelling behind us. It was odd for Brodie to be making so much sense, I keep saying “Brodie had also…” I found out later that it was because I had less tolerance for ignorant behaviour that I could sympathise with his views more. Brodie did not cause me to lose sanity at all this trip, which surprised me.

We had to stop and wait every 15 minutes for the slow ones to catch up, so when we found a table we stopped and went to the very back (as we figured we could catch up quickly). Brodie and Ben showed how to rudely overtake and I showed how to overtake nicely. Travis and Frankie were more interested in dilly-dallying, throwing stuff at each other, stealing Trav’s Vortex and crushing biscuits over each other. I tried to stay out of it, that stuff is messy. Then Frankie said she was hurt and would never laugh again. That lasted about 6 seconds. Frankie taught us her song:

“She’s a poor little Frankie, she’s got a whole lot of work to do, and she’s landed herself in poo, with a whole lot of work to do…”

Brodie and Ben had long gone and I tried to get them to go faster, but it was flirting that was first on their minds. Heaven forbid I would mention it to anyone, if word got around to one of the ladies I would never hear the end of it! Now they are official, it’s probably OK to say that. We arrived as the first bus departed and I tried to translate Ben and Brodie’s frantic signalling, “Red Bull”. The shop had Red Bull, of which I am a big fan of and had been searching for the past two days. I picked up two and got on the second bus and sat next to Frankie. In fact, I think I sat next to her the day after that too. It was not for another few days that Travis and Frankie would “develop their special friendship” or whatever you want to call it.

Cristiano did not surface today, probably out of safety rather than anything else. Ben and I used the secret showers, which weren’t that secret or far away, but were significantly cleaner. The state of the showers along our trip were rarely very good. The vegetarians (or “vegetabletarians” as Mr. Castles kept saying) sat together for a vegetarian appetizer, unlike our dim sims, which were excellent. It was decided, then and there, that should the vegetarians be put together again, Ben and I (and later Nick) would sing “Captain Vegetable”, an old Sesame Street song off one of Robbie’s CD. I only like it for two lines, but it became quite popular later on.

I think it was this night that Elyse and Lauren played spit. I had never seen this game before and Elyse was going nuts, screaming out “Shmam!” every time she flipped over a card. I played against her, with success, and made a mental note to talk to Elyse more. Whatever she was on, I wanted some of it, so to speak. I’m not implying that Elyse was on drugs, well, maybe I am, but just focus on the point! It was good fun. Several people were spectating, amongst them Nick, a guy from my form. I didn’t know him well at all, but we got to know him really well over the trip and it may have been Elyse’s antics that night that convinced him to talk to us more.

We went to sleep with Sam and Nick pretending they were gay again, not that I minded, it was absolutely hilarious.

DAY FOUR

We were up well before the sun emerged and were ready to depart earlier than the teachers had anticipated. They said they would wake us at 5, have breakfast at 6 and leave at 7. This was called a 5, 6, 7 day. Before day four, they kept waking us 15 minutes earlier than they specified the night before, but this stopped because we kept being 20 minutes early anyway.

Already I was pretty stuffed and a bit sick of people. The length of my accounts shows how long the days felt. Long. We boarded Rochelle Rochelle, which was a pretty crap bus. Ben’s Discman came in handy again. That wouldn’t be the only thing that stirred up my spirits though.

A visit to the Coles in Port Augusta was just what the doctor ordered, or would have ordered had he/she been present, which he or she was obviously not, so we took these non-prescribed orders from Greg and Deb and hoped they had consulted a doctor before giving out any more advice. (That is my poor Shaun Micallef impression) Everyone was excited again. It was nearly as invigorating as having icy Nordic water being poured over me. Pathetic? Of course! Much of the trip was pathetic though, and nothing else had really done the trick like this. I felt happier as I boarded the bus, three Red Bulls in my bag and one in my stomach, obviously without the can. I left the can in the Port Augusta park and litter was being picked up by prisoners on community service in bright orange overalls.

Another day, another Red Bull, as Brodie clearly shows for us. He's the one wearing the pimp shirt.

The rest of the coach trip to Coober Pedy was ho-hum. We arrived in Coober Pedy, saw a film about opal, saw an underground living area and had the opportunity to purchase opals, which was the ploy from the beginning. We then took a tour of this dodgy town and visited the underground Catholic church. Is this really entertainment? I should explain, Coober Pedy is known as the opal capital of the world and there are so many mined areas and it’s so hot outside that the residents live in a cut-out section underground.

We experienced this feeling that night as we slept on bunks in an underground bunkhouse. Beds were nice, we all agreed. After sleeping on rocks in Wilpena Pound, it was a welcome change. I learned a few hackey sack tricks, none spectacular and recharged the digital camera batteries in the convenient powerpoints installed in the bunk areas.

We went into the main street later that night, but the possibility of pizza was eliminated by the teachers. The entertainment in the main street was an ATM and two public phones, which kept most entertained but as I had no keycard and no need to phone home, I was bored and went back to camp.

I had a shower in the dirty, crowded bathroom, but there was a good singalong going. I expected no less of Carney, Boycey and Ben. Ben and I had the bunk opposite Trav and Brodie (arranged perfectly, of course). They’re very funny just before bed, so we tried to get our tent near theirs wherever possible on the trip. This brings us to the end of day four.

DAY FIVE

Leaving Coober Pedy was no big loss for most of us, because it was a really crappy place. There was a lot of driving today, I don’t think we ended up doing much. Talor played a word game with us. It comprised of us thinking of 26 people with small penises whose names begin with the letter A to the letter Z. Hopefully you get the idea. We used this to make up the names of the buses and voted on the most popular. Uterus won easily. The game soon morphed into a spin-off game where we named people with large penises. Let’s just say that we all agree Inspector Gadget has a large cock.

I point to the Northern Territory and Ben points to South Australia. This is the border. (I'm in the Ajax shirt) Of course, I forgot to mention this photo opportunity in my account.

Ben, left and Elyse, right, say cheers as we enjoy nibblies.

We arrived at Yulara, the resort near Ayers Rock, which was pretty nice, except for the red dust we slept on. We hastily set up tents and set off for Ayers Rock to see the sunset. It was Matt McMurray’s birthday, so we ended up having lemonade and “nibblies”. Not bad. Not good, but not bad. The sunset, however, was pretty damn good, although I probably didn’t pay as much attention to it as I should’ve. I was having too much fun, I can’t even remember what we were laughing at, but Trav was nearly in tears.

We listened to a lady from the Uluru cultural centre trying to persuade us not to climb Uluru while not making us feel guilty if we did climb it. Aboriginal people obviously influenced what she was saying, she seemed in two minds about the whole thing. My decision was made, I wouldn’t have come if I was not climbing the Rock. I obviously wasn’t in one of my “open mind” sort of moods, as Kimmy had given me a grilling ten minutes earlier. She said that Brodie, Ben, Travis and I had paired off and isolated Matt and he was “deeply emotionally hurt” and needed talking to.

This is thin ice I’m treading on, but freedom of speech being what it is, I stand before you today. I see it as a free country and that Matt can sit next to whomever he wants at meals and the bus. For these five days, I had seen and spoken very little to Matt. Although I’m sure it’s not a case of blame, but Kimmy and Briony would obviously blame Brodie, Ben and I. Easy targets. Briony had taken Matt under her wing for most of this trip. I’m not suggesting that Briony is a bird, nor an aircraft, nor any other thing that has wings, it is simply a manner of speech, let’s make that clear.

Matt had been stuck in a tent with Trent, who I personally, and probably also Matt, do not know very well, so it would be difficult with all the tent arranging and all that jazz. I sat next to Matt on the bus after that and he was quiet, but it appeared more out of fatigue than emotional trauma to me. I then transferred the issue into Matt’s corner. If he wanted to have a chat with us, there was usually space at the table we ate at during mealtimes. I was around him a lot on the Ghan, as we sat opposite each other and he seemed pretty happy, aside from a painful sleep thanks to Brodie. But more on that later. The point is that I can’t see how I was to blame. So let’s move on.

We went to the shop at the Yulara resort, which was a treat we were unaccustomed to. Schweppes Cola was $1.50, instead of the usual $2.00 around the outback, so I was drinking that the whole time. I’d grown quite fond of it, actually. Their laundry area was huge and it had a TV, so it seemed a great opportunity to have a washing session.

The whole process was very simple, really. It went down without a hitch. We sat, waited, put the washing in the dryer, waited, watched TV, waited and finally took the clothes out of the dryer and folded them away. Ben and I slapped “Ha katashi!” high fives, Japanese animation style. "Ha katashis" were more common a year ago but still a favourite. The sense of achievement prevailed once again.

Central T-shirts were given out, as Ayers Rock would confront us tomorrow morning, rather that we would confront it. The staff wanted us to all wear them on the Rock so we looked and felt like a group. Students were still confused from the earlier speech about climbing Ayers Rock (Uluru) so Mr. Wilson, the Sri Lankan chaplain, told us to “climb it, but with respect” which apparently appeased any quavering consciences. I was lost listening to his accent, his whole speech went over my head. Only a handful of people decided against climbing. I mean, why would you come to Central if you weren’t climbing the Rock? Surely not for quality time with your friends!!

Ben had just completed his “honorary feminist” day where he had to donate 20c to the Royal Flying Doctors every time he said something sexist, which was only twice and Ben still has objections to one of them. The next day was Lauren’s turn, she was not to “preach” or press her ideas onto anyone else. She wasn’t climbing the Rock and probably wanted people to respect the Aboriginal beliefs a bit more before going onto their rock blindly. I know I certainly would hate it if people touched my property when they’d been told not to, not that it would ever happen!

DAY SIX

This was going to be a big day. We set off for Ayers Rock pretty early. I thought I would need a Red Bull to get me up the Rock, but I wasn’t in bad shape for 8 a.m. The initial part of the climb was with a chain beside us, I didn’t need it much but it was reassuring to have it there. I draped my fingers around it in case I slipped and wanted to grab onto something. It became windier as we progressed towards the top and there were a few scary moments.

Matt's dog, Coober and Robbie's cat, Cristiano on top of Ayers Rock.

The wind in my face when we reached the top was very refreshing. Sense of achievement thing again. I opened up a can of Fanta, mainly just to use one line: “Oh yeah, I got it from the Coke machine over that hill”. Everyone had joked that there was a Coke machine on top of Ayers Rock. We arranged ourselves for one massive group photo on top of the Rock after Ben and I secured pictures of Cristiano and Matt’s canine equivalent, Coober. Then there was the picture of the “Cheeses of France” poster with Ben and Nick. Ben had taken this from C11, the French room, much to Laurence’s surprise, along with nearly everyone else. It earned Ben a Coke through a bet and Nick was keen to see if Ben would actually take the poster. It involved a brilliant diversion by Niki and I, talking about a sea creature called a “sea lawyer”, which is a real thing.

See this, Madame? We did it!!! Ben and Nick with the "Fromages de France" poster on top of the Rock.

Photos aside, after about 40 minutes at the top, we set about going down. All my friends were together on the way down and we sung songs. It was great fun.

Giant congo line or ants marching one by one?

The walk through the Olgas was mediocre. It felt like meeting the Vice-President after you’d met the President. We couldn’t climb the thing, so it was another walk, a few photos and a walk back. I distinctively remember discussing that I wanted to board the Ghan, no more photos.

By this stage, Travis and Frankie were always sitting next to each other and still flirting, but not doing much. It was blatantly obvious what was going on. Soon enough Ben wrote in Milly’s diary, which became a bitch session more than anything else, that they should just get down to having sex. Which of course, I hope they would not yet, but I think shortly after that they were officially together. This pissed Brodie off no end. He resorted to sleeping more on the bus.

On the way back to camp, passengers on scenic plane flights would go back to camp and wait for the bus to pick them up. The rest could go back to camp or go shopping at the Yulara shopping centre.

The five people that I kept hanging around with, Ben, Brodie, Trav, Frankie and Elyse, went to the IGA supermarket with me to stock up on supplies. IGA are known as perennial rip-off merchants. I bought some sunnies, a Dutch Courier (I don’t speak Dutch, but I would like to think I did. It has English bits anyway…) and some chips with chicken salt. That was what I was hanging out for! I love chips with chicken salt and I go to Goldies’ near Ben’s house (and Norwood) many many times. I bought a postcard, but instead of posting it, I rang my mum that night to suffice.

We played soccer by the light of a lamp-post, which was really good fun. We were all a bit whacked out, so we had lots of fun together. Ben, Talor and I tried to perform a trick that the girls told me was “explosive”, putting a tampon in a Creamy Soda bottle, nicknamed Project Creamy Pad. It failed dismally, the tampon absorbed a bit and the Raspberry Fanta (replacement for Creamy Soda) just fizzed. We have the picture. Nick was watching this in amazement, enjoying the kind of insanity his good buddies didn’t normally portray. He probably expected more insanity the next night, and boy, did we deliver! But that was truly enough excitement for one night.

DAY SEVEN

We departed Yulara bound for Kings Canyon, which Kimmy had always touted as “the most beautiful place in the world”. She had obviously been there before, because she wasn’t far off.

The walk up Kings Canyon was simply not worth the photo opportunities it offered. It was very hot and I was tiring fast. Our goal at the top was the Garden of Eden, a formation of pools with a devious name that suggests they were quite good. The water was in fact, bloody cold, in stark contrast to the heat that plagued me some 10 minutes before I entered the water. I went into a warmer section with some friends before Briony led me into a separate section with a “waterfall”.

There was no water in this waterfall, thus making it a fall, but it was spectacular! It was beautiful and vividly green, not just cliff faces and the monotonous green trees we had so frequently viewed. There was already 10 or so people, along with Mr. Edwards and Mr. Castles, but I didn’t want to tell anyone else about this spot. It was that good. Mr. Castles went back to get his camera, but it was 15-20 minutes before he returned, and he thought he’d broken his camera, which convinced me not to try and get my camera. I have enough trouble keeping my balance!

I would just have to use my photographic memory. I can remember scenes like a photo in my mind. This helps me to remember things and that is how I can remember so much about our trip. Milly drew pictures of places in her diary to help her remember. My method confuses me if we stay two nights at a certain place, because I forget which day things occurred, so if my dates are wrong then please correct me!

On the way back we passed the Lost City, although I was at the very back, so I didn’t even know what the rocks were. I thought they were just rocks. I was just concentrating on walking, which was as dull as it sounds to you.

Reflecting on the trip so far...

We set up tents and had time for a swim in the pool at Kings Creek Station, out stop for the night. Watching Eric trying to play cricket was quite funny, it really is a hard sport to learn, it is much more unnatural than football of any kind. I enjoyed a pack of Doritos and sat back on a rug. I had to do duty group, which meant I had to fill a few tubs with hot water and that was about it.

Dinner was … interesting. I have trouble finding adjectives for it. As I said earlier, Nick was sitting with us, experiencing the differences between his regular table and ours. (Our table usually consisted of Ben, Brodie, Trav, Frankie, Elyse, myself and occasionally others like Matt. Briony and Kim made sure they avoided our table, deliberately moving several times when they found that we were on the same table as them. Isn’t it nice to feel wanted?) Elyse somehow caught a flying beetle-like bug which was still alive. Somebody must have suggested that she eat the bug and Brodie and Ben would give her $10 to eat and I put on $5. I didn’t want to make it too appealing! After considerable thought, Elyse ate the bug with some carrots and commented on how crunchy it was!! Riotous laughter and applause followed, prompting all the other tables to see what the fuss was all about. I didn’t really think she would eat it, I wouldn’t have just given away the money like that!

There were several times when Elyse opened her mouth wide and hovered the bug over her mouth. Ben cringed and scrunched up his face in horror. Because she’d “faked” it so many times, I really didn’t expect her to eat it.

We sat out in the alleyway between the tents on sleeping mats and pillows that had been dragged out. Juliette had some Russian water in a lemonade bottle, but sipped it tentatively. It didn’t seem very cool to have any, they just looked weird drinking it (actually only a few touched the stuff). I got a Fanta instead, that was good. Looking up at the stars with a Fanta in hand was a great way to end the night.

DAY EIGHT

Somehow this morning, although I was pretty worn out, I felt alright packing up and getting ready to depart. Kings Creek was a nice place to stay at, it must have lifted my spirits. The promise of going into Alice Springs was also appealing. We were assured that our destination, Glen Helen Gorge, had many swimming opportunities, which was quite correct.

We were soon on the road and the trip passed quietly until we got closer to Alice Springs. The chorus of mobile phones announced their presence on the bus again. This was the first Optus reception point since Mildura and I, too, took this opportunity to send a message to my elder sister and the family back home. Telstra had reception in Coober Pedy and Yulara, but yuppies being yuppies, they used any mobile opportunity to speak to plenty of people back in Melbourne.

Personally, I was looking forward to lunch at McDonald’s. We had an actual lunch back at a camel farm which we stopped off at for a ride, but I proved once again that there is always room for McDonald’s. I stepped on the bus, very full, with Coles shopping bags and 20 cinnamon donuts in hand, happy.

The coaches drove into the caravan park we were staying at and a look of horror enveloped the faces of some teachers. Upwey, another school who we kept running into on our trip, had already set up their tents and taken up lots of space. Norwood was left with a small section of grass to work with and after lengthy discussions between the teachers, drivers and owners of the park we were left with no other option but to have a go and try to conserve space.

Somehow it worked. The tents were right up against each other, which worked brilliantly. The alleys between the tents were cramped, but the dinner tables were no closer than usual. I have always had problems getting into my crappy little stool at dinner without knocking the table. I’m not very tall, but I don’t have midget legs and always manage to bang my legs on some part of the table and/or person.

We played soccer, just juggling it around, after the tents were set up before we went to the Glen Helen Gorge for a swim. It was very cold, but some bright person found a rock to sit on a la the mermaid statue in Copenhagen. I followed a suggestion to basically dry myself and sit down, which was the easiest way to stay warm. There seemed to be little point in all of this. We would just have a dip, have a chat, complain about the cold and get back out again. But the dip was refreshing. Brodie and Ben decided to walk down the river with shoes on and consequently had to dry their shoes over the next day or two.

That night, we were granted permission to sit and listen to the performer, Sophie, and a guy playing a guitar in the lounge section of the bar. It was, after all, a Saturday night. The local drunk population was temporarily released from their cages and spectated, including Rosco, whose name was constantly chanted by the drunks. Rosco never said anything, just danced, if you could call it dancing, which I do not. He’s an old guy and was very scary. He was spotted the following day picking up rubbish and apparently he is aligned with the caravan park, although I’m not sure in which capacity.

The teachers were unwillingly persuaded onto the stage along with Rosco and another drunk. Rosco showed the local way to dance to “An old rocking chair” with the finale being a pelvic thrust, George Michael-like maneuvre. The teachers joined in half-heartedly and a bit tongue-in-cheek, hoping not to get captured on film in an unforgiving position. Rosco ended up a bit too close to Laurence in this pelvic-thrusting action, prompting her to scream and get the heck away from him.

Sophie wasn’t too bad, but she and her guitar-wielding sidekick moved off to let the Norwood kids have a go. And that meant Sam. He played a few songs around the campfire in Mildura and did a few songs here too, one with Rhys. Unfortunately Krystal didn’t know the words to “Smoke on the Water” (nor did many of us) so she sung with no musical backing.

After all that fun, we were sent straight to bed, as it was already late. Sam, Nick, Ben and I were standing around talking outside Brodie’s tent wondering where he was and I half-suggested that Nick should go in, wait for him and touch his sexy feet. It is well documented that Brodie has sexy feet, although this is a façade and his feet do look very hideous. But I love to go along with the joke. At Wilpena Pound, Rhys had reached into Brodie’s tent while he was sleeping and rubbed his feet. Brodie had gone to bed early and he was not pleased when we was awoken!

Nick was excited by this idea and waited patiently. It surprised Brodie, I can tell you. It was one of those moments. Mr. Edwards soon broke up the conversation between the four mentioned above, Brodie and Travis and we went to sleep. Brodie was probably quite paranoid after another foot-touching incident.

DAY NINE

We started the day with the plan of visiting two or three different waterholes. This was the unofficial swimming day. The perfect opportunity to show off my incredible swimming skills and excellent masculine stature. An opportunity that I was willing to pass up. This was a day of relaxation really, just for lazing about and not doing many touristy things at all.

I sat out the swim at Ormiston Gorge, which like all the other water-filled places we had visited, had absolutely freezing water! That generally meant that you had to keep moving in the water or you could only really stay in for 10 minutes, leaving you wet, cold, sandy and pretty miserable when you exited the water. I felt a little excluded when nearly everyone else got in, but seeing them come shivering back in 10 minutes convinced me that I made the right choice. I would go in at the second place, that was always my plan. It’s warmer later in the day.

Ben, Sam and Nick show that you can still have fun, even with pneumonia.

But not very much, I can tell you! I went in at the next place, Ellery Creek, after we had lunch of salad sandwiches again. After denying Talor the chance of tackling me under the water two times, he caught me when I thought he wasn’t going to and as I stood back up again, all reasoning for Talor (and also myself) to stay in the water had disintegrated. I got back out and along with Ben, Nick, Craig, Lauren and Juliette, we constructed a large ditch and buried Brodie in it, with his consent. I’m sure someone else has the photo. Brodie was covered in sand, but it was all in good fun and I nearly did it too, except that no-one was interested in burying a second person.

Brodie organised a good game of the world game that afternoon, with pretty even teams, ending 1-1. The teachers had planned Red Faces for this night, the Sunday. However, we had a visit from a National Parks & Wildlife Ranger. The demonstration was done around the campfire, the first campfire we had since the first night. He had a potentially lethal snake inside a glass tank, but it was frightening enough for some people. We went to bed not long after that and while Red Faces competitors used this time to prepare something, I used it to eat and offload my cinnamon donuts I had bought the morning before at Alice.

Brodie, Nick, Sam, Trav, Ben and I stood outside our tents, most of us in boxer shorts, talking about all manner of things, none of which I can remember. But it was pretty funny.

DAY TEN

Going into Alice. This would be our last night in tents. They were the two sentences that I, along with some others too I’m sure, were metaphorically dying to hear! We didn’t have any free time to spend in Alice Springs today, which ruled out the possibility of McDonald’s, but that was OK. The 90 minute trip from Glen Helen to Alice Springs was painfully stretched out by stopping off at four places along the way. I was becoming very impatient, particularly when the first two places were large rock faces! Another two! We’d seen so many, yet we had to stop again and give people another logical reason to waste their film. (I mean that nicely, I know that many people had film to simply waste at this stage.)

We finally got to the Red Centre Resort, which was marvellous. It was easily the best place we stayed at, winning hands down. It had grass to sleep on, plenty of space, two sets of bathrooms (meaning 14 showers and 8 toilets, unlike the 4 and 4 we normally had), a pool, Jukebox, pool table, tennis court, Coke and chip machine and the Internet! I was keen to send an email home to my sister, as I had not sent my postcard and didn’t really want to spend any more money on the phone. Unfortunately, Brodie broke the slow processor of the computer by trying to load up a huge site, so I gave up and didn't bother using the Net. I wasn’t too worried, after all, three days remained! The afternoon was free and we were bored, it just seemed logical.

We went for a tour of Alice Springs, which wasn’t really a tour in the essence of the word. We visited the Old Telegraph Station (the reason why Alice Springs was founded, because it’s nearly the centre of Australia and telegraphs had to be passed on) but we couldn’t go in because we’d apparently wasted this time on the camel ride a few days ago?!? We could’ve left 20 minutes earlier, but I didn’t really want to go on another boring walkthrough, so I was satisfied enough. So we walked around the station and saw the edges of the Todd River, which was dry. This was another posed photography session, with the teachers taking the photos and passing on the cameras en masse. Thankfully, it was the last one, or I might have been inclined to break one or two of those cameras.

Of course, I had Robbie’s digital camera, but I refused to take part in these tacky photos. I thought I had a licence to take artistic photos, or whatever style I wanted and posed was not one of these styles. Too superficial, I didn’t want to capture that sort of moment, I could do that in Melbourne with a fake background. A photo absorbs the emotion of a scenario, does it not?

Let's get all of the snake jokes out of your systems...

That night, Greg the bus driver got his good buddy Rex the Snake Man to come into the conference centre and give us a demo. He was quite good, as were the reptiles he showcased, and he worked with the audience well (meaning that he made snake jokes referring to his own personal snake, which certainly pleased the crowd). We had a giant python sliver across the shoulders of students formed in a big circle. It was obviously quite a harmless exercise and the big snake was really cool and smooth to the touch. We could also hold and pat the lizard and bearded dragon he brought in, which were very cool, I must say. Of course, some ladies didn’t want to come within 10 feet of them, but as I said in Milly’s diary, we all have our fears, so I’ll keep reptiles 10 feet away from them if they keep sales assistants 10 feet away from me. I have a morbid fear of them, I don’t want to talk about it any more … sniff …

Ben, Nick and I having a good conference.

Directly after that, the Red Faces acts were to begin. First up of the night was, for me, the clear winner. Sam had written “Yellow Man”, a song about the now infamous Jusman, who’s hair is apparently the same colour as his face, to the tune of Pearl Jam’s “Better Man”. Sam sung the song and Boycey did the guitar work. Sam had written the lyrics in a book he borrowed off me two nights earlier, so the lyrics go much like this:

Waiting, for the sun, it’s almost one, here Jusman comes
Jusman, yellow boy, the sand’s his joy, the beach

The sand is yellow, Jusman’s yellow,

The sun is yellow just like Jusman

He lies and says he’s red and blue

But he’s a yellow man

He dreams in yellow not green or red

He is a yellow man

Jusman’s a yellow man … oh …

Jusman, no colours, but the one that rhymes with mellow, yellow

Where is he now, no one knows where Jusman could be

Behind the sun, he disappears and

He looks like Steve off Beverly Hills 90210

Chorus

He’s yellow

He was born this way

Yellow

Jusman’s skies are never grey

Can’t find the yellow man …

Rhys had his own tribute to Jusman, involving Rhys playing “a few chords” and then Eric and Ounch (Anthony Witkowski) danced and said the word “Jusman”, sort of like the Batman song. And of course, the song ended with Eric saying “Easy!” which had become his trademark. At dinner, Mr. Castles was trying to explain that all couples on the Ghan had to tone down their antics and as he was struggling for words, Eric called out “Easy!”, which prompted riotous laughter from all students with a sense of humour and basic English comprehension. Eric must be a main star of the soap opera that was Central.

Krystal sung without musical back up and she was pretty good too. Jason Hill told “jokes” about Central in the form of poetry which weren’t all terrible, which was an achievement. Mr. Mac sung a sort of poetry in four-line verses, based around older songs with modified words to bring relevance to the Central trip. His voice is somewhat comical and the kids had really got on well with him. They bleached his hair in Yulara and shaved off his beard the next night. Poor bugger, he didn’t have the heart to say no. Adam (Muzza) and Matt McMurray told about their experience in the toilets earlier that night, which I will not try to recreate. Ever. I forget who wins, except that Sam and Boycey got nothing, so it was probably rigged. But opinions are only that. One person’s idea.

I had packed pretty well for the Ghan ride. Intelligent packing was required, as we could only access our “day packs”, which I used a backpack for. One had to decide what to take and what to store in the luggage carriage of the train. I felt at ease going to sleep, knowing it would be the last night in a tent and that home was in sight.

DAY ELEVEN

I awoke nearly an hour before it was necessary, and coaxed myself out of bed 15 minutes later to have a good shower. The shower facilities were good and I wanted to feel as clean as possible before I got on the train, because I predicted that I would feel pretty dirty when I got off. I knew little of the capabilities of the showers on the Ghan. Brodie hadn’t had a shower for nearly five days, but insisted that he didn’t smell, which is open to interpretation. I even threw some gel in my hair. It had been a good ten days without it though, très natural. I felt awake and ready.

After breakfast, with tents and sleeping mats packed up, we would head into the centre of town in Alice Springs and have two hours to stock up on supplies for the Ghan ride and to have lunch or roam around.

Ben and I impressively folded the tent into a perfect shape, for the first time of the trip, also typically on the final day! We were early again in the morning, so we had just over two hours to spend in town.

First stop was K-Mart, a welcome sight we’d see in Melbourne. Decadent choc chip cookies was the order of the day for Brodie and while I unsuccessfully searched for a digital camera memory card, I found 2L of AC cola at $1.25. Perfect. I couldn’t find the card in Tandy either.

Second stop was Coles, the obvious target, as we were dropped off right outside. Fortunately, everywhere we wanted to go was pretty much within a few minutes of this Coles. Snacks, drinks and cheap souvenirs were the order of the day, including Ben’s rip off Nutella crap, Nudge.

Third stop, with the real work behind us, was McDonald’s. I indulged in nuggets, not my “big fat bastard meal”, which I obviously enjoy, but was quite satisfied at the end. At least half of the Norwood kids were in the vicinity of Maca’s, and we compared our shopping finds and shopping prices. Under $20 was about an average spending, I’d managed to buy only specials, which was a truly remarkable achievement. I would have had to buy Red Bull anyway, it just happened to be on special.

With time to waste, we went into Electric World, a sort of small Harvey Norman, but only with useful crap. They had memory cards, but I wasn’t going to risk $100 on some Panasonic card which wasn’t identical. We watched a bit of The Matrix in high definition on wide screen before rushing back to the coach for one last time.

We boarded the bus just before 11:45, which was when we were scheduled to depart. The Ghan didn’t leave until 1:00 p.m., but we were not taking any chances. Which was fortunate, as Milly and Lauren did not turn up on time. We sat in Uterus the Love Bus, trying to think of the crappy reason they would give to excuse their lateness. It turned out to be that their watches had both slowed down (or maybe there was only one watch between them) and thus they had expected to have more time. Of course, this problem, if it was not just an excuse, should have been diagnosed earlier and Norwood set up watch checks after that to ensure that this tragedy never happened again. The watch or watches have been sent back to the lab and analysed and we will soon find out the problem. They have been issued with new watches, FIA approved … oh dear, sorry, I’ve been reading a book about Formula 1 at the moment, I seem to be copying the writing style, sorry…

We arrived at Alice Springs station just after 12 p.m. An influx of photos of people smiling in front of the Ghan symbol painted on each carriage followed. We got a pretty large group photo of our friendship group in front of the Ghan. Our luggage was taken off to the appropriate carriage and we were left with our backpacks, shopping bags, and in my case, an Akubra-imitation.

To fill up seats on the first carriage about 40 names were individually read off a sheet, in no apparent order at all, which led me to thinking that this system was questionable (as we would say in Specialist). It was somewhat Auschwitz-esque. (Mind you I compare so many things to be like Auschwitz. We’ve finished reading “Elli” in English, a story of a Holocaust survivor.) The rest of us just got on the next carriage and assembled in seats with our friends.

The seats were pretty comfortable, although not while attempted sleep. They still had plenty of leg room and reclined a pretty long way. The seats were also quite clever, or rather the designers of the seats were clever, as they had given the seats the feature of turning around to face two other people. There were specially designed tables too, under each seat, which fitted in some notches in the side to leave us with a quite sturdy table. I sat next to Brodie and opposite from Briony and Matt.

There's a lot of love on this train... Briony would say "It's all good". Lauren and Ben.

Trav and Frankie were sitting behind us, but it appeared that they needed no further company. At least they weren’t in front of us. Brodie made it clear that Rhys and Niki, who have been together for one and a half years, were obscuring Brodie’s view of the Matrix on the bus when they were expressing their affection for each other. I assumed that Trav and Frankie might also play tongue hockey, which was correct.

When the ride commenced, we were free to circulate between the carriages, swap seats, socialise, but the teachers didn’t like you standing in the aisles just talking. Brodie became bored and fidgety pretty soon, everyone was running out of card games to play. We often amused ourselves with the video game machines, particularly the World Class Bowling one. I’d played this with Brodie at the Bowling Lanes before, as Brodie is a good bowler and I used to bowl with him. Unfortunately, as the glamour and sex appeal of the sport disappeared, I decided it was time to leave. Suffice to say that I can still do pretty well against Brodie to this day.

Brodie later joined Adam (aka Muzza) and a few others for a game of “Red Ace”, similar to Ginrummy I hear. The game lasted about three hours and I went around to the small colony of seats Ben, Elyse, Nick, Rhys, Niki and Jusman had set up.

Dinner was interesting. It appeared that we’d all bought noodles so the queue for the café area was simply a hot water queue. They were OK, they were better than some other stuff I’d tasted on camp. I’d learned who didn’t eat vegetables and realised that I was not the only person in this metaphorical boat. I ate them, but I tended to turf (that’s turf, meaning throw out, not turk) most of the food that was really shit.

Brodie had decided that he wanted to stay up all night, not go to sleep at 10:30 when the lights went out and I wanted to follow this trend also. It gave me some time to settle back with some CDs, and luckily Matt supplied me with a Discman for the night. Brodie just wanted to play Red Ace, which was good, because he taught me to play and at about 1 a.m. Briony and Matt somehow woke up. Brodie wanted to teach them too, except he wanted me to tell them how as to explain it as clearly as possible. Matt picked up the idea quickly, he obviously knew how to play rummy or a similar game format. In the process of turning the chairs around, we had to awaken the two sitting in front of Briony, as their chairs were reclined to the maximum point. Either way, Briony tried to sleep at 3:30 a.m., I didn’t try until my head was literally collapsing onto the table with fatigue. I slept for about an hour, but I was in such an uncomfortable position that there was no way I could get more sleep. Brodie apparently had one of his toes up Matt’s arse, it looked a more uncomfortable position than mine for certain.

DAY TWELVE

I had a Red Bull when I got up at 6:30, indeed everyone arose then, as there was an announcement at about 6:15. After that Red Bull I felt awake (or at least alive) and I probably looked a bit better, as you can probably imagine that I looked pretty knackered. I didn’t have a shower (neither did Brodie, despite Briony’s nagging). I had seen the state of the toilet and didn’t want to see the shower.

All manner of various times were quoted as our ETA in Adelaide, so I can’t remember when we arrived. We got off the Ghan and looked at the café. It was pretty crappy. I was really craving some chocolate milk and they didn’t have any, I’d mistakenly bought iced coffee. I hate iced coffee, so I gave it to Brodie and Ben and I checked out Adelaide.

It was exactly as we’d expected. Crap. Ben and I played Virtua Tennis on the video game machine and spent about $5 each on the blasted thing. I would have made Thomas Johansson proud. It was a long time to spend in an ordinary sort of place like this. All the Norwood troops waited on the platform until we were given the all clear to hop aboard after about an hour’s stay in the Adelaide station.

That day was spent in basically the same way we had spent it the day before. Cards was once again popular and Brodie and Travis opened their pick and mix lolly cups they bought from K-Mart. We tried putting on the crappy tattoos, and they didn’t work very well. Better than watching the Flintstones 2 for a third time.

I was having a good time in Ben and Nick’s area in the “other carriage”, the one that wasn’t mine. Some stupid bitches across from us wanted to listen to Flintstones 2, so we couldn’t play cheat. It was that stupid Amanda girl, the one that appeared to have fallen asleep under a tanner, because she had sunglasses marks on her face. Ben pointed this out, much to her and her friends’ dismay. Her friends were pretty thick too, especially that Amanda Watson-Bent girl (not the same Amanda, she wasn’t tanned). I decided while on the trip that she’s been a stupid bitch since year 7 and hasn’t changed a bit, so I was quite resentful and hostile towards her. We moved back to my carriage and kicked out the hobos who had taken my seats.

As the evening came upon us, I started to get hyperactive. I think it was common among the passengers. I must have become quite excited as the prospect of getting home was now quite a reality. Glenn Carmichael, a renowned idiot of Norwood, and Salty were blowing up the sick bags and popping them. I have to be nice to Glenn though, because he is recommending me to replace him when he quits, which I believe he already has and we all know that I need a job, so … uh, Glenn’s a … a good fellow. Yeah, he … he is a good fellow. That went smoothly, didn’t it?

Glenn blows up a sick bag.

I drank the last of my Solo and gathered and arranged all my stuff and put it into my backpack, like most other people were also doing. We could see the lights of a city and some people said it was Geelong. Nobody could be sure, but about 5 minutes later we passed Hoppers Crossing station, on the Werribee line in the western suburbs of Melbourne. The train had obviously passed Geelong about 30 minutes earlier without us noticing. The Ghan was travelling faster than your average Met train and soon we were hurtling towards Spencer Street station near the centre of Melbourne, the Ghan’s final destination. All of a sudden, the trip was ending. It was nearly over. I actually knew where we were, for the first time in about 11 days. I felt comfortable and familiar, and very chirpy.

My luggage took a little bit longer and I envisioned my luggage being left in Adelaide or some horrible thing. Soon enough, another lot arrived and my Reebok bag was there. The staff organised something with the bus drivers while we were left waiting in the cold. I love the cold weather. I’ve always hated hot weather and I hate wearing shorts. I can always see myself moving somewhere colder, like Europe or Canada (New Zealand or Tasmania if necessary). Too many people were bitching, but for me, this was not the hot red centre of Australia, this was home. Melbourne’s mild autumn nights. Excellent.

We try doing "the Nick laugh".

We boarded the bus to the sounds of Gold FM and “Johnny be good”. Brodie’s dancing will stay in my mind for longer than I will want it to, I’m sure. I was just a bit too slow with the camera, didn’t capture it. The driver switched the radio to FOX and the moment was lost. That trip home from the city was one of the fastest I can remember, for certain. I started eating a chocolate bar when we were still on the freeway and shoved the last part in my mouth just before we got to Norwood. Mr. Edwards said a final thanks and we gathered our backpacks and departed.

Our scheduled time of arrival was about an hour later than this, but all the parents seemed to be there anyway. I wondered how long they’d been waiting. Ben and I located our bags and Ben’s dad chaffeured us to his car. I spread a final goodbye, but collectively, we’d just spent 12 days together and the last thing we really wanted was to spend more time with them. I chatted away happily and kindly thanked Ben’s dad for the lift and thanked Ben for helping me maintain enough sanity to last 12 days. I think we parted with a final “how-dy par-ner”.

The house was very quiet when I opened the door. I thought this might mean I could just crawl into my bed, a welcome sight, but my sister wanted to hear a brief summary and I obliged, showing her the digital camera pictures and narrating when required. I turned the camera off, had a shower and tucked myself into bed, feeling grateful for the bed and feeling well satisfied. I had survived Central. Twelve days with my closest friends and enemies. I survived it. And I had fun.

GENERAL NOTE

I have not mentioned the Morning Wood Fairy. I have done it for a reason. But please make it your wallpaper. It looks like a witch, but I’m making a new and improved better one soon.

Where's the Beach? A Journey Across Australia

Central Diary - Links

Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5 - Day 6 - Day 7 - Day 8 - Day 9 - Day 10 - Day 11 - Day 12 Lyrics to Yellow Man - Final Note

Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5 - Day 6 - Day 7 - Day 8 - Day 9 - Day 10 - Day 11 - Day 12
Lyrics to Yellow Man - Final Note