Travel

After Cairns, we flew into Alice Springs in the south of the vast Northern Territories (The Outback State); a place almost slap-bang in the middle of Australia. It’s another example of how big this country is: it’s 2,500km by road from Cairns in the far north-east to Alice Springs in the very centre. I’d been looking forward to this for ages, ever since arriving in Sydney. I wanted to see the “real Australia” that I’d had in my mind from the UK; the Outback and the famed red dust. During the approach into Alice Springs, I could see the red desert below.

Alice Springs is a city in the middle of nowhere! It sits amid the spectacular McConnell Ranges and there‟s absolutely nothing around it. Darwin is more than 1000km to the north and Adelaide is around 1500km to the South. The first thing you notice in Alice Springs at this time of year (the height of summer) is the extreme heat (around 40 degrees Celsius and just on the edge of bearable). The next thing you notice are the incessant, ever-present flies. They’re easily the most populous creature around here. The things are apparently attracted to the protein in your skin and, for as long as it’s daylight, they never leave you alone. They get in your eyes, your hair, your nose and, worst of all, they’ll rest on your lips if you let them. Horrible when you know where they’ve been! Every tourist wears a fly net like a veil over their head.

From the top of nearby ANZAC Hill, you can see the whole town. It’s the classic Aussie town that non-Australians carry in their minds about the Outback. It’s not very big and is surrounded by absolutely nothing; just red desert.

Alice Springs has the feel of a frontier town, the life-affirming feel of the Wild West. There’s only about 30,000 people here and, somewhat surprisingly, Alice is reportedly the lesbian capital of Australia, with the highest percentage of lesbians in any town or city in the country; it genuinely is a diverse and welcoming place. It’s got some of the harshest terrain I have ever seen. There’s hardly any green at all and it’s more arid than any land I’ve ever come across. Some wildlife does seem to flourish here though such as the rock wallaby, a marsupial not unlike a small kangaroo (they‟re very laidback and gentle to the point where they’ll even eat out of your hand).

Unfortunately, Alice Springs also has some serious social problems. I‟d previously seen little of Australia‟s indigenous population. I‟d seen very few Aboriginal people in Sydney and very few in Cairns. However, here in Alice Springs, a significant percentage of the population is Aborigine. In the week that I was in Alice Springs, I noticed that there were significant numbers of Aborigines sitting all day under trees ostensibly doing nothing at all. It wasn’t until after a few days that I learned that there was a serious alcohol abuse problem within the indigenous community in Alice Springs. Aborigines of all ages are drunk a lot of the time. The problem is so great that all liquor shops have restrictions unique to Alice Springs on the amount of cheap alcohol that can be bought. For example, no boxed wine can be bought before 6pm and, when the boxed wine does become available after that time, it’s available in smaller quantities than other parts of Australia, and only one box may be bought by each person per day with photo identification being mandatory. It wasn’t just in the bottle-shop that I saw this problem; one time, I was walking through the centre of Alice Springs, when a clearly drunk Aboriginal man politely asked me to follow him into the bushes. I couldn’t think of any good reason to go with him, even in the interests of cultural exchange! I politely declined his invitation and he promptly let fly with a volley of abuse; I walked away pretty quickly.

With regard to the problems and issues facing Australia in respect of the indigenous population, having been in the country for less than a month, I‟m in absolutely no position to assess the issues. However, even from my limited outsider perspective, the gulf between the widely-held desire for the indigenous population to integrate into society and the extremely sad reality is enormous. It truly seems that British settlement was a disaster for the Aborigines, the vast majority of whom were displaced from the lands they lived upon, and suffered not only many decades of mistreatment, but also the devastating impact of imported disease and alcohol (apparently, their bodies are ill-equipped to process alcohol). It‟s unimaginable that Aborigines would be able to return to their previous way of living even if they wanted to. The only viable alternative is their eventual integration into Australian society. Of course, one of the biggest means to this is through employment, although this is difficult to encourage when literacy levels and educational standards across the community are well below par. The most astonishing and saddening statistic I‟ve heard regarding the Aboriginal community is that their life expectancy is nearly twenty years shorter than that of non-indigenous Australian people, the average life span of an Aborigine being around just 58 years old. The issues surrounding the Aboriginal peoples are enormous and solutions are not apparent. But the only thing that‟s clear is that the current situation is completely unacceptable. I don‟t think that the absence of solutions is down to a lack of political will; on the contrary, even from the outside perspective of a traveller, I sense a feeling of deep guilt from many parts of Australian society over the current state of the Aboriginal community and, whilst solutions may not be forthcoming, people will surely support anything that‟s an improvement on the current situation.

The next day, we took a two hour flight to Cairns, a major town in Far North Queensland (The Sunshine State). That journey gave us a small idea of just how big Australia is: Cairns is just up the east coast and yet is a massive 2,500km away from Sydney. As soon as we stepped off the plane, the humidity struck and we started dripping with sweat; it was like walking into a steam room with all of your clothes on; you feel the humidity in your face, in your throat and in your nose; it‟s literally stifling. Cairns is another world from Sydney; it has a sub-tropical climate and it‟s quiet and provincial. It‟s also far smaller than Sydney and can be walked from end to end in less than 2 hours. It‟s on the coast and we happened to arrive in the middle of the wet season. This again is further evidence of the sheer massive size of Australia as most of the southern part of the country was undergoing a particularly severe drought. As with most things in Australia, even the raindrops are bigger and the rains more extreme than I‟m used to; for example, a neighbouring town had rainfall of 1.3m in just one day!

We were here in Cairns to see the Great Barrier Reef; it‟s absolutely enormous! It’s a massive ridge of coral and rock that stretches 2,600km from just north of Brisbane to south of the Solomon Islands; it’s the biggest coral reef in the world and apparently it‟s visible from space. It‟s made up of billions of tiny coral polyps and, as such, is the largest living organism-made structure in the world. No wonder it‟s regarded as one of the seven natural wonders of the world. We set off early one morning on a huge catamaran to sail the two hours to a part of the Reef called Michaelmas Cay. It took us two hours to get to the Michaelmas Cay and we were treated to excellent service from the crew. They were all expert divers and working on the boat allowed them to mix work with their passion. Eventually, we came to a stop and I saw a small sandy island (the Cay). The crew explained that the island was formed by dead coral particles that collected over huge periods of time. The tiny island was just over 3.5m in altitude and around 1.5 hectares in area; it‟s a wonder that the Cay didn’t just wash away. The sands were blindingly white with green vegetation in the centre. The coral reef that we would be exploring was all around the island and we were warned not to make contact with the reef for two reasons: firstly, that it would probably cut us and, secondly, that, if we did make contact, we would be doing irreparable damage to it. I‟d never snorkelled before and I was really looking forward to getting into the warm waters. We donned our stinger suits (to negate any grumpy stingrays (post Steve Irwin) or jellyfish), flippers and goggles and swam out over the Reef. Even though visibility wasn’t optimal (due to it being the wet season with the accompanying frequent rains), it was still very clear in the water. I saw huge varieties of coral from the plant-like to rock-like to the giant-brain-like and, all around these, a huge variety of fish that were quick moving or achingly slow, from fluorescent extroverts to almost see-through wallflowers, from the tiniest sea-dwellers to specimens more than a foot long. I saw immense giant clam shells about five feet wide and also a few stingrays trying their very best to hide themselves in the sand. I steered well clear of those!

Our trip also included a free introductory scuba dive. Neither Grant nor I had done this before and we were really looking forward to it; it‟s clearly more interesting than snorkelling. Before diving, first, you have to learn simple techniques for clearing your goggles of water (touch the top of your mask, holding it to your face, and blow through your nose), for clearing your mouthpiece (blowing hard into it) and, probably most crucially, techniques for equalising your ear pressure (hold your nose and blow hard or by simulating a gulp). Without this last technique, the headaches caused by ear pressure would become unbearably painful even at just 5m underwater. I had trouble with equalising my right ear but eventually I sorted it. Four of us linked our arms and off we swam under the huge catamaran. I could see the massive anchor chain just metres from me. Our guide took us for an exhilarating half-hour dive that took us under the boat and to other parts of the Reef. At this depth, the Reef is huge (although I‟m certain not as to how large it might get); instead of coral beneath us (as it was where we snorkelled), here the coral was like a giant, solid, high wall; I felt like I was swimming in an underwater ruined city. The fish we saw here were bigger than we saw the ones we saw when snorkelling earlier; but unfortunately, I still didn‟t see a „Nemo‟ fish. Maybe next time!

From Buenos Aires, we took an 18 hour bus ride west to Mendoza, a small city at the feet of the Argentinean Andes, on the other side of which is the Chilean capital, Santiago. It was fantastic to see the mountains again; after three weeks of cities, I was getting restless to see some new landscapes. Mendoza is famous for being in the heart of Argentina’s major wine producing area, for being the drop off point for mountaineers attempting Cerro Aconcagua (at 6,962m, the highest mountain outside of the Himalayas) and now for the being the setting of the inaugural Mendoza Cup.

Mendoza has a nine-hole golf course founded in 1926. It’s a mature, tree-lined parkland layout with narrow fairways and possibly the truest and fastest greens I have ever putted on. As we hadn’t played in over two months, we were desperate to play, and, to give the game some extra significance, we obtained permission from our society chairman, Dave Macaulay, to play the first overseas meeting of the C.R.A.P Golf Society – the first and, very probably the last, Mendoza Cup. We hired some clubs and set off with our mandatory caddy, Dario, for a hard-fought game in the blazing sunshine. Grant and I are evenly matched for sheer golfing mediocrity. Therefore, we played straight match-play off scratch. What followed was probably one of the most memorable rounds of golf I have ever played.

Me and Grant after the match with the shadows getting longer

From parts of the course, the snow-capped mountains are clearly visible; the sounds of crickets are ever present; hardly a soul was on the rest of the course and we played very reasonable golf enjoying the advice and tips of Dario, a truly top bloke. Affable, with a huge belly that hides the fact that he’s actually a five handicapper, he consistently teased us for some terrible shots and applauded our few good ones. Every time, we left a putt short, he would whisper loudly, “Lady!” For all his banter, we didn’t believe he was actually any good. “Go on then Dario, show us how it‟s done…” So he pushed a tee into the ground, waggled a driver a few times, swung the club around his body, and smashed a well struck shot 280 yards drawn around the apex of the dogleg. He seemed pretty pleased with himself!

Booming drive! (probably not)

We broke for a long lunch under the trees and played the second nine holes in the late afternoon sun. On the 17th, with a putt for par, I completed a 3 and 1 victory to win the inaugural Mendoza Cup for the Nihontos.

 

Winner of the inaugural Mendoza Cup

We met some interesting people in the hostel in Mendoza, in particular a lively guy from Northern Ireland called Jonny Kyle. Jonny had already been there a week by the time we arrived; he‟d come to attempt Cerro Aconcagua and had trained for months whilst working to save the money for his trip. Jonny had flown into Mendoza via Santiago from the UK and, unfortunately, the airline lost his main bag with around 2,000GBP worth of mountaineering kit, which he’d been unable to replace. He‟d been waiting for his insurance company to make compensation and was planning his next move. He eventually went south to Patagonia.

Unfortunately, on the morning of the day we were due to take the bus back to Buenos Aires, Grant had his small rucksack stolen. We were in an internet café when suddenly he jumped up and said he couldn’t find his bag. I‟ve never seen him so ashen-faced. I immediately had a sinking feeling that it had long gone and that everything of value that he owned was in that bag; his wallet, credit cards, passport and phone, they were all gone. It was a tough moment; luckily there were two of us to deal with the problem, and not just one person, all alone on the other side of the world with no money and no identification. Instead of wasting time trying to obtain crime reference numbers in Mendoza, we decided to speed back to Buenos Aires to the British Consulate to try and get an emergency replacement passport issued; we were supposed to fly out of Argentina to Sydney two days later! We almost weren’t able to get on the bus back to BA as Grant’s bus ticket was also in the stolen bag; and South American bus protocol demanded that the physical, paper ticket was more important than anything; without it, you couldn’t board. Our lack of Spanish was never starker than in those last few hours in Mendoza. Eventually, I managed to persuade some local policewomen to help us with our negotiations with the bus company. With just minutes to go before the bus (the last of the day and the one we had to catch if we were going to get an emergency passport issued in time) was due to leave, the entire bus company and station police were able to hold the bus for us and wave us off. I couldn’t work out who was more unlucky: Jonny for losing his luggage or Grant for having his bag stolen.

Back in Buenos Aires, the British Consulate in Recoleta was staffed almost exclusively by Argentines; part of an outsourcing drive I suppose. Unbelievably, the Consulate was only open until 2pm; we needed that passport before 11am the next morning and we’d aim to collect it on the way to the airport. Alfonso, the official in charge of reissues, assured us that he’d deal with it but with no promises made. I thought the best course of action, should Grant not get a new passport in time, was to fly without him and leave him my credit card. After, an angst-ridden evening, luckily, the next morning, Grant was issued an emergency replacement (shows what’s possible) and, the next day, we flew the 15 hours westwards to Sydney, across the International Date Line and the Pacific Ocean.