Alice Springs July 2009

Met a man who lost all his life savings in a ponzi scheme and is now getting around on a postie bike with an animal cage on the back, trying to get over it. Met a lady in the park, we took pictures of each other, met her the week after at the same spot, saw her with a black eye. I didn't even ask what happened. Met a social worker who moved on from social work to co-manage a tennis court. Met a lady who was painting a horrible picture and I said it looked nice. I bought the local freebie for one dollar at the newsagency (first day mistakes # 29). Had a barbecue with people I had never met before and was being sussed out like there's no tomorrow. Went to the public toilet at least 5 times over a week and paid 50 c to the same man every time. Nice toilets though. A graphic designer from Channel 7 Brisbane about to cross from Alice to Geraldton in his Nissan automatic 4wd gave me a lift to the airport where I was going to meet a lady who didn't show up. She had mysteriously boarded the plane without going through the boarding gates...

Met the receptionist from a television station that doesn't broadcast local news because it might upset the board members. She told me her life story in 25 minutes. Asked for simple police statistics at local police station. The media-officer who said she actually works in the health department and/but used to be a reporter for a local newspaper, told me she would get back to me that afternoon with a progress report and/or all the figures whilst she stapled my card onto the written request. That was two weeks ago. Asked for financial information at a large organization in town. Pff... Have a look on our website. Yes 2005 was the last one published. No we don't have last years' annual report, we are underfunded so we do them every other year...The other ones, well we only have 50 printed copies. Underfunded see... Ask the Financial Manager. He's out for lunch now and when he comes back he might be busy because they're doing the group certificates... I don't know, he must have ducked out...

Talked about religion and death with a lady from Spain, who had booked a trip to Australia as the last thing she'd do before she would retire working for this university in Madrid as a researcher. She found a seminar as far away from Spain as possible. Met a dorm roommate, a Dutch girl backpacking who later on broke her elbow near King's Canyon and had to be spectacularly flown out by flying doctor plane. She was adamant to continue travelling. At first. Not anymore after 5 hours operation and no more morfine. The operation was delayed because the hospital had to wait for parts from Adelaide.

Talking about WILD places...

And that's only the utmost tip of the iceberg. To be continued...