M-whY

"Are there any lockers in town where I might be able to store my stuff?"

"Unfortunately not..."

"Not even at the train station?"

"Nope. There's a shuttle service across the street though. If you buy a shuttle transfer to the train station, they're pretty good about letting you store your baggage there."

The train station was certainly within walking distance, but the shuttle service wasn't too expensive. Pretty much what I expected to pay for a locker anyways. I paid for a ticket and left my backpack there.

Next item of business was to find something to do. This proved quite difficult. Alice Springs is a town built around tourism, but there wasn't much to do within the city itself.

A crowd of people had gathered near a park. Wondering what the commotion was about, I joined the congregation. Apparently there was to be a parade, in recognition of ANZAC day. I took my place on the side of the street and waited for the festivities to begin.

The parade wasn't much to look at, but I did note some interesting things. First of all, the American flag was present. That struck me as a bit odd and out of place. But on a deeper level, I noticed a difference between the white and aboriginal Australians. While the white Australians cheered and clapped as the soldiers marched by, the aborigines sort of stood back and stared sullenly. I'm sure they knew what was going on, they just didn't care too much for it.

The parade lasted only about 15 minutes, leaving me with 6 more hours to kill. I flipped through my guidebook, which has turned out to be utterly worthless and a piece of trash. If anyone intends on traveling Australia, buy yourself a real guidebook, and avoid 'BUG Australia.' Full of misprints and erroneous information, it has given me more trouble than it's worth.

I ended up visiting the Alice Springs Desert Park. The award winning tourist attraction featured three different desert habitats and supposedly had enough there to keep patrons occupied for hours. I found the nocturnal house and lizard displays interesting, but the rest of the park was pretty bland. Probably just my personal opinion. After spending a over a week in the Outback, I had seen enough of the desert.

At around ten past three, I picked up my backpack and boarded the shuttle to the train station. For the next 24 hours, I would be covering the remaining 1400kms to Darwin. Even though I was taking the legendary Ghan, the ride wasn't something I was looking forward to. Sleeping on moving vehicles isn't something that comes easy to me.

Now I don't get along with every backpacker that I meet. Back in Tasmania, I ran into a couple French guys that annoyed me to no end. (Not that I have a problem with French people in general, in fact, there was a French girl on our Outback tour that was quite nice.) So much so that I changed rooms that night and found a different bed to sleep in. I left town the next day, expecting never to see them again. Imagine my surprise when I found out they were not only on the same train, but of all possible seats, sitting right in front of me!

It was simple enough to ignore them, and if they recognized me, they didn't give any indication. The train departed on schedule, and the conductor rattled off some impressive facts and trivia about the Ghan over the intercom.

We were free, and actually encouraged, to wander about the train to avoid muscle cramps. I spent a good deal of time in the lounge area, where I could lay out and relax. But to sleep, we were all required to return to our seats. As expected, I had a difficult time finding a comfortable position to rest in.

This ride is going to set back my recovery a few days...

Thanks to everyone for their support and comments! Knowing people are reading keeps me motivated to continue the updates!