camels and stuff
6 comments September 19th, 2008
Well, I guess life could be a lot tougher.
I have to say that the Sahara was never quite this lush and enjoyable; saddle the camels up, go for a quiet wander down to the beach, load some tourists up, and wander along the beach for an hour. Repeat three times a day on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and you have my current existence. Doing it tough, huh?
But I do have a bit of another agenda. Chris Hill, who runs Ships of the Desert, is an endless source of information.
The saddle you can see on old Horris there in the picture, was made by Chris by hand – as was every saddle in the camel train. These are skills I simply don’t have, and it is great to be learning them. Chris has offered to teach me how to make all my equipment properly, and tailored to my camels. It is a great opportunity for me.
,Meantime, I have been chilling out in my tent,and enjoying the heat. It is wonderful to be back handling camels again, and just walking. ALl of the various backpackers and others who work for Chris have been wonderfully welcoming to me, and happy to help with anything I don’t understand – they have also been great at having a cold beer at the end of the day!
I have been busy planning the next walk. At this stage – after talking it all through and looking at maps, distances, etc – I have come up with a proper structure for it which I feel quite excited about.
I plan to set off in April next year, with four camels. I will walk on the edges of the Great Sandy Desert, and down part of the Tanami, to a community near Alice. At that point I will pick up a group of 6 Year Nine students – I am hoping to run a competition in conjunction with the Australian Geographic Society to select the kids, but it is aimed at those who are suffering low self confidence rather than as ‘brat camp’. Kids who have not performed to the level they could do because of self esteem issues, perhaps through overweight, dyslexia, or peer pressure for example. They will walk with me for two weeks. During that time, they will record their experiences pictorally, in written format, and also using a voice recorder, with the aim of producing a group radio project. But most of all I want them to have the peaceful, introspective experience, of exploring their country on foot, with camels, just as it was by the pioneers who opened it up. Another group will join me for the same amount of time on the other side of ALice, this time walking the historical Ghan route, and much of the focus there will be on the incredible history of the Afghans in Australia. I hope that seeing some of the crumbling remains of the Ghantowns and walking int he footsteps of those brave and staunch men will give the students a wider appreciation of the rigours of our history.
All of the students diaries will be collated to make a professional product they can take back to their schools, and share with their classmates. After the groups leave, I will continue on down the original Ghan route to Maree, and, I hope, meet with the descendants of the Afghans who still live in the area. then I will walk through to Broken Hill, where there is still a mosque built by the Afghans; and on through to Melbourne, arriving in Mid December I hope. On the last day, I hope to walk into Federation Square, accompanied by all the students who have participated, so they can be introduced publicly, and awarded their diaries in finished form.
I feel really excited about this one; firstly, I have a whole two and a half months of blissful, peaceful walking, in my own country, with few or no disturbances, down to Alice. Then I have the excitement and joy of walking with the students, and watching them interact both with the walk itself and also the indigenous communities they will enter on the way; then finally, I have the wonderfully fascinating historical route down the Ghan. The walk is just under 5000km in total, a lovely manageable distance, divided into distinguishable sections. I just can’t wait.
As soon as I have a release date for the second book, I will let you know. Thankyou very much for the many emails and letters of support I have received about the first one, and let me reiterate again that I do apologise for the lack of photographs in it, but I simply don’t have access to the photos from the European walk. Trust me, the second book will have loads!
And in the meantime, I will keep on plodding down Cable Beach, and looking at these beautiful sunsets that I never tire of. I can’t believe I lived here for years and never realised I would one day by walking the very animals that inspired my first walk all that time ago. There is a wonderful sense of having come full circle.
