the windscreen. When we got to the infamous Three Ways Roadhouse we parted ways, he on to Queensland and me wherever the road might take me. On to Alice Springs After spending a night at Three Ways It was time to continue south to my next destination Alice Springs. A truck driver offered me a lift to Tennant Creek which I accepted and it turned out to be a huge mistake. I didn’t realise that Tennant Creek was only 26km down the road and nobody wanted to stop there as they had their respite at Three Ways and momentum on the long arduous trek south. I was stuck there for many hours on the side of the road with only a million flies to keep me company. The danger of being sucked under the wheels of the endless procession of road trains the endless procession of road trains was uppermost in my mind which take a distance of about one kilometre to stop, as some are over 50 metres long with 86 tyres carrying 200 tons! An Underground Town Eventually I got a lift and travelled the 500km’s to Alice Springs.
conditions with a lunar-like landscape. Mad Max the movie was filmed here! It been a mining town producing 70% of the worlds opals, most people have explosives and it’s really funny to see signs around the town such as the one on the wall as your entering the outdoor drive in cinema, “PATRONS, EXPLOSIVES are not to be brought into this
In Alice Springs I stayed at the local hostel and got a job as a concrete formworker on a building site with an Irish partnership, one from Mayo and believe it or not the other partner was from Skerries married to a Rush girl! Whilst there I took a trip to Ayers Rock-Uluru which I climbed and after a couple of months continued south into South Australia where I stopped at a place called Coober Pedy, an underground town in the outback desert which is known as the opal capital of the world.
theatre”. We could have done with a few of these signs in Ireland in the 70’s. After a short stay in this subterranean unusual place I took a bus to Perth Western Australia, a distance of 3,000km. Travelled south to Port Augusta SA took a right turn, headed across the Nullarbor desert and had a rest stop at Kalgoorlie. This stop was supposed to be about 4 hours but I went to the pub and got very comfortable and subsequently missed my bus. No problem, went back to pub, had a great night, slept in a lovely cardboard box that night and caught the next bus travelling through 24 hours later and on to Perth. Editor’s note: My mental image of Ayers Rock is a desolate mound in the middle of the desert. Gerry’s picture makes it look more like Croach Patrick on a busy day.
Strange sign in cinema The reason people choose to live underground is because of the extreme heat and windy dusty
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