Back home

Briz Vegas art work – near State Library/Arts precinct at South Bank.

My life through swimming pools

Alice Springs: Latitude: 23S; Longitude:133E

What a great way to see the world – through the bottom of a swimming pool. I’m no Olympic swimmer, just your average lap lane customer, but I’m starting to think that this is not a bad way to remember some of the places I’ve travelled to. A rather limited view of the world you might say, but urban wisdom tells me that you remember moments not days. I reckon that moment when you plunge into the water of a 25/50 metre council pool is one of those pretty memorable moments – it helped me remember Dunedin, New Zealand – 28C in the water, and 18C outside the water. Also creepy mist and steam rising out of the water in a somewhat primal way. It took me hours to chip the icicles off my bathing cap.

Some people trawl the shops and stock up on baseball caps and t-shirts when they travel. Me, I pay my five or so dollars, inelegantly crawl into my bathers – swimmers or togs, depending on which state of Australia you’re from – and head for the chlorine. I’ve become one of those non-tumble-turning-few-times-a-week-gals, who crave fully irrigated nostrils, and a scenic view of the long black line – lap, after lap, after lap. An odd hobby, but a strangely attractive prospect after a long day frozen to the screen of a computer.

I highly recommend the Aquatic Centre at Alice Springs. Now there’s a plunge or two to remember. Under the perfect blue skies of the desert it is fantastic. Little competition for space, no water aerobics class in action sending a tsunami from one side of the pool to the other- well at least not while I was there. What more could you ask? I know, a dip in one of the waterholes out beyond Alice, in the West MacDonnell Ranges. Ellery Creek Big-Hole, Ormiston Gorge, Redback or Glen Helen Gorge. But watch out – not for crocs this time, for hyperthermia. Those natural pools are deep and freakishly cold. But, they definitely could be added to ‘The Pool List’, for their free-range possibilities, rather than their conformity.

Alice Springs

Well, here I am again, back in the NT – half way to anywhere, or somewhere or nowhere: halfway to Darwin, half way to Adelaide. It’s 6 months since I was in the Northern Territory, the air is dry and crispy as chips, 40C and counting. Had 3 days of work in Alice, but the wide open road is just begging me to keep driving, that way, outta town, to the Chasm. . . don’t go back to Brisbane . . . yet. It rained on Wednesday – rain! But the Todd is not flowing as you can see. Only a few more hours to contemplate Australia from its navel, though, and then I’m ‘home’ on the east coast, where I’ll be putting my head back into those books, confining myself to the library, and staring at the computer screen. Hey, give me those car keys – how many K’s to Broome did you say?

Todd River