Alice Springs

Thank you to J9 Staunton, who gave us wwoofers some work and donated very generously to the charity, and put up with us as we raced around town looking for work, talking to the radio, and newspapers and that malarkey. A very talented and lovely person she is too, despite not telling me as I sat on the red been-bag the dog uses for ‘personal pleasure’ that I may be more comfortable elsewhere.

Thanks to Ian and Pam Lue, J9’s visiting relatives, for the donation to Book Aid. It was a great beard you had Ian.

Thanks to Jo George and the team at The Rock Tour, Alice Springs, who had no compunction offering us a three day tour down to Uluru, Kata Tjuta, and Kings Canyon. And to Craig, our tour guide, we thank unreservedly, for the excellent way he ferried a bus load of people around and made it fun, informative and easy. An excellent time had by all, I think. Yes, I do think that.

Thank you Wendy at Toddies Backpackers, for working us in the garden and donating the wages to Book Aid. Then fed us steaks at night. Top job.

Thanks to the well-intentioned people at Caltex Alice Springs for the full tank of fuel donated to us.

To Chris, who made us a coffees and a b.l.t each and sat with us at his fine establishment the Red Dog Café, on Todd St mall.

Thanks to the Centralian Advocate for running a story on us

Thanks also to Rowan, the afternoon DJ on ABC Alice Springs who interviewed us.

Hello and thanks to Cousin Jo, Gareth’s effervescent relative, for the donation to our cause. Top bananas cousin jo.

Thank You Andrew Lake and Rob Evans, at the YHA Hostel in Alice, for letting us stay there in exchange for some work.

Thank Derek Goh, at the Tea Shrine, for the fried rice.

Thank you Richie at Rocky Hill Table Grapes, who offered us work picking grapes (I know, grapes, in the desert, but apparently so) and despite only getting a day out of it due to the torrential rain, (I know, torrential rain, in the desert, but apparently so) we appreciate the effort nonetheless.

Thanks to the girls at Gloria Jeans for the breakfast coffees.

We love you April at Wicked Kneads, not only for the breakfast buns, but for the tea time pastry box later on that day. Phew!

As James Blunt sang ‘you’re beautiful’. So we sang in honour of Shelley and the girls at Haven Hostel for the stay there. Happy to work for our beds, and to answer such questions as ‘do you guys like beer? We have a load of cans here, leftover, you want em’ We went week at the knees. Sincerely.

Sorry. To the fella who, as we were being given our box of beer, was asked, over our shoulder, to pay $5 for that can of Pepsi he wanted. He audibly frowned. Fair play, I thought.

Thank you to Tony Dodds at Target, who donated to us our video camera tapes.

Double Dutch! Thanksh to Ed and Girde from Holland who left some beer for us and a pouch of tobacco.

Bonjour! To Yuri Iizuka and Juno, from Japan and Korea respectively. Rovery people.
Thanks to quintessential Chris, from Norwich, for the hat he donated. Very dapper it is and much used in the interim. Obliged to you kind sir.

He may just be the mechanical equivalent of the man whose name he almost shares, come forward Richard Hawkins, Wicked Camper mechanic, top fella and author of The Cog Delusion.

Goodness gracious great balls of fire! Russel at Alice Scrap and Metal, who gave us an afternoons work, sorting through scrap aluminium, de-casing copper wire and generally getting mucky and burning stuff. The wages, of course, went to Book Aid.