According to crazed old outback man's mumblings translated by our
plumber buddy, "fair dinkum" is Australian for "no shit, I'm telling
the truth." Fair dinkum, this is one of the best traveling days I've
had.
First it's a mega-hike: 23.7 km, Larapinta Trail from Alice Springs'
Old Telegraph Station to Simpson's Gap. Everybody but Riad and I have
had enough by about 8 km and turn back. It's not that the terrain's
anything too crazy, it's just an obscenely long way at a heavy pace.
All told, it's just under 5 hours and probably the farthest walk I've
ever taken. Some might call the trail boring, but I was content
enough to be walking in the middle of the outback that I felt it
interesting throughout. Back to town is a breeze and my first time
hitchhiking as we ask people in the parking lot of Simpson's Gap for a
ride. Further proof that Australians are nicer than Americans: we get
a ride into town from the second set of people we ask (the first
weren't headed that way).
With pizzas sold for $6 AUD per large pie, we all agree that a gorging
is called for. They don't offer kangaroo as a topping, but we still
order 10 pies for the 5 of us. A party in my mouth and a rumbling in
my stomach soon ensue.
And then the real fun begins. The campground we're squatting at has
live music tonight at its tavern, which turns out to be some rather
drunk Australian who occasionally forgets lyrics alone on stage with
his guitar. He covers a song about Uluru, so we're having a great
time. The highlight of the night is Mud's performance. Cool Plumber
Guy Whose Name I Forget and his family have joined us and his little
girl takes the stage for "Spinning Matilda," some really popular kid's
song. With my urging, Mud joins her, doing hand motions worthy of
Napoleon Dynamite's Happy Hands Club onstage as we laugh our asses
off. Later, we impress a local by solving his riddle of how to get
beer from an ashtray into a glass with seemingly random bar
paraphernalia and without lifting up the ashtray. The solution's to
put the glass over lit matches stacked atop casino chips / coins in
the middle of the drink; I think I only got it because I saw / read
about it somewhere, but I'm still happy to hear the local guy say "I'm
never trying that with Americans again."
The strangest Australian I've met is definitely this grizzled old guy
at the bar who told us what fair dinkum means. He tried talking to us
hours ago before the musician by ripping a coaster, sticking it on his
nose, and walking up to us saying "which one of you mates threw
this?", and he more than makes up for the lack of a conversation then.
My policy of nodding and laughing when I'm not quite sure what he's
saying is mistaken as great interest in his stories, so I hear all
about Amish country and how he got drunk and missed a flight and many
et ceteras. He's so drunk that his nose is bright red and seemed to
be half-heartedly attempting to pick a fight with plumber guy, so we
all just try to walk away during breaks in conversation.
The night wraps up with more pointless but entertaining bar games, the
best of which is arm wrestling. Lisman and I end in a draw, but I'll
be the bigger man and admit that he probably would have beat me
eventually. Plumber guy ties with some local dude as bar champ;
they're locked for a good 5 minutes like statues with neither gaining
any ground. Arm wrestling in the middle of the outback: definitely a
hell of a lot more interesting than falling asleep in some boring
class!