The Ghan

1982 after my 21st birthday, I decided that I had to leave home for good and survive in the real world alone. Oh, and I had a broken heart for the second time in 8 years . Being impulsive I decided that I would catch the bus to Alice Springs then the Ghan to Port Augusta where my grandfather lived. My plan was to go to Adelaide and get a job. The goodbyes at the bus stop near the post office were pitiful to say the least. By the time I was 10Km out of Katherine, I was sure there was no heart left in me. Sound dramatic so far hey? Bus trip was cruisey and then I got on the Ghan. This is where the slap and tickle kicked in. I decided to go the cheap sit up seat for the 24 hour ride. I boarded the train and found my seat, thinking this is quite nice, proper leather seat and quite big and comfy. Sitting close to the toilet and shower area was a bargain. Mums words come to mind here " your still wet behind the ears". About 20 minutes later this bikey gang boarded and the whole atmosphere deteriorated with the smell of cigarettes and grog and sweat. The swearing lulled me into a false scense of security. These were the days you could smoke and drink and do what ever you wanted in a confined public space and blokes had beards and a yellow stripe on their moes leading up to the nostrils from smoking so much, oh and crustacean like brown objects jutting horizontally from their front teeth from smoking too many bongs. It was stinking hot in January and traveling through the desert even hotter. I forgot about my heart because I became worried about what might happen to my body with all these blokes and me being the only girl in the carriage. We set off and about 6 hours later I decided I would have a shower to "freshen up"- what a joke. I got under the shower and soaped myself up and started lathering what hair I had left (I got a crew cut because of the angst) and next minute it felt like boiling water was being poured over me. The shower was so small there wasn't much room to step a side so I turned it of and wondered how I was going to get this soap off myself. After a while I just damped the flannel under the shower and waved it back and forth, like mum used to do when we had temperatures and sponge myself off. Things were going steadily down hill for the boys and it was getting dark and by 9pmish they took the entertainment level up a notch or two by not only punching each other but sticking various sized safety pins through their nipples and chest and doing them up. I feel a cold shiver just writing this. I tried to sleep thinking if they were gunna do something they would have already done it by now, that didn't work, then I remembered my heart so basically stayed awake for that whole trip. By the time we had disembarked the safety pins had caused a pussy infection on most of the blokes who had choked down in their seats asleep. Stepping on to the Port Augusta platform I had butterflies in my tummy because I was excited at being alone in a big city and at seeing my Grandfather again. I had not told him I was coming because we didn't have phones and if I'd sent a letter it would have arrived on the same day or after me. I felt pretty happy that I survived that trip, but was still feeling my heart. I got the taxi and went to Pops house and when I knocked on the door and he answered with a very stunned look and after a long pause said, "you haven't run away from home have you?" and then took me inside to try to work out what I was doing there and what to do with me. Looking back it could have been worse, at least the seat next to me was empty the whole trip. And this was stage one of growing up...... This photo is from later in that year.