Musings, reflections and reminiscences
from Alice Springs

I live in Alice Springs, in the centre of Australia. We are very remote from everywhere, the nearest cities and oceans are 1500km away. This area is known as "the Red Centre", but if you were visiting today you would wonder why. Emerald Springs would seem more appropriate.

There is a place called Emerald Springs in Australia's "tropical north". It is a small roadside stop between Katherine and Darwin, situated on the side of a hill. The store and petrol bowser are below the road on one side, a hill rises sharply on the other. I've only ever been through there in winter and it's always seemed very brown, and not at all green!

Emerald Springs is strongly etched in my mind because of an incident in the mid-1980s. Travelling north with two horses, I stopped there for petrol and to top up my car's radiator. I was travelling in convoy with a friend, and both our cars were over-heating.

My friend had earlier been stranded with a broken fanbelt. She'd left Katherine long before me, and I found her walking back, broken fanbelt in hand. She was about 50km north of Katherine - quite a walk ahead on a very hot day! I'd turned my car and float around, taken her back to Katherine, bought a new fanbelt, and returned her to her car (which was being guarded by her two dogs). The car was on a narrow side road, and I had to drive a few more kilometres down the road before finding a place where it was possible to turn my car and float around to head back! That whole incident had delayed me nearly two hours, and I suspect my two horses were sick of being confined to the float by then.

At Emerald Springs I filled the car and topped up the radiator. The place to pay happens to be the bar, which always seems to have an incredible number of people in it considering it is just a building in the middle of nowhere! As I walked through the door into the cool of the airconditioner and the smell of beer, I heard the sickening sound of banging and crashing coming from my horse float. I flew back outside to find my Thoroughbred mare, Belladios, hung up on the breast rail by one front leg. Bell was a quiet mare and, to this day, I have no idea what caused such a reaction.

For the first time in my life I became aware of the necessity to have breast rails that can be easily removed, even when there is a lot of weight bearing down on them. Needless to say, mine did not come out easily. I did not know what to do. I certainly didn't have the strength to lift a 500kg horse off the rail by myself. I raced back into the bar. Looking hopefully at the row of faces staring at me, I asked if anyone could come and help me free a trapped horse. There was not much reaction from the row of bodies that appeared to be slumped over the bar, but eventually one man got up and followed me back to the float. The way he twisted Bell's leg back, I was convinced he was about to break her leg. It didn't take me long to chase him away.

Eventually, and against all my better judgement, I got inside the float with Bell. I'm still not sure what we did, but she got both front legs over the rail first, then managed to get both back where they belonged. She suffered no more than a cut on one hindleg which subsequently needed stitching. She'd made two holes in the fibreglass roof of the float!

We all made it to Darwin, where we were locked out of the showgrounds because we arrived so late, but that's another story. Bell missed the show because of her injured leg. However, because Darwin people are so friendly and hospitable, I made lots of new friends. One couple invited us to stay on their property, and Bell was able to spend the time in their paddock.

Back to Alice Springs, and today. We have had the wettest January on record with seven times the average rainfall for the month. Tuesday's downpoor set a January record for the most rain in 24 hours. The whole place is green and sparkling, but it's extremely hot and humid and we're told there's more rain on the way.

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