Diary

Wednesday, 27th May 2009

The Alice Springs literary festival is a low-key event compared with the teeming, multi-act affairs that are a mandatory feature of the cultural calendar in bigger cities.

The Alice Springs literary festival is a low-key event compared with the teeming, multi-act affairs that are a mandatory feature of the cultural calendar in bigger cities. This year’s festival did, however, offer the invited writers an opportunity not available anywhere else. Those of us willing to stick around beyond the conclusion of formalities were invited on a four-day walk along the Larapinta trail, a hiking track that runs along the spine of the West MacDonnell Ranges.

Not being much of an outdoorsman, the odd golf course excepted, I did not initially jump at this prospect. Although perfectly capable of appreciating the wonders of nature, I prefer landscapes of the humanised variety, preferably with historic resonances and modern conveniences. The West MacDonnells, a candidate for world heritage listing, are tough terrain, a knotted rope of ancient geology stretching more than 200km across the arid centre of the continent. The idea of humping a rucksack over a pile of rocks, no matter how picturesque, held little allure for me.

When it emerged, however, that this jaunt through the wilderness was to be one of those custom-crafted, fully-escorted affairs for which well-heeled enthusiasts are prepared to pay top dollar, I began to give it a bit more consideration. Before long, I was picturing myself being led through hidden gorges by some strapping bachelorette, en route to a flickering campfire atop a soaring escarpment where I would sip merlot and fork down fillets of pan-seared kangaroo while contemplating the vast, star-blazing heavens.

And so it was that I found myself being led up a hillside off the Stuart Highway by a former Cold Chisel roadie, one of a six-person party that included Jennifer Byrne, who presents the ABC’s First Tuesday Book Club, the pornographic novelist and Beijing Opera librettist Linda Jaivin and an American named David Vann from National Geographic. It was ten in the morning and we were having our mettle assessed on a short 7km stroll across Euro Ridge into Wallaby Gap. The day was fine and pleasantly warm, the going steady and my complimentary Tourism Northern Territory backpack burdened only with water, trail mix and sunscreen. Our ex-rocker guide, Raymond, set the pace and carried the smoked salmon. The support vehicle would meet us at the end of this leg and convey us to our campsite on the Hugh River. If I couldn’t hold my own with two bookish chicks and a Yank, Australian manhood was in a pretty bad way.

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