Trains and Lovers: A Novel by Alexander McCall Smith

Author:Alexander McCall Smith [Smith, Alexander McCall]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Contemporary, Romance, Travel
ISBN: 9780307908551
Google: _G2BtA9-ceoC
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 17162529
Publisher: Pantheon
Published: 2012-11-01T07:00:00+00:00

HIS SIDING WAS ON THE GHAN LINE THAT IN THOSE days went from Adelaide in South Australia up as far as Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Hope Springs was not far from a point of confluence of two major Outback tracks—rough dirt roads that were the only route through the vast dry plains of the continent’s parched heart. The Oodnadatta Track came down from the north-west, skirting the western side of Lake Eyre, while the Birdsville Track struck north-east towards Southern Queensland. These roads could trap cars in sand or, if it rained, in mud. Great ingenuity was required to get out once trapped, and people could be stuck for days. Travellers also had to stick carefully to the track; any straying off the route was potentially fatal; a wrong turning, a loss of a reference point, and one would quickly perish under the unrelenting sun. Tales were common of cars and trucks being found just a few hundred yards off the track, their drivers dead from thirst and heat; told to warn people of the dangers of thinking they could flout the rules of survival in the Outback. “A few hours and it’ll have you,” people said. “Just a few hours is all you’ve got.”

The pastoral properties scattered along these tracks were immense. It was common for one house to preside over a stretch of land that ran fifty or sixty miles across. Such land supported cattle, but only just, and each animal needed a vast area of grazing to survive. Here and there, marked by patches of green in the predominantly brown landscape, artesian springs brought water to the surface, allowing the cattle and dingoes to slake their thirst.

There were occasional isolated towns—collections of simple houses, a country pub and store, a police post. Then there were the sidings, which were one step down from the towns. These consisted of a railway office, a water tower for the replenishing of the steam locomotives, a station-master’s house and a bunkhouse for railway staff passing through. The bunkhouse might also be used for people from the big cattle stations who might for some reason arrive to catch a train a day before it was due in. It might also occasionally shelter the men who drifted through the Outback in search of work: stockmen or shearers, mechanics, men who had tried everything else and who were now prepared to take on any job in the most inhospitable of surroundings.

Hope Springs had the benefit of ample water. There was an old well, dug in the eighteen-nineties, not far from the railway siding, and a rough bathing pool had been fashioned out of railway sleepers. The water, he had been told, was ancient water—it had fallen tens of thousands of years ago in the wet north of Australia and had percolated down over time into the vast reservoir that lay beneath the central Australian depression. It would never dry up; it would always force its way to just below the surface, and once pumped up it would quickly evaporate in the glare of the sun.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.