Monday, March 17, 2008

Planning the trip to Alice Springs

Mum seems a tad worried about my skills at organising a trip to the outback. I therefore recently purchased a book on travel by Sir Francis Galton, a 19th-Century explorer. I'll be travelling with Christine and therefore looked up the section on travel with women. I found the following useful advice:

"It is in the nature of women to be fond of carrying weights ... Women were mdae for labor: one of them can carry or haul as much as two men can do. They also pitch our tents, make and mend our clothing ... women though they do everthing, are maintained at a trifling expense: for, as they always stand cook, the very licking of their fingers, in scarce times, is sufficient for their subsistence."

Sounds reasonably straightforward!

I'm off to Parkes tomorrow.

1 comment:

Alison Hobbs said...

Good heavens, makes you wonder how that man got a knighthood!

You don't completely reassure me on how you're going to survive the outback, still "a tad worried,"
love from your mother.