Thursday, June 30, 2005
The legendary Penny O'Neill
Soundtrack: “Up All Night” by Razorlight
Rest assured, if I hadn’t met Penny, this post would’ve been called “The legendary Ghan.” The Gahn is short for Afghan, and it’s the name of the train that runs all the way from Adelaide to Darwin, stopping at Alice Springs in the middle. It’s named after the Afghans who led the camels between Adelaide and Alice in order to carry supplies to build the railway, allegedly. There are loads of crazy stories about it, which is why it’s legendary. For example, once the train got mired in the outback for three weeks because of flooding during the wet season, and the driver kept everybody alive by shooting wild goat for them to eat.
I took the train up on Sunday 19th June. The trip from Adelaide up to Alice lasts nineteen hours, and I spent all of them (plus an extra hour because there was a delay while they changed drivers) sitting next to Penny. Let me tell you some stuff about Penny. This is a novel in itself, so I’ll try to summarise a little. Her father was a commando in the British Army, so she grew up in loads of different countries, most of them war zones. She married a German count when she was 19, and because her son was the only male child, he’s going to be a count when his father dies, even thought he count divorced Penny for his mistress and had children with her. Penny’s youngest daughter is a tattoo artist in Melbourne, and she’ tattooed Heath Ledger. Russell Crowe now lives on the farm that her mother used to own. She’s currently a professional crotcheter-or-whatever (but she’s done loads of other crazy jobs), and she broke the world record for the fastest crocheted jumper on Rove Live (which is the Australian equivalent of Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, but more spontaneous and funnier). She’s now in Alice to teach Aboriginal women how to do freestyle crochet, and she was also organising the Beanie Festival. I’ve missed out loads because it’s impossible to remember all in one go. What an extraordinary life.
Penny got completely smashed on red wine (she kept on trying to pour glasses for me and forgetting to take off the lid). I didn’t. Both of us didn’t sleep. There was a wonderful moment at around 3am when the Aussie guy sitting behind us suddenly exclaimed: “Bloody Poms beat us.” He’d been listening to England v Australia on his personal radio. Richard, the Geordie guy behind me and myself were rather happy at this, and he told me the next day that the Aussie guy had only been announcing when Australia had been hitting boundaries etc, so it came as rather a surprise when we won. Yay for Kevin Pietersen.
Rest assured, if I hadn’t met Penny, this post would’ve been called “The legendary Ghan.” The Gahn is short for Afghan, and it’s the name of the train that runs all the way from Adelaide to Darwin, stopping at Alice Springs in the middle. It’s named after the Afghans who led the camels between Adelaide and Alice in order to carry supplies to build the railway, allegedly. There are loads of crazy stories about it, which is why it’s legendary. For example, once the train got mired in the outback for three weeks because of flooding during the wet season, and the driver kept everybody alive by shooting wild goat for them to eat.
I took the train up on Sunday 19th June. The trip from Adelaide up to Alice lasts nineteen hours, and I spent all of them (plus an extra hour because there was a delay while they changed drivers) sitting next to Penny. Let me tell you some stuff about Penny. This is a novel in itself, so I’ll try to summarise a little. Her father was a commando in the British Army, so she grew up in loads of different countries, most of them war zones. She married a German count when she was 19, and because her son was the only male child, he’s going to be a count when his father dies, even thought he count divorced Penny for his mistress and had children with her. Penny’s youngest daughter is a tattoo artist in Melbourne, and she’ tattooed Heath Ledger. Russell Crowe now lives on the farm that her mother used to own. She’s currently a professional crotcheter-or-whatever (but she’s done loads of other crazy jobs), and she broke the world record for the fastest crocheted jumper on Rove Live (which is the Australian equivalent of Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, but more spontaneous and funnier). She’s now in Alice to teach Aboriginal women how to do freestyle crochet, and she was also organising the Beanie Festival. I’ve missed out loads because it’s impossible to remember all in one go. What an extraordinary life.
Penny got completely smashed on red wine (she kept on trying to pour glasses for me and forgetting to take off the lid). I didn’t. Both of us didn’t sleep. There was a wonderful moment at around 3am when the Aussie guy sitting behind us suddenly exclaimed: “Bloody Poms beat us.” He’d been listening to England v Australia on his personal radio. Richard, the Geordie guy behind me and myself were rather happy at this, and he told me the next day that the Aussie guy had only been announcing when Australia had been hitting boundaries etc, so it came as rather a surprise when we won. Yay for Kevin Pietersen.
