Alice Springs

On another sunny and warm day, the hotel fire-alarm went off at 08.00 whilst I was in the shower. Fortunately, it was a false alarm.
After going into a bookshop and failing to find a biography of Stuart and a book about Burke and Wills, I had some breakfast at a cafe in the pedestrianized street and starting writing my postcards.
However, the chest felt a bit tight so, at about noon, I walked to Alice Springs Hospital A&E, was triaged, including photocopying my passport to demonstrate that I was eligible for the reciprocal free health-care arrangement between the UK and Australia, and then put on a trolley in the outpatients section. They performed an ECG, gave me three aspirins, and did two blood tests and a chest X-ray in case I'd had a minor heart-attack or was suffering from angina. I was discharged after four hours, the diagnosis being that I'd probably pulled a muscle lifting my 20kg holdall. The service from the staff had been excellent, and I wondered whether the service would have been so quick in England.
I had booked the shuttle bus to take me to the airport where I had a snack, wrote and posted the cards, and then took the two-hour Qantas flight back to Darwin at 19.50, checking back into MOM at 22.30.Read more