Maxim Gunn Downunder

Western Australia is perhaps a bit less wild and woolly than when I was a mining engineer there in the late 70’s but Maxim Gunn finds it challenging enough in his latest adventure. Marble Bar in the old days really was a one pub town, the famous Iron Clad, and the roads weren’t blacktop; just rutted tracks that billowed dust in the dry, and turned to mud in the wet. But otherwise it was pretty much as Gunn sees it: bloody hot, prone to mind-numbing cyclones, and a cold beer is still a cold beer. As for aliens, well, anything’s possible I suppose.

After Western Australia I chucked mining because as I’ve said somewhere else, it became my unalterable opinion that working in 40 degrees Celsius in the shade was for the birds.