44
The blast of inland heat hit me with a fierceness that shocked my sense of anything I may have expected. I had been warned to wear a straw hat and sunglasses, and to wear a loose shirt over my shorts, and to ensure I drank plenty of water. But this was a furnace. I began to film and that diversion helped, but I knew I was not cut out to be in the centre of Australia in the middle of summer. At Alice Springs, I teamed up with Sergeant Michael Dodds, or “Mick” as he was known, who immediately made me feel like an alien who had landed on the wrong planet. The Sergeant paid no attention to the heat. He was as lean as barbed wire and as brown and craggy as the land itself, and was said to know the country and understand its people better than anyone. The local approved of my camera and film
