Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Ring For Angelina
    A Ring For Angelina
    A Ring For Angelina
    Ebook35 pages33 minutes

    A Ring For Angelina

    By Lindsay Johannsen

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Love Story – 1949, the Harts Range mica fields north east of Alice Springs in Central Australia: difficult conditions, demanding work, hard times generally, a seemingly worsening situation ... and Christmas approaching.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLindsay Johannsen
    Release dateMar 9, 2015
    ISBN9781311626219
    A Ring For Angelina
    Author

    Lindsay Johannsen

    There's not a lot to tell really, though on reflection, looking back on it through the lens of one’s recollections and memories, the whole business seems more akin to an extended Huckleberry Finn adventure, but set in the vastness of Central Australia. Born, raised and schooled in Alice Springs; taken from the leafy glades of learning mid-way through Year-eight to work at my father's remote little copper mine; later employed for some years driving his cattle-hauling road trains – him having pioneered road trains and the cattle hauling business (see "Kurt Johannsen: A Son of the Red Centre"). Married in the fullness of time; built a bush homestead on the northern edge of the Simpson Desert and raised a family there, all while running a small tungsten mining business and provisioning the hundred or so Aboriginal people local to the area who adopted us. Sold our mine and homestead a few years after the kids had flown the coop, acquired a forty foot (12m) touring coach, converted it into a big steel-wheel mobeel Palaise-de-passion motor home and took to the roads of this great land of Oz - in the main visiting our offspring (most of whom had moved to coastal regions), our grandchildren generally and a couple of great grandies, plus various friends and associates from years gone by. So these days all I have to do is keep the missus happy – my Bride my Precious Lamb and Flower of the Early Mid Morning. 'Anywhere you wish, my darling,' I tell her. 'You just say the word and we'll be on our way.' So it's free as the breeze, we are now, out and about having wild and exciting adventures and being amazingly cool generally. Best job I ever had.

    Read more from Lindsay Johannsen

    Related to A Ring For Angelina

    Related ebooks

    Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Tathra Hotel

      May 16, 2018

      Tathra Hotel
      6 min read

    • Article

      Blighty HOTEL

      Jun 12, 2019

      Blighty HOTEL
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Beauty Of Detours

      Feb 25, 2022

      The Beauty Of Detours
      4 min read

    • Article

      STRIKE IT RICH ... With This Gem

      Oct 15, 2020

      STRIKE IT RICH ... With This Gem
      7 min read

    • Article

      Once Upon A Time In A Deep, Dark Mine

      Jan 1, 2021

      Once Upon A Time In A Deep, Dark Mine
      4 min read

    • Article

      Tumblong Tavern

      Oct 20, 2023

      Tumblong Tavern
      8 min read

    • Article

      Fifty Not Out!

      Jun 23, 2023

      Fifty Not Out!
      6 min read

    • Article

      My Favourite Memory Of…

      Jun 15, 2023

      My Favourite Memory Of…
      4 min read

    • Article

      Getaway Driver

      Feb 10, 2022

      Getaway Driver
      11 min read

    • Article

      On The Road Again

      Nov 2, 2022

      On my first day in Primer Four at Caversham Primary School in Dunedin in late January 1950, after having moved south from Auckland in early December, I was seated alongside another newcomer. His name was Walter Powell but his move to Dunedin had enta

      6 min read

    • Article

      Mailbag

      Jul 19, 2022

      I was saddened to hear of the recent death of Es Davies, Es was one of the quietest men I have ever met in this great hobby, but his knowledge was always shared without hesitation. I first met Es at Brian See's St George Hobbies in southern Sydney in

      3 min read

    • Article

      Allan Dick TODAY

      Jul 3, 2023

      I’ve done a lot of driving and had a lot to do with cars in my life – and it’s not really slowing down. In March, or April, I was asked to speak to a gathering of Rolls-Royce owners in Dunedin. It was the 30th Anniversary of the Rolls-Royce and Bentl

      5 min read

    • Article

      Overland CORNER HOTEL

      Aug 14, 2019

      Overland CORNER HOTEL
      6 min read

    • Article

      Miss you, Mum…

      Aug 14, 2023

      Miss you, Mum…
      4 min read

    • Article

      HOMEBUSH Hotel

      May 14, 2020

      HOMEBUSH Hotel
      6 min read

    • Article

      Our House In The Middle Of Our Street

      Oct 1, 2018

      WORDS PAMELA POWER As they drifted off, Lilah took a moment to be in the moment. The purple jacarandas were just bursting into bloom, the leaves intensely green after the first rains. It was all so beautiful. Hashtag blessed. – An excerpt from Delila

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Dullard

      Jun 5, 2019

      The villagers of Yockenthwaite knew him as ‘Jack Dull’, ‘Jack Dolt,’ or sometimes just ‘The Dullard’. His real name was John Dullard, last in a long, illustrious line of Dullards, and a man – so they said – of quite miraculous stupidity. The kind of

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Parsonage in New Hope

      Dec 4, 2023

      A Parsonage in New Hope
      12 min read

    • Article

      Haunted In An Irish Castle

      Nov 5, 2018

      Haunted In An Irish Castle
      6 min read

    • Article

      As the World Collapses

      Jul 27, 2017

      As the World Collapses
      7 min read

    • Article

      Diamonds

      Jun 4, 2018

      Diamonds
      9 min read

    • Article

      Drawn to THE MOORS

      Feb 8, 2022

      Drawn to THE MOORS
      11 min read

    • Article

      THE DUKE OF Edinbrough Hotel

      Nov 13, 2019

      THE DUKE OF Edinbrough Hotel
      6 min read

    • Article

      Freezy Rider

      Dec 2, 2020

      Freezy Rider
      10 min read

    • Article

      In The Footprints Of The Ancestors

      Mar 2, 2023

      In The Footprints Of The Ancestors
      11 min read

    • Article

      My Country Childhood

      Sep 4, 2019

      AUTHOR AND FORMER executive director of the Australian Writers Guild, Angela Wales, 71, moved from Bondi in Sydney to Walcha in the Northern Tablelands of NSW when she was five years old. Angela’s father, Bob, was to take over a struggling sheep prop

      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Ring For Angelina

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Ring For Angelina - Lindsay Johannsen

      A RING FOR ANGELINA

      If you ever happened to be driving around the bush exploring the old mica fields on the eastern end of Harts Ranges, north-east of Alice Springs, you may very well chance on evidence suggesting that a motor vehicle track once went through there.

      This washed-out, scrub and grass reclaimed irregularity is, in fact, all that remains of what was the original wagon track to Queensland (or the section at least from Harding Springs in the eastern Harts Ranges to Red Tank Soak on the Plenty River) …a track which later became the motor vehicle route through to there.

      Should you attempt to follow what is left of it – toward the hill country, say, in a general south-westerly direction – and miss where it turned up into the ranges, then you will probably come on the remnants of some old mine workings – abandoned in the early 1950's when the mica price crashed. They're only a couple hundred metres from the ranges, on the flat country directly adjacent to a sizeable notch in the first line of hills.

      The first thing you’ll notice will be the big heaps of white quartz rocks and rubble (so clean and fresh-looking they could have been put there yesterday), their fallen-in pits … and the myriad flakes of waste and wind-blown mica flashing sunlight back at you from everywhere. And a short distance away from the diggings you'll see a small, neatly-built corrugated-iron hut, still standing and complete.

      It’s a miner’s hut typical of those earlier days, so it might strike you as odd that it is still standing, certainly given the appetites of the local termites. An inspection soon clarifies the issue, however: the builders used light steel tramline for its posts and rails rather than bush-timber, the type used for running skip-trucks in small mining operations.

      Should you choose to stay – overnight perhaps or to look farther afield – you might also come across the grave. It’s just a marker and some white rocks, though the local cattle seem to enjoy kicking the rocks out of place.

      The marker once had writing on it but you can’t read it now. I know because I saw the grave when it was fresh. I go back there occasionally, too, when I'm travelling out that way … to tidy it a bit and straighten the rocks.

      And long after returning home the memory of this place will stay with you.

      It’s because of the grave, I suppose, it being in such a lonely place. Yet even those who miss seeing the grave will remember the iron hut, because everyone remembers the

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1