Alice in the Land Down Under

Alice had grown rather tired of sitting by the billabong with her sister, who was reading a book with no pictures or conversations in it. The Australian sun beat down mercilessly, and even the shade of the ancient river red gum offered little relief from the sweltering heat.

“What is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?” She was considering whether the pleasure of weaving a daisy chain would be worth the trouble of getting up to pick the daisies, when suddenly a White Kangaroo with pink eyes hopped close by her.

There was nothing particularly remarkable in that, until the Kangaroo actually took a pocket watch out of its pouch, looked at it anxiously, and said, “Crikey! I’ll be late for the barbie!” Then it bounded away across the red dirt, its powerful legs carrying it toward what appeared to be a large burrow beneath a ghost gum.

Burning with curiosity, Alice ran after it, just in time to see it disappear down a surprisingly large rabbit hole beneath the tree’s massive roots. Without a second thought, she followed, tumbling down what seemed to be a very deep well lined with eucalyptus bark and decorated with Aboriginal dot paintings that seemed to move and swirl as she fell.

Down, down, down she fell, past shelves lined with jars of Vegemite and billy tea, past didgeridoos hanging on hooks, and boomerangs spinning lazily in the still air. She had plenty of time to wonder where she was going and what would happen next.

Finally, she landed with a soft thump on a pile of dried grass and leaves. Before her stretched a long corridor lined with doors of all sizes, from tiny ones that might fit a bilby to enormous ones suitable for a cassowary. On a three-legged table made from a hollow log sat a golden key and a bottle labeled “DRINK ME, MATE” in cheerful red letters.

Alice, being a sensible girl despite her adventurous spirit, first tasted the contents carefully. It had a flavor that reminded her of lamingtons, meat pies, and pavlova all mixed together. Soon she began to shrink, becoming small enough to fit through the tiniest door, which opened onto the most beautiful garden she had ever seen.

But alas! She had left the key on the table, now far above her head. Fortunately, she spotted a small cake under the table with “EAT ME, COBBER” written on it in currants. One bite, and she shot up like a young jarrah tree, her head nearly hitting the ceiling made of corrugated iron.

After much weeping (her tears forming quite a substantial creek), she managed to get herself to the right size and stepped through into the garden. But this was no ordinary English garden – it was a uniquely Australian wonderland.

The first creatures she encountered were a Dodo wearing an Akubra hat and a variety of native animals including a Wombat, several Echidnas, a Platypus, and a family of Possums, all soaking wet and arguing loudly about the best way to get dry.

“The best way to get dry,” declared the Dodo authoritatively, adjusting his hat, “is a Caucus Race.”

“What’s a Caucus Race?” asked Alice.

“Fair dinkum question!” replied the Dodo. “The best way to explain it is to do it.” And with that, they all began running in circles around a large billabong, starting and stopping whenever they pleased. After about half an hour, when they were all quite dry, the Dodo suddenly called out, “The race is over!” and they all crowded around asking, “But who has won?”

The Dodo put on a serious expression, thought for a long time with one claw pressed to his forehead, and finally announced, “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes!”

“But who is to give the prizes?” chorused the animals.

“She is, of course,” said the Dodo, pointing to Alice. Fortunately, Alice had some boiled lollies in her pocket, which she distributed to everyone. For her own prize, the Dodo presented her with her own thimble, which he asked her to hand to him first, then presented back to her “with great ceremony.”

As the crowd dispersed, Alice found herself walking along a path lined with bottle trees and golden wattles. Soon she came upon a small house with a tin roof, where smoke was rising from a chimney made from an old milk can. Outside, a Cheshire Cat was grinning broadly while perched on a branch of a coolibah tree.

This Cat, however, was unlike any she had seen in England. Its fur was a beautiful golden color with distinctive tabby markings, and when it grinned, its teeth gleamed like opals in the dappled sunlight.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” asked Alice.

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat with a distinctly Australian drawl.

“I don’t much care where—” began Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” interrupted the Cat.

“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough. By the way, are you going to the Mad Hatter’s bush telegraph party? It’s always afternoon there, so it’s always time for afternoon tea.”

Before Alice could ask what a bush telegraph party might be, the Cat began to vanish, starting with its tail and ending with its grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had disappeared.

“Well, I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice, “but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!”

Following the path deeper into this strange land, Alice soon came upon a table set up under a large ghost gum tree. The Mad Hatter was there, wearing a hat decorated with a band of corks hanging from strings, and with him sat a March Hare and a Dormouse. They were having afternoon tea, but using a billy can instead of a proper teapot, and their cups were tin mugs rather than china.

“No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw Alice coming.

“There’s plenty of room!” said Alice indignantly, sitting down in a large armchair made from bent branches at one end of the table.

“Have some lamington,” the March Hare said encouragingly.

Alice looked all around the table, but there was nothing on it but tea and damper bread. “I don’t see any lamington,” she remarked.

“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare.

“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily.

“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said the March Hare.

And so began the strangest tea party Alice had ever attended, where riddles had no answers, the Dormouse told rambling stories about three little sisters who lived at the bottom of a treacle well, and time itself had stopped at six o’clock because the Hatter had quarreled with it during a performance of “Waltzing Matilda.”

Growing tired of the nonsensical conversation, Alice walked away and soon found herself before a large house with chimneys shaped like ears and a roof that looked remarkably like fur. This was the home of the Duchess, who was inside nursing a baby while her Cook threw enormous amounts of pepper into a pot of stew, making everyone sneeze constantly.

“If everybody minded their own business,” said the Duchess in a hoarse growl, “the world would go round a deal faster than it does.”

The baby, who had been crying and sneezing alternately, suddenly transformed into a young joey kangaroo and bounded away into the bush. Alice, though surprised, was becoming accustomed to strange transformations in this curious land.

Her adventures continued as she encountered the Queen of Hearts’ Australian cousin – the Queen of Diamonds – who ruled over a court of playing cards busy painting white roses red to look like waratah flowers. The Queen’s favorite phrase was not “Off with their heads!” but rather “Send them to the Outback!” which was apparently just as terrifying to the card soldiers.

Alice found herself invited to a game of croquet, but instead of flamingo mallets and hedgehog balls, they used young emus as mallets and echidnas as balls. The echidnas would curl up into balls when touched, but then uncurl and wander away at the most inconvenient moments, while the emus would run off in whatever direction they pleased, making the game completely impossible to play properly.

“It’s no use,” said Alice to herself, watching the chaos around her. “They’re all mad here, but in such a wonderfully Australian way.”

As the sun began to set, painting the sky in brilliant shades of red and orange that seemed to stretch endlessly across the vast landscape, Alice felt a strange tugging sensation. The dream-like quality of her adventure began to fade, and she found herself growing larger and larger until…

She woke up by the billabong, her head in her sister’s lap, with gentle hands brushing away some leaves that had fallen onto her face from the river red gum above.

“Wake up, Alice dear!” said her sister. “You’ve been sleeping for such a long time.”

“Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!” said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange adventures of hers in the Land Down Under.

When she had finished, her sister kissed her and said, “It was a curious dream, dear, certainly, but now run in to your tea; it’s getting late.”

As Alice got up and ran off, her sister remained sitting by the billabong with her chin in her hand, watching the sunset and thinking about little Alice and all her wonderful adventures. She could almost see the White Kangaroo hurrying by with his pocket watch, the Cheshire Cat’s grin hanging in the air, and the Mad Hatter’s cork-lined hat bobbing under the ghost gum tree.

The kookaburras began their evening chorus, laughing as if they too had heard Alice’s tale and found it just as delightfully mad as she had. And in the distance, across the red earth and through the golden grass, it almost seemed as though one could glimpse a land where anything was possible and every creature had its own peculiar wisdom to share.

For in the Land Down Under that exists in dreams and stories, the magic never really ends – it just waits patiently for the next curious soul brave enough to follow a White Kangaroo down a rabbit hole and discover what wonders await in the most unexpected places.