When the magical worlds of Alice Springs and Prague collided

Writer Tanya Heaslip on swapping life on an Alice Springs station for the fairytale streets of Prague, and the remarkable parallels she found between these two magical worlds.

Tanya was in a pub in London in 1989 when she watched on the television as the Berlin Wall came down.

She was the tail end of a solo backpacking trip, which didn’t quite live up to what she’d imagined it might be as a little girl growing up on a remote cattle station near Alice Springs.

But Tanya booked to go to Berlin the very next day, beginning an obsession with learning about what life was like behind the Iron Curtain.

Several years later she would return to Europe, this time to the East, to the Czech Republic.

There in fairytale Prague, not long after the Velvet Revolution, Tanya would fall in love with the city and into a relationship with an older man.

And she would draw unexpected parallels between the magic and isolation of Prague and that of Central Australia – their people and their stories.

Tanya has written several memoirs about her life from the great expanse of the Northern Territory, to the cobbled streets of Prague.

Alice to Prague, An Alice Girl and Beyond Alice are published by Allen & Unwin.

This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

It explores country Australia, rural Australia, boarding school, Northern Territory, mustering cattle, expat Australians, Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, Fall of the Wall, travelling Australians, falling in love, grief, grieving, relationships, love for country, central Australia, Adelaide, bullying, studying law, working in the legal system, teaching English abroad.