I was in Alice Springs this past February. Alice Springs is in the center of Australia. It was 114 degrees F when I was there in the middle of the Australian summer. Alice Springs has surface water only when it rains. It sits on top of an aquifer.
I found a robust O gauge community in both Sydney and Melbourne. Most people concentrate on Australian and British modeling. Three rail O gauge is alive and well among the Hornby collectors. The Hornby Collectors Club is the Australian equivalent of our TCA. I would contact them to get an entrance into the hobby.
The best hobby shop I have ever been in is called Hobby Co. and is located in the Queen Victoria building in downtown Sydney. It has 3 floors of models of every description - planes, trains, ships, castles, combat vehicles, soldiers, etc.
O gauge trains at Hobby Co. were very expensive. For example, an Atlas O gauge box car that goes for $40 in the USA was selling for $140 in Australia. They did have a full shelf of USA equipment. The HO offerings were much more reasonable in price.
Here are some photos that I took of Alice Springs. This is the entire town taken from a hilltop overlooking the city.
The photo below is the original Alice Springs. The original spring was under this rock. It sits next to a dry river that only has water during the winter rains. The town was founded next to this rock to support a telegraph station linking the north and south coast. The original telegraph station is a few miles outside of the current town. The third photo is of the river bed. I can't recall the river's name.
The Ghan - the trans-continental train linking Adelaide on the south coast and Darwin on the north coast was in Alice Springs when I was there. The Ghan was named in honor of the Afghan camel drivers who helped build the original telegraph line linking Adelaide and Darwin. Australia has large herds of wild camels today.