Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Uluru, The Olgas, and the long road home
After another longish drive we arrived at Uluru, or Ayers Rock, in time to book into the campsite, and then head off to watch the sunset. We’ve seen hundreds of photos of Ayers Rock, but still nothing had prepared me for this enormous red monolith rising out of the otherwise barren landscape. There is a designated viewing carpark for cars, and we were happy that the one for the hordes of buses was further back across the road. A friendly gathering of people, and although the sunset wasn’t particularly spectacular because of the dust Nick wandered around and found someone who’d just travelled down the Great Central Road (or Great Central Dirt-track as I’ve renamed it) and said it was in good condition as the grader had just been through. This cheered us as we’d been told that the pot-holes were a foot deep, and weren’t looking forward to 1,000 km of that.
Next day we had a leisurely breakfast in an almost deserted campsite as, judging by the unzipping of tents and revving of engines at 5am, everyone else had gone to watch the sun rise on Uluru (you’ll notice I call it by both names, like the National Park and road-map people, I can’t decided on just one). We arrived a bit later and did one or two short trails to look at rock-art, caves etc. Sections of it round the base are closed off to the public, again because of its religious significance to the Aboriginal people. But strangely enough the extremely steep walk to the top (hand-rails up a near-vertical bare rock-face) isn’t closed, although there are notices all over the place asking the public to show respect and not climb it. In the visitors centre there are tales of how many people have perished doing the climb (38 – mostly from heart attacks), and we couldn’t understand why they still keep the walk open, seeing as vast tracts of land in the Territory belonging to Aboriginal communities are no entry zones to the general public. Strange.
However, they do encourage you to try the 7 km Valley of the Winds walk at the Olga range, 40 km away. So we headed off there, and found a range of domes of stunning beauty. Despite its billing as ‘hard’ the walk wasn’t nearly as difficult as some we’d done - perhaps its been hyped up a bit to make those not walking Uluru feel better. Although the day was pretty hot again we spent two or three hours enjoying the wonderful colours and clear views, knowing it would be our last walk of the trip. We returned to Uluru again in the evening, and were rewarded with one of the famous sunsets this time.
Next morning it was finally time to start the long drive home. We had about 2,000 km to cover, and weren’t sure if we’d have just one more, or two nights on the road. We set the alarm for 5 am and were able to see the sun rise behind Ayers Rock and watch its rays spreading across the desert to light up The Olgas. Our farewell to this part of Australia that has given us so many stunning sights. We made breakfast in the carpark (glad of hot coffee, it was about 7C this early in the morning) and were on the road by 7.15.
The first 1,000 km would be on the Great Central Road, which we felt was our final ‘must see’ or perhaps ‘must do’. It turned out to be a lot less corrugated than we’d feared, and we were able to drive at between 80 and 100 kph most of the way, although the driving itself is extremely tiring because of the constant juddering over the ruts, and also because of the concentration needed: in the blink of an eye you find yourself swerving in soft sand, or in a pot-hole hidden by bull-dust.
We stopped briefly at a cave when an unfortunate explorer and prospector Lewis Lasseter, whose camels had bolted, sheltered from the fierce January heat in 1931. He was taken care of by an Aboriginal family group, walked many miles with them but eventually became too weak and died soon after reaching town. Nick wondered if some of the camels we saw round there were Lassiter’s camels’ progeny. Apart from the camels, there really was very little to see and so we kept ourselves going by counting cars: tally for the two days’ driving was 32 cars (all but one and a road-train coming in the opposite direction) and 173 dead cars + 1 caravan – wrecks long abandoned at the side of the road. We did meet a couple of mining convoys in our ‘live car’ count, trailers with outrider vehicles to clear the road, carrying gigantic bits of mining kit. We literally had to get right off the road to let them pass as they took up the whole space, and then wait for the clouds of dust to disperse.
We covered a good distance the first day, and were so whacked we were glad to find a cabin (called The Hilton) at a friendly roadhouse, which had two pet emus running round. We had a comfy bed, kitchen and TV, though we had to use the shower block on the site, and I was a bit worried that I might bump into an emu if I had to get up to the loo in the middle of the night. In the event I didn’t and the emus were locked up so I needn’t have worried. We made another early getaway by 6.30, and by 10 were very pleased to hit the bitumen for the remainder of the journey. We turned off the aircon and opened the air vent, and were covered in dust that blew straight into our faces (just a small part of the dust that’s got into every crevice in the car).
A day of long straight almost empty roads. There are so few cars here, and I realise now why they give the traffic report for the whole of Australia each morning on the radio. My big worry had been how I was going to overtake road-trains, some of which are four container trucks long, joined together like a train. In fact when you have over 18 km of straight road without a bend and few cars in the opposite direction, it’s not so terrifying. They don’t tend to slow down to let you pass, though, as they would then have to climb back up their 17 or so gears.
By stopping only briefly for a cup of tea, and later some excellent fish and chips at a roadhouse jumping with boozed-up footie fans (we’d been listening to the Aussie Rules Grand Final on the radio, a sacred day in September) we finally drove through the gates of our block at 10pm, having driven 1,200 km that day, 59 days after we set out. The flat seemed vast and oh so tidy and dust-free, and as for our bed, well, it was hard to get out of it next morning. Only sad thing is no Smudge the cat, who is now happily living with Kate in Adelaide.
Well, what a trip. We feel so lucky to have had the chance to explore just a small corner of this vast and wonderful country. I feel quite proud to have learnt new skills, mainly from Nick, who is so practical when it comes to living on and off the land – you may not be surprised to know that I was rather a novice camper when we started. Camping has taught us both freedom and discipline as we’ve gone along. I’ve loved it that when we’ve started off in the morning we often haven’t known exactly where we’ll be at the end of the day. The discipline is in the minutiae of camping itself – the inside of our car might have looked like junk heap, but when it came to making camp (and making supper) we had to know exactly where we’d put everything in order to find it again. It made us laugh that nearly every other camper's site was also surrounded by a storage system of large plastic boxes and brightly coloured Coles shopping bags.
We’ll miss the endless stretching roads and landscape of different colours, the pools and gorges. And the many, many people we’ve met and talked to along the way. We found that the campsites that had mainly Aussies staying were where we struck up most conversations; Johnny Foreigner, be he German, American or Brit, tended to keep himself to himself. Since I’ve been home I’ve rather missed the conversation on campsites and road conditions while we performed personal tasks like washing up or cleaning teeth: some of our best side-trips were made on the strength of this shared information. The travelling life is a whole parallel universe, and we feel lucky to have been part of it. And what’s more, we had the greatest fun!
(So much so that we will be heading out again next week, taking Kate and friend Matt across the Nullabor and back to Adelaide, and then on for a week or two to explore South Australia. That is, if I can leave my comfy bed again…)The next couple of blogs will be mainly photographic, with a bit from Nick on the roads we travelled.
Next day we had a leisurely breakfast in an almost deserted campsite as, judging by the unzipping of tents and revving of engines at 5am, everyone else had gone to watch the sun rise on Uluru (you’ll notice I call it by both names, like the National Park and road-map people, I can’t decided on just one). We arrived a bit later and did one or two short trails to look at rock-art, caves etc. Sections of it round the base are closed off to the public, again because of its religious significance to the Aboriginal people. But strangely enough the extremely steep walk to the top (hand-rails up a near-vertical bare rock-face) isn’t closed, although there are notices all over the place asking the public to show respect and not climb it. In the visitors centre there are tales of how many people have perished doing the climb (38 – mostly from heart attacks), and we couldn’t understand why they still keep the walk open, seeing as vast tracts of land in the Territory belonging to Aboriginal communities are no entry zones to the general public. Strange.
However, they do encourage you to try the 7 km Valley of the Winds walk at the Olga range, 40 km away. So we headed off there, and found a range of domes of stunning beauty. Despite its billing as ‘hard’ the walk wasn’t nearly as difficult as some we’d done - perhaps its been hyped up a bit to make those not walking Uluru feel better. Although the day was pretty hot again we spent two or three hours enjoying the wonderful colours and clear views, knowing it would be our last walk of the trip. We returned to Uluru again in the evening, and were rewarded with one of the famous sunsets this time.
Next morning it was finally time to start the long drive home. We had about 2,000 km to cover, and weren’t sure if we’d have just one more, or two nights on the road. We set the alarm for 5 am and were able to see the sun rise behind Ayers Rock and watch its rays spreading across the desert to light up The Olgas. Our farewell to this part of Australia that has given us so many stunning sights. We made breakfast in the carpark (glad of hot coffee, it was about 7C this early in the morning) and were on the road by 7.15.
The first 1,000 km would be on the Great Central Road, which we felt was our final ‘must see’ or perhaps ‘must do’. It turned out to be a lot less corrugated than we’d feared, and we were able to drive at between 80 and 100 kph most of the way, although the driving itself is extremely tiring because of the constant juddering over the ruts, and also because of the concentration needed: in the blink of an eye you find yourself swerving in soft sand, or in a pot-hole hidden by bull-dust.
We stopped briefly at a cave when an unfortunate explorer and prospector Lewis Lasseter, whose camels had bolted, sheltered from the fierce January heat in 1931. He was taken care of by an Aboriginal family group, walked many miles with them but eventually became too weak and died soon after reaching town. Nick wondered if some of the camels we saw round there were Lassiter’s camels’ progeny. Apart from the camels, there really was very little to see and so we kept ourselves going by counting cars: tally for the two days’ driving was 32 cars (all but one and a road-train coming in the opposite direction) and 173 dead cars + 1 caravan – wrecks long abandoned at the side of the road. We did meet a couple of mining convoys in our ‘live car’ count, trailers with outrider vehicles to clear the road, carrying gigantic bits of mining kit. We literally had to get right off the road to let them pass as they took up the whole space, and then wait for the clouds of dust to disperse.
We covered a good distance the first day, and were so whacked we were glad to find a cabin (called The Hilton) at a friendly roadhouse, which had two pet emus running round. We had a comfy bed, kitchen and TV, though we had to use the shower block on the site, and I was a bit worried that I might bump into an emu if I had to get up to the loo in the middle of the night. In the event I didn’t and the emus were locked up so I needn’t have worried. We made another early getaway by 6.30, and by 10 were very pleased to hit the bitumen for the remainder of the journey. We turned off the aircon and opened the air vent, and were covered in dust that blew straight into our faces (just a small part of the dust that’s got into every crevice in the car).
A day of long straight almost empty roads. There are so few cars here, and I realise now why they give the traffic report for the whole of Australia each morning on the radio. My big worry had been how I was going to overtake road-trains, some of which are four container trucks long, joined together like a train. In fact when you have over 18 km of straight road without a bend and few cars in the opposite direction, it’s not so terrifying. They don’t tend to slow down to let you pass, though, as they would then have to climb back up their 17 or so gears.
By stopping only briefly for a cup of tea, and later some excellent fish and chips at a roadhouse jumping with boozed-up footie fans (we’d been listening to the Aussie Rules Grand Final on the radio, a sacred day in September) we finally drove through the gates of our block at 10pm, having driven 1,200 km that day, 59 days after we set out. The flat seemed vast and oh so tidy and dust-free, and as for our bed, well, it was hard to get out of it next morning. Only sad thing is no Smudge the cat, who is now happily living with Kate in Adelaide.
Well, what a trip. We feel so lucky to have had the chance to explore just a small corner of this vast and wonderful country. I feel quite proud to have learnt new skills, mainly from Nick, who is so practical when it comes to living on and off the land – you may not be surprised to know that I was rather a novice camper when we started. Camping has taught us both freedom and discipline as we’ve gone along. I’ve loved it that when we’ve started off in the morning we often haven’t known exactly where we’ll be at the end of the day. The discipline is in the minutiae of camping itself – the inside of our car might have looked like junk heap, but when it came to making camp (and making supper) we had to know exactly where we’d put everything in order to find it again. It made us laugh that nearly every other camper's site was also surrounded by a storage system of large plastic boxes and brightly coloured Coles shopping bags.
We’ll miss the endless stretching roads and landscape of different colours, the pools and gorges. And the many, many people we’ve met and talked to along the way. We found that the campsites that had mainly Aussies staying were where we struck up most conversations; Johnny Foreigner, be he German, American or Brit, tended to keep himself to himself. Since I’ve been home I’ve rather missed the conversation on campsites and road conditions while we performed personal tasks like washing up or cleaning teeth: some of our best side-trips were made on the strength of this shared information. The travelling life is a whole parallel universe, and we feel lucky to have been part of it. And what’s more, we had the greatest fun!
(So much so that we will be heading out again next week, taking Kate and friend Matt across the Nullabor and back to Adelaide, and then on for a week or two to explore South Australia. That is, if I can leave my comfy bed again…)The next couple of blogs will be mainly photographic, with a bit from Nick on the roads we travelled.
Pics: Ayers Rock
Valley of the Winds, The Olgas
Domes, Valley of the Winds
Breakfast (literally) on the road
Wreck #85
Sunday, September 28, 2008
A Storm Like Alice
And so to Alice Springs, which to me has always epitomized an Outback town. Nick and friend Martin were last here 35 years ago, working on the railways for a week while hitching round Oz. When we arrived we found the fortnightly Sunday market in full swing in the mall, and Nick was keen to find the shop were they’d both ordered (and paid for) T-shirts all those years ago as they’d never received them (slogan: ‘Alice Springs Surf Life-saving Team’…).
Ironically it was in this town in the middle of the desert that we had our first rain of the trip, and so decided to bail out of camping and checked into a campsite motel room. Between showers we headed off to the railway yard to revisit Nick’s old haunt, and were lucky enough to catch the Ghan train, just about to make one of its twice-weekly departures for Adelaide. Very tempting to hop on board, where uniformed flunkies served Pimms and hot towels to the passengers who were rejoining the train after a couple of hours in Alice. A few days previously a 76 year-old woman driving through town had decided to play chicken with the train as it crossed the street (no crossing gates, just warning bells and lights as trains cross the main road). Luckily only her car was a write-off, and the headlines read “Gran meets Ghan”.
Next morning in bracing winds we left Alice and headed out to the stunning Standley Chasm. As we left there were flashes of lightning, and a short while later we were in the teeth of a short but severe storm, the temperature dropped from 31C to 17C in the space of 10 minutes. This was followed by the sky turning a weird green and yellow with poor visibility, as an extensive dust storm hit us. Turning on the radio we found that Alice had been hit by the rainstorm at lunchtime, which was severe enough to tear off roofs and bring down power lines, and as powerful as a no 1 cyclone.
That night we found our final bush camp of the trip, sheltered in woodland and while the winds sighed around us we watched the amazing greenish dusty sky meet the sunset.
Next morning we woke to 10C, and Nick made a small fire to keep us warm while we had breakfast. Hard to believe that just 2 nights previously we found it hard to sleep because of the heat. On the way south to Kings Canyon we stopped off at a meteorite crater, Gosse Bluff, formed 140,000,000 years ago. As it is an Aboriginal site of great religious significance we could only walk on prescribed paths round it, but it was hard to take in the age of this particular piece of the outback.
From the mind-boggling to the bizarre: I was driving us along the deserted dirt-track road when we spotted a police car coming in the opposite direction. He indicated for us to stop, and we thought he wanted to see the permit we’d had to obtain to drive this part of the route. However, with the words “This is really going to annoy you” he whipped out a machine and little white tube, and I found myself being breathalysed for the first time in my life – in the middle of the desert at midday on a Tuesday. The irony was that for perhaps the first time on the trip, we hadn’t had a drink the night before as the cellar was down to its last beer, and the sommelier had forgotten to put it in the fridge.
Things got even more surreal as I said to Nick that I would really like to see a camel in the wild. Within a minute we came across two separate herds of camels – just weird to see them ambling through the bush, turning to look at us with arrogant eyes and nostrils as we stopped to take photos.
We camped that night at a park near Kings Canyon – good facilities but we were rather cheek by guy-rope with the next tents, all vying for a little piece of the grass. But a good pizza and a couple of glasses of red at the bistro, and I wasn’t even aware of the school groups whooping it up a few yards away. Kings Canyon provided us with one of our favourite walks, beginning with some very steep natural steps in the rock, a challenge in the wind that still hadn’t let up. At the top was a 7 km walk round the rim of the crater, stunning colours in stripes that reminded us of The Bungles. The walk had been marked out brilliantly, with wooden steps and rails to assist on the very steep bits, and a boardwalk that took us down into a small chasm called The Garden of Eden, lush with ferns and palms, with a beautiful pool at the end of it (no swimming here, the water was much too cold). And then it was on to our final ‘must see’ destination, Uluru, or Ayers Rock.
Ironically it was in this town in the middle of the desert that we had our first rain of the trip, and so decided to bail out of camping and checked into a campsite motel room. Between showers we headed off to the railway yard to revisit Nick’s old haunt, and were lucky enough to catch the Ghan train, just about to make one of its twice-weekly departures for Adelaide. Very tempting to hop on board, where uniformed flunkies served Pimms and hot towels to the passengers who were rejoining the train after a couple of hours in Alice. A few days previously a 76 year-old woman driving through town had decided to play chicken with the train as it crossed the street (no crossing gates, just warning bells and lights as trains cross the main road). Luckily only her car was a write-off, and the headlines read “Gran meets Ghan”.
Next morning in bracing winds we left Alice and headed out to the stunning Standley Chasm. As we left there were flashes of lightning, and a short while later we were in the teeth of a short but severe storm, the temperature dropped from 31C to 17C in the space of 10 minutes. This was followed by the sky turning a weird green and yellow with poor visibility, as an extensive dust storm hit us. Turning on the radio we found that Alice had been hit by the rainstorm at lunchtime, which was severe enough to tear off roofs and bring down power lines, and as powerful as a no 1 cyclone.
That night we found our final bush camp of the trip, sheltered in woodland and while the winds sighed around us we watched the amazing greenish dusty sky meet the sunset.
Next morning we woke to 10C, and Nick made a small fire to keep us warm while we had breakfast. Hard to believe that just 2 nights previously we found it hard to sleep because of the heat. On the way south to Kings Canyon we stopped off at a meteorite crater, Gosse Bluff, formed 140,000,000 years ago. As it is an Aboriginal site of great religious significance we could only walk on prescribed paths round it, but it was hard to take in the age of this particular piece of the outback.
From the mind-boggling to the bizarre: I was driving us along the deserted dirt-track road when we spotted a police car coming in the opposite direction. He indicated for us to stop, and we thought he wanted to see the permit we’d had to obtain to drive this part of the route. However, with the words “This is really going to annoy you” he whipped out a machine and little white tube, and I found myself being breathalysed for the first time in my life – in the middle of the desert at midday on a Tuesday. The irony was that for perhaps the first time on the trip, we hadn’t had a drink the night before as the cellar was down to its last beer, and the sommelier had forgotten to put it in the fridge.
Things got even more surreal as I said to Nick that I would really like to see a camel in the wild. Within a minute we came across two separate herds of camels – just weird to see them ambling through the bush, turning to look at us with arrogant eyes and nostrils as we stopped to take photos.
We camped that night at a park near Kings Canyon – good facilities but we were rather cheek by guy-rope with the next tents, all vying for a little piece of the grass. But a good pizza and a couple of glasses of red at the bistro, and I wasn’t even aware of the school groups whooping it up a few yards away. Kings Canyon provided us with one of our favourite walks, beginning with some very steep natural steps in the rock, a challenge in the wind that still hadn’t let up. At the top was a 7 km walk round the rim of the crater, stunning colours in stripes that reminded us of The Bungles. The walk had been marked out brilliantly, with wooden steps and rails to assist on the very steep bits, and a boardwalk that took us down into a small chasm called The Garden of Eden, lush with ferns and palms, with a beautiful pool at the end of it (no swimming here, the water was much too cold). And then it was on to our final ‘must see’ destination, Uluru, or Ayers Rock.
Pics: Ghan away
Self-explanatory sign
Self-explanatory camel
Kings Canyon
Garden of Eden, Kings Canyon
We reached The Top and we had to stop
On to Darwin, which is the northern most part of our safari. Because the temperatures were still in the upper 30s we continued with the motel theme, and found a whole apartment in a motel that even had a swimming pool on the ground floor, for the price of a Travelodge room in the UK. We once more emptied the car and washed and dusted it, and were astonished at how much we pack into one car – we seemed to fill most of the apartment. We’d booked the car in for its 90,000 km service, and were a bit nervous that they’d find something dire that would need spare parts that would take 3 weeks to arrive by road-train. So we felt very relieved when we were told that the Prado was ‘in prime condition’. In fact we felt absurdly proud of the car after all we’ve put it through, rather like parents given a good report of their child at a parents’ evening at school. To celebrate Nick took me out to dinner at Chars restaurant (recommended by a colleague) where we had a wonderful meal outside under trees hung with lights, the balmy humid air reminding us of Bangkok (only about 10 degrees cooler). Putting together something to wear that was suitable for a smartish restaurant wasn’t easy, as we are somewhat sartorially challenged at this stage. Top half no problem, bottom half Nick wore camping trousers with the zip-on attachable legs, and I wore slightly dusty black jeans and trainers, being the only shoes that complied with the ‘no thongs’ policy (couldn’t bring myself to clump up in my mud-coloured Crocs).
We were really taken with Darwin, which was completely rebuilt after Cyclone Tracey tore through it on Christmas Day 1974, and has a lively tropical feel about it. We were both keen to see the Cyclone Tracey exhibit at the Museum and Art Gallery, but in fact were a little disappointed with it - as Nick said there weren’t enough personal stories to flesh out the photos. However, I enjoyed the modern Aboriginal art in the Gallery section, a lot more innovative and unusual than the ‘tourist’ art in so many shops in Australia. Having seen quite a lot of rock art at various sites by this time, it was also interesting to see a replica of the oldest known rock painting, which depicts an animal that has been extinct for 46,000 years – astounding thought.
After Darwin we did a small detour to Litchfield Park, which some people prefer to the Kakadu. We spent the day driving between waterfalls and pools and had a nice couple of swims in rock pools en route. That night we were back to bush camping, and drove for an hour or two down a delightful little track to Surprise Falls. I think the surprise was the number of flies, which had us fleeing the campsite before 8 the next morning. But although the falls were just trickles, in the evening we climbed up to them and had a wonderful pool to ourselves, where we toasted the sunset with a couple of cold beers. Another scary Scrabble game when a spider again legged it across the board (what is it with these literary Territorian arachnids?). Nick’s shout of “Watch Out!” scared me almost more than the spider, but at least this time I managed not to tip the board over.
The next day it was on to Katherine Gorge, where we took another boat trip (Katherine was 40C, so again it was essential to be on the water) which took us down three parts of this stunning gorge. During The Wet all parts form one big body of water, but by now we had to get out and walk to boats on each part of the gorge.And then it truly was time to begin the journey south, and home. Our drive to Alice Springs took us a day and a half (we managed to drive nearly 800 km on the first day). We camped at Wycliffe Wells, which has the distinction of totting up the most UFO sightings of anywhere in the world. They certainly capitalize on this theme, with spaceships and little green men all over the park (I saw one tearful little girl having to be reassured by her father at bedtime that spacemen really weren’t going to come and get her in the night). The owner told us that they see UFOs every few nights – he described in thrilling detail a few sightings he and his wife have had recently and although I think it would be arrogant to believe we’re the only ones out there, it did seem a little odd that this tiny corner of the world should clock up so many spaceships. However, good on that bloke, it’s very good for business and he tells it well. As you can imagine, I was beside myself with excitement at the thought of my first UFO sighting, and woke up regularly in the night to peer out of the tent, but alas, no extra-terrestrial visitors that night. Next week 28 people arrive from California to make a documentary – wonder if they’ll be luckier? I wanted to stay on another night, but Nick dragged me reluctantly away next morning as it really was time to head for home.
We were really taken with Darwin, which was completely rebuilt after Cyclone Tracey tore through it on Christmas Day 1974, and has a lively tropical feel about it. We were both keen to see the Cyclone Tracey exhibit at the Museum and Art Gallery, but in fact were a little disappointed with it - as Nick said there weren’t enough personal stories to flesh out the photos. However, I enjoyed the modern Aboriginal art in the Gallery section, a lot more innovative and unusual than the ‘tourist’ art in so many shops in Australia. Having seen quite a lot of rock art at various sites by this time, it was also interesting to see a replica of the oldest known rock painting, which depicts an animal that has been extinct for 46,000 years – astounding thought.
After Darwin we did a small detour to Litchfield Park, which some people prefer to the Kakadu. We spent the day driving between waterfalls and pools and had a nice couple of swims in rock pools en route. That night we were back to bush camping, and drove for an hour or two down a delightful little track to Surprise Falls. I think the surprise was the number of flies, which had us fleeing the campsite before 8 the next morning. But although the falls were just trickles, in the evening we climbed up to them and had a wonderful pool to ourselves, where we toasted the sunset with a couple of cold beers. Another scary Scrabble game when a spider again legged it across the board (what is it with these literary Territorian arachnids?). Nick’s shout of “Watch Out!” scared me almost more than the spider, but at least this time I managed not to tip the board over.
The next day it was on to Katherine Gorge, where we took another boat trip (Katherine was 40C, so again it was essential to be on the water) which took us down three parts of this stunning gorge. During The Wet all parts form one big body of water, but by now we had to get out and walk to boats on each part of the gorge.And then it truly was time to begin the journey south, and home. Our drive to Alice Springs took us a day and a half (we managed to drive nearly 800 km on the first day). We camped at Wycliffe Wells, which has the distinction of totting up the most UFO sightings of anywhere in the world. They certainly capitalize on this theme, with spaceships and little green men all over the park (I saw one tearful little girl having to be reassured by her father at bedtime that spacemen really weren’t going to come and get her in the night). The owner told us that they see UFOs every few nights – he described in thrilling detail a few sightings he and his wife have had recently and although I think it would be arrogant to believe we’re the only ones out there, it did seem a little odd that this tiny corner of the world should clock up so many spaceships. However, good on that bloke, it’s very good for business and he tells it well. As you can imagine, I was beside myself with excitement at the thought of my first UFO sighting, and woke up regularly in the night to peer out of the tent, but alas, no extra-terrestrial visitors that night. Next week 28 people arrive from California to make a documentary – wonder if they’ll be luckier? I wanted to stay on another night, but Nick dragged me reluctantly away next morning as it really was time to head for home.
Pics: The simple life: One pan, two spoons
Little green men at Wycliffe campsite
The Devil's Marbles, near Wycliffe
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Kakadu - Crocodon't
Forty-two days in WA, 8,383 km (about half of these on dirt roads) and we feel we still have so much more to see. WA covers about 40% of Australia’s land mass, the majority of it unpopulated and empty. But after Lake Argyle it was finally time to cross the border into the Northern Territory. They are very definite about things at The Top End, and so we found ourselves entering The Territory in The Build-Up to The Wet.
A long day’s drive, much of it through a depressingly burnt-out landscape with trees only a few feet tall, and stubby often blackened grassland. We’ve even driven along roads with fires licking alongside us. Burning-off and bush fires are a huge problem at the Top End, and many of the people living here that we met had definite and differing views on it. Sometimes the fires are started on cattle-grazing land to burn off the old tough spinifex grass, so that the cattle have tender new shoots to eat. The Aboriginal population have been burning off the land for thousands of years and continue to do so, however there’s a big difference between the area covered in the old days on foot, to now in a 4WD car. And, according to one tour guide, many of the fires we saw were just plain vandalism.
We got to the Kakadu, and Gumlong campsite, just an hour before sunset. We made camp in record time – no hanging around for a cuppa – and under Nick’s instruction hurtled up a steep rock-strewn hill to the Gumlong Falls, just in time for sunset (with the hour and a half’s time change between States at a more reasonable time of 6.30-ish). Nick climbed a little further and sat with others taking pics of the sunset over the vast Kakadu National Park spread before him. Et moi? After our 5.30 am get-up, 690 km drive and final hill-climb, I was more than content to have the pools to myself, swimming with tiny frogs the size of a baby’s fingernail.
Gumlong was another lovely campsite, except for the flies which had even Nick swathed in a fly-net round his head. So next day it was onto the north of the Kakadu, and the large resort and campsite at Cooinda. Very well equipped, with the bonus of bar and bistro, and also a lot of European tourists, mainly German. As Nick remarked, this had one good effect as the bar and bistro stayed open until 10 pm to cater to Europeans, as opposed to last orders of 7 pm in WA (!). We were lucky to be able to get on the evening cruise on Yellow Water, and saw our first salt-water crocs, or Salties. The Salties are much bigger and more aggressive than the freshwater crocs, and a couple of times demonstrated their power and speed when they leaped feet out of the water in pursuit of fish, or when having a spat with each other. With at least one every few hundred yards, it was a strange and unsettling thought that if you were somehow unlucky enough to evade the wire netting on the side of the boat and fall in, you would be croco-din-dins in an instant.
Later that evening we were playing our usual game of Scrabble (we’re both getting rather competitive now) when a large spider suddenly appeared galloping towards me across the triple word squares. After we’d picked up all the scattered letters and the board from the groundsheet Nick declared the game a draw: Spider Stopped Play.
Next day we tried to head off early and took the very 4WD track to Twin Falls and Jim Jim – fun driving through soft sand, bumps, and water crossings, though the terrifying croc warning signs had me hoping and praying we wouldn’t break down halfway across. There wasn’t a lot of water at either Falls, but stunning gorges and at Twin Falls we were taken by tinny boat for 5 minutes up river, then a short walk (including metal boardwalk with showers you could pump the crystal clear water up to cool you down en route) brought us to the falls themselves. Strictly no swimming here, even though it was fairly obvious that there were no crocs.
Jim Jim Falls tempted us as it was far enough above the boulders for no crocs to manage, and so we knew a cooling swim was at the end of the trek. However, it was by now the hottest part of the day and I found the scramble over huge boulders almost more than I could manage, let alone the crocs. The pool itself was cool and vast, although the walk back to the car almost did me in. Never was an ice-cream so welcome, or the cold beers later in the evening.
Next morning, after a broiling night in the tent and a rude awakening for Nick at 5 who was screeched awake when I thought I was lying on large beetles (turned out to be two $2 coins that must have been in my shorts pockets) we both felt we’d hit a temporary wall with the camping. Just too hot, it doesn’t cool down below about 30C until about 2 am. And so we’ve decided to bail out for the next few nights and find some air-con again. We’ve had a varied range of accommodation, as phoning on the day we arrive we take what we can find. On Sunday night in Jabiru we were in rather a different arrangement – a cabin in a caravan site which consisted of 6 separate rooms opening on to a very large and well-equipped kitchen/dining area. We had to share bathrooms, and there was the usual BBQ in a grassy area at the back. In Australia BBQs, plus free bottle gas (or firewood at the more remote campsites) are provided wherever you go, be it in a city park, beach or the middle of nowhere – great idea, and saves washing pans etc. However, being Sunday we hadn’t managed to catch a supermarket to find something to barbie. So while the Aussies staying in the cabins BBQ’d away out back with steak and beers, we felt frightfully British sitting down to our Sunday night type supper of boiled eggs and toast, gingerbread and a glass of Pinot Grigio.
A long day’s drive, much of it through a depressingly burnt-out landscape with trees only a few feet tall, and stubby often blackened grassland. We’ve even driven along roads with fires licking alongside us. Burning-off and bush fires are a huge problem at the Top End, and many of the people living here that we met had definite and differing views on it. Sometimes the fires are started on cattle-grazing land to burn off the old tough spinifex grass, so that the cattle have tender new shoots to eat. The Aboriginal population have been burning off the land for thousands of years and continue to do so, however there’s a big difference between the area covered in the old days on foot, to now in a 4WD car. And, according to one tour guide, many of the fires we saw were just plain vandalism.
We got to the Kakadu, and Gumlong campsite, just an hour before sunset. We made camp in record time – no hanging around for a cuppa – and under Nick’s instruction hurtled up a steep rock-strewn hill to the Gumlong Falls, just in time for sunset (with the hour and a half’s time change between States at a more reasonable time of 6.30-ish). Nick climbed a little further and sat with others taking pics of the sunset over the vast Kakadu National Park spread before him. Et moi? After our 5.30 am get-up, 690 km drive and final hill-climb, I was more than content to have the pools to myself, swimming with tiny frogs the size of a baby’s fingernail.
Gumlong was another lovely campsite, except for the flies which had even Nick swathed in a fly-net round his head. So next day it was onto the north of the Kakadu, and the large resort and campsite at Cooinda. Very well equipped, with the bonus of bar and bistro, and also a lot of European tourists, mainly German. As Nick remarked, this had one good effect as the bar and bistro stayed open until 10 pm to cater to Europeans, as opposed to last orders of 7 pm in WA (!). We were lucky to be able to get on the evening cruise on Yellow Water, and saw our first salt-water crocs, or Salties. The Salties are much bigger and more aggressive than the freshwater crocs, and a couple of times demonstrated their power and speed when they leaped feet out of the water in pursuit of fish, or when having a spat with each other. With at least one every few hundred yards, it was a strange and unsettling thought that if you were somehow unlucky enough to evade the wire netting on the side of the boat and fall in, you would be croco-din-dins in an instant.
Later that evening we were playing our usual game of Scrabble (we’re both getting rather competitive now) when a large spider suddenly appeared galloping towards me across the triple word squares. After we’d picked up all the scattered letters and the board from the groundsheet Nick declared the game a draw: Spider Stopped Play.
Next day we tried to head off early and took the very 4WD track to Twin Falls and Jim Jim – fun driving through soft sand, bumps, and water crossings, though the terrifying croc warning signs had me hoping and praying we wouldn’t break down halfway across. There wasn’t a lot of water at either Falls, but stunning gorges and at Twin Falls we were taken by tinny boat for 5 minutes up river, then a short walk (including metal boardwalk with showers you could pump the crystal clear water up to cool you down en route) brought us to the falls themselves. Strictly no swimming here, even though it was fairly obvious that there were no crocs.
Jim Jim Falls tempted us as it was far enough above the boulders for no crocs to manage, and so we knew a cooling swim was at the end of the trek. However, it was by now the hottest part of the day and I found the scramble over huge boulders almost more than I could manage, let alone the crocs. The pool itself was cool and vast, although the walk back to the car almost did me in. Never was an ice-cream so welcome, or the cold beers later in the evening.
Next morning, after a broiling night in the tent and a rude awakening for Nick at 5 who was screeched awake when I thought I was lying on large beetles (turned out to be two $2 coins that must have been in my shorts pockets) we both felt we’d hit a temporary wall with the camping. Just too hot, it doesn’t cool down below about 30C until about 2 am. And so we’ve decided to bail out for the next few nights and find some air-con again. We’ve had a varied range of accommodation, as phoning on the day we arrive we take what we can find. On Sunday night in Jabiru we were in rather a different arrangement – a cabin in a caravan site which consisted of 6 separate rooms opening on to a very large and well-equipped kitchen/dining area. We had to share bathrooms, and there was the usual BBQ in a grassy area at the back. In Australia BBQs, plus free bottle gas (or firewood at the more remote campsites) are provided wherever you go, be it in a city park, beach or the middle of nowhere – great idea, and saves washing pans etc. However, being Sunday we hadn’t managed to catch a supermarket to find something to barbie. So while the Aussies staying in the cabins BBQ’d away out back with steak and beers, we felt frightfully British sitting down to our Sunday night type supper of boiled eggs and toast, gingerbread and a glass of Pinot Grigio.
Pics: Sunset swim, Gunlom Falls, Kakadu
Scary sign!
The real thing, Yellow Water
Cooling off, Twin Falls
Lake Argyle and Farewell to WA
We’ve found that we don’t realise quite how hard the camping life is, until we stop. Despite having become more adroit at putting up the tent (Nick) and putting together the tables and making tea (me) it’s still all a bit of a slog, particularly preparing and washing up supper. Especially in the heat. So after our motel night in Kununurra we decided to continue with the air-con theme and spent the next couple of nights in a cabin that was part of the Kimberleyland campground. Everything we wanted in one small space, including a kitchen, and right on the shores of Lake Kununurra. Nick did a stirling job of cleaning the car inside and out, while I did my best to remove the dust from all the cooking pots, fridge etc, as from here for a while we’ll be mainly on the bitumen once again – big relief. And there was still time to lie on a mat on the grass just inches away from beautiful Crimson Finches taking a bath in a puddle – so close I could feel the water splashing my face.
It was also good to prepare normal food like steak and salad for a change, without crouching over the primus in the dark fending off the flying insects. Despite having invested in a large and rattling Camp Oven (a big cast-iron casserole thingummy) I haven’t actually used it yet. It will, I’m told in the instruction book, cook up scones and casseroles a treat, but quite frankly by the time we’ve raised the tent the sun has set and we’re in the dark, and it’s hard enough groping around with head torch for what we need to make supper. The last thing I feel like doing is faffing around like a camping Domestic Goddess tempting Nick with tea-time treats. Our camping diet tends to revolve round veggies in some form with pasta or rice; rather than fill the small fridge with cryo packs of meat we use it for essentials such as cold beer and drinks, real milk and of course chocolate. But we usually manage to find somewhere to eat out once or twice a week, so life ain’t too hard.
From Kununurra we took an excellent boat tour up the Ord River to the Lake Argyle Dam, and down again, 110km in all. In the 39C heat being on the river, and zooming along for spurts at 40 knots, was as good a way as any to keep cool, and they do these trips really well – good commentary on the bird and animal life on the shores, lots of cold drinks, fresh melon and even Afternoon Tea with scones at a riverside camp. Kununurra is very much the fruit bowl of Western Australia and further afield, with abundant water from the Ord River irrigation scheme. Their main crop in about 3 years’ time will be sandalwood for the Asian market, which takes 15 years to grow before it can be harvested. Sandalwood is parasitic and needs a host tree, so three different trees are planted alongside it to see it through its 15 year growth. At the moment they harvest melon (rock and water) and mangoes – we bought a Tupperware box of frozen mango (last year’s crop) and for a whole day were in mango heaven.
From Kununurra we drove up the road to Lake Argyle, and it was back to camping. Travelling counter-Nomad has its advantages as the camp sites are emptying, but we now understand why everyone’s going the other way – to escape the heat. We’re really feeling it now, upper 30s by day and not very much cooler until about 3 am, so camping is more of a challenge. To say it’s a doddle getting out of bed at 5.30 am isn’t quite true, but the heat certainly makes it easier. We try to do energetic things like walks first thing, and before sunset (still 5.30ish in WA) and find a shady place to be during the day.So once again it seemed like a good idea to take to the water, this time on an afternoon and sunset cruise the other side of the dam on Lake Argyle itself. Lake Argyle was formed behind the dam created in 1974, flooding an area of approx. 1000 square kilometers (about the size of Hong Kong including the New Territories) and has the same volume of water as 21 Sydney Harbours. And no water traffic when we were there except for our big boat with its 12 passengers, on a vast body of water like glass. We explored just a small part of it, with wonderful bird-watching up one of the creeks, the late afternoon sun reflecting the greens and ochres and deep reds into the water. We stopped for a swim, our guide floated glasses of champagne and nibbles out to us on a polystyrene tray and we toasted the sun disappearing into the water. These Aussies really do know how to do things!
It was also good to prepare normal food like steak and salad for a change, without crouching over the primus in the dark fending off the flying insects. Despite having invested in a large and rattling Camp Oven (a big cast-iron casserole thingummy) I haven’t actually used it yet. It will, I’m told in the instruction book, cook up scones and casseroles a treat, but quite frankly by the time we’ve raised the tent the sun has set and we’re in the dark, and it’s hard enough groping around with head torch for what we need to make supper. The last thing I feel like doing is faffing around like a camping Domestic Goddess tempting Nick with tea-time treats. Our camping diet tends to revolve round veggies in some form with pasta or rice; rather than fill the small fridge with cryo packs of meat we use it for essentials such as cold beer and drinks, real milk and of course chocolate. But we usually manage to find somewhere to eat out once or twice a week, so life ain’t too hard.
From Kununurra we took an excellent boat tour up the Ord River to the Lake Argyle Dam, and down again, 110km in all. In the 39C heat being on the river, and zooming along for spurts at 40 knots, was as good a way as any to keep cool, and they do these trips really well – good commentary on the bird and animal life on the shores, lots of cold drinks, fresh melon and even Afternoon Tea with scones at a riverside camp. Kununurra is very much the fruit bowl of Western Australia and further afield, with abundant water from the Ord River irrigation scheme. Their main crop in about 3 years’ time will be sandalwood for the Asian market, which takes 15 years to grow before it can be harvested. Sandalwood is parasitic and needs a host tree, so three different trees are planted alongside it to see it through its 15 year growth. At the moment they harvest melon (rock and water) and mangoes – we bought a Tupperware box of frozen mango (last year’s crop) and for a whole day were in mango heaven.
From Kununurra we drove up the road to Lake Argyle, and it was back to camping. Travelling counter-Nomad has its advantages as the camp sites are emptying, but we now understand why everyone’s going the other way – to escape the heat. We’re really feeling it now, upper 30s by day and not very much cooler until about 3 am, so camping is more of a challenge. To say it’s a doddle getting out of bed at 5.30 am isn’t quite true, but the heat certainly makes it easier. We try to do energetic things like walks first thing, and before sunset (still 5.30ish in WA) and find a shady place to be during the day.So once again it seemed like a good idea to take to the water, this time on an afternoon and sunset cruise the other side of the dam on Lake Argyle itself. Lake Argyle was formed behind the dam created in 1974, flooding an area of approx. 1000 square kilometers (about the size of Hong Kong including the New Territories) and has the same volume of water as 21 Sydney Harbours. And no water traffic when we were there except for our big boat with its 12 passengers, on a vast body of water like glass. We explored just a small part of it, with wonderful bird-watching up one of the creeks, the late afternoon sun reflecting the greens and ochres and deep reds into the water. We stopped for a swim, our guide floated glasses of champagne and nibbles out to us on a polystyrene tray and we toasted the sun disappearing into the water. These Aussies really do know how to do things!
Pics: Domestic Goddess? I don't think so
Forest Kingfisher
Taking it easy, Lake Kununurra
Sunset in style, Lake Argyle
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Bungles Bungled
Driving down to the famous Bungle Bungles (or Purnululu to give them their Aboriginal name) we noticed a spattering of rain on the windscreen – the first for a calendar month – and a few small puddles at the side of the road. But we were unprepared after 3 hours’ driving to find the road into the Bungle Bungles closed because of an inch of rain the night before. Nothing for it but to head back the way we came, as we were told it could be a couple of days before the road reopened.
So we headed back along the Great Northern Highway, which despite being the main north-south artery in Western Australia, is only single track in places – you make sure you put two wheels in the dirt when you meet a 4-truck road-train belting towards you, as he certainly won’t. Parry Creek was our destination, and it turned out to be a really good decision. Tucked away 13 k from the highway, it was birdwatcher’s oasis. We had a lovely campsite right on the river bank (no swimming because of Freshie crocs) but lots of bird life, especially finches and Nick’s first ever sighting of a Frogmouth, an owl-like bird that scared the bejeebus out of all the other birds. We had a wonderful morning at a hide built out over a lagoon, where Nick birdwatched (purple swamp hens, pied herons and brolgas - majestic as a stork in colour-coordinated grey with bright red flash on its head) while I watched birds. My favourite was the Jacana, or lotus hopper, a tiny wader with spindly legs and long thin toes like Strewel Peter’s fingernails, delicately negotiating its cumbersome feet from lotus leaf to lotus leaf.
The Bungle Bungles road was in fact only closed for the one day, so we left Parry Creek early in the morning for the drive back down there. The road into the national park is only about 50 k long, but takes 2 hours to drive, and we got to practice our river crossing skills once again. Bush camping once more, which, believe it or not, I’ve really come to enjoy, and we had the prettiest site yet (complete with a budgie whirring round us, which I still find strange to see in the wild). Bush camping is the opposite of site camping, no showers provided, and usually only river water or a tap of bore water. But there are nearly always camp fire sites, sometimes we collect wood as we drive in, Nick loading it onto the roof-rack. We then pick where to camp – sites are all tucked away from each other so when it gets dark at 6 you really feel as if you’re in the wilderness, with complete darkness surrounding your little oasis of light and buzzing insects. Nick even organized a our solar shower – filling the large bag with water to heat up in the sun by day, and then rigging it up over a tree so that we got quite a good tepid trickly shower in the evening. Now this may not sound like my idea of a good shower, but after a day’s dust-tramping it goes a long way towards camping luxury.
How to describe the beauty of the Bungles? I just can’t do it justice, suffice it to say that of all the wondrous sights so far, this place is the one I am so glad not to have missed. Our photos describe it much better than words. We were just blown away by the colours – domed hills striped in orange sandstone and purple grey conglomorate – and the timelessness. Even with the sandstone erosion you just know that this landscape will be here for a few hundred more millennia. We did all three main trails in the same day as they weren’t too arduous, and each one was different. Echidna Chasm was 200 m deep and barely a metre wide in places. We walked it as the midday sun struck a path deep into the dark, and we looked up to green palms outlined against the deep blue sky. Also mighty boulders lodged between the chasm walls, with notices telling you not to linger under them in case they fell – we didn’t linger there. We were lucky enough to avoid the tour groups each time, and at the end of the long day had Cathedral Gorge to ourselves, stepping into an amphitheatre of white sand and spooky pool surrounded by towering sandstone walls.
We’ve been lucky so far with encounters with nasty beasties. A couple of snakes in the last few days: a rather pretty small bronze tree snake almost ran over my feet at the Parry Creek showers, and driving in the Bungles Nick spotted a large (6ft) Olive Python sunning itself on the road. We walked to within a few feet of it, but apart from flickering its tongue it didn’t seem too bothered by us, so we left hoping no one would run it over.
Two days of bush camping, however fun, is enough for this gal and tonight we’re at a motel in Kununarra, where we’ve washed ourselves and our clothes squeaky clean, and are girding up to explore the Kakadu. But first we’re going cruising – a couple of trips planned on the waterways around here.
So we headed back along the Great Northern Highway, which despite being the main north-south artery in Western Australia, is only single track in places – you make sure you put two wheels in the dirt when you meet a 4-truck road-train belting towards you, as he certainly won’t. Parry Creek was our destination, and it turned out to be a really good decision. Tucked away 13 k from the highway, it was birdwatcher’s oasis. We had a lovely campsite right on the river bank (no swimming because of Freshie crocs) but lots of bird life, especially finches and Nick’s first ever sighting of a Frogmouth, an owl-like bird that scared the bejeebus out of all the other birds. We had a wonderful morning at a hide built out over a lagoon, where Nick birdwatched (purple swamp hens, pied herons and brolgas - majestic as a stork in colour-coordinated grey with bright red flash on its head) while I watched birds. My favourite was the Jacana, or lotus hopper, a tiny wader with spindly legs and long thin toes like Strewel Peter’s fingernails, delicately negotiating its cumbersome feet from lotus leaf to lotus leaf.
The Bungle Bungles road was in fact only closed for the one day, so we left Parry Creek early in the morning for the drive back down there. The road into the national park is only about 50 k long, but takes 2 hours to drive, and we got to practice our river crossing skills once again. Bush camping once more, which, believe it or not, I’ve really come to enjoy, and we had the prettiest site yet (complete with a budgie whirring round us, which I still find strange to see in the wild). Bush camping is the opposite of site camping, no showers provided, and usually only river water or a tap of bore water. But there are nearly always camp fire sites, sometimes we collect wood as we drive in, Nick loading it onto the roof-rack. We then pick where to camp – sites are all tucked away from each other so when it gets dark at 6 you really feel as if you’re in the wilderness, with complete darkness surrounding your little oasis of light and buzzing insects. Nick even organized a our solar shower – filling the large bag with water to heat up in the sun by day, and then rigging it up over a tree so that we got quite a good tepid trickly shower in the evening. Now this may not sound like my idea of a good shower, but after a day’s dust-tramping it goes a long way towards camping luxury.
How to describe the beauty of the Bungles? I just can’t do it justice, suffice it to say that of all the wondrous sights so far, this place is the one I am so glad not to have missed. Our photos describe it much better than words. We were just blown away by the colours – domed hills striped in orange sandstone and purple grey conglomorate – and the timelessness. Even with the sandstone erosion you just know that this landscape will be here for a few hundred more millennia. We did all three main trails in the same day as they weren’t too arduous, and each one was different. Echidna Chasm was 200 m deep and barely a metre wide in places. We walked it as the midday sun struck a path deep into the dark, and we looked up to green palms outlined against the deep blue sky. Also mighty boulders lodged between the chasm walls, with notices telling you not to linger under them in case they fell – we didn’t linger there. We were lucky enough to avoid the tour groups each time, and at the end of the long day had Cathedral Gorge to ourselves, stepping into an amphitheatre of white sand and spooky pool surrounded by towering sandstone walls.
We’ve been lucky so far with encounters with nasty beasties. A couple of snakes in the last few days: a rather pretty small bronze tree snake almost ran over my feet at the Parry Creek showers, and driving in the Bungles Nick spotted a large (6ft) Olive Python sunning itself on the road. We walked to within a few feet of it, but apart from flickering its tongue it didn’t seem too bothered by us, so we left hoping no one would run it over.
Two days of bush camping, however fun, is enough for this gal and tonight we’re at a motel in Kununarra, where we’ve washed ourselves and our clothes squeaky clean, and are girding up to explore the Kakadu. But first we’re going cruising – a couple of trips planned on the waterways around here.
Pics: Bungling along Bungles Road
Stripes of Bungle Bungles
In awe, Echidna Chasm
Cathedral Gorge
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