Outback Experience
Trip Start
Apr 06, 2007
1
31
33
Trip End
Nov 18, 2007
Middle o nowhere,
Australia
Thursday, November 1, 2007
And so I returned grudgingly to Darwin, of which I had had enough of already to last a life time. Another good news bad news situation arose. The orthopaedic doctor concluded it just needed more time, not surgery. This also concluded I had just wasted money, time and the outback experience by coming back to Darwin. Fuck! Now I was one and a half thousand kilometres from the truck with no reason to be!
Frantically I phoned Kirsty trying to figure out where the truck would be, when and where I could meet it
The campsite pet
. If I couldn't meet the truck before or at Uluru there would be no chance of outback and a great experience lost. All fell nicely into place you'll be glad to hear! A greyhound coach took me the 1250km (14hrs) to Alice Springs where I would HAVE to fly if I was to catch up with the truck. The flight was replaced by a coach due to technical crap but I was more than happy sitting 6hrs more on a bus, not adding yet another flight to my overland trip and my concience. At 4 flights (Delhi > Kathmandu, Kathmandu > Lukla, Lukla > Kathmandu, Singapore > Darwin) I have well and truly failed the dream of getting to Sydney purely by road and sea. It is setting up for ambitious plans home though!Reunited with the truck the following morning (27th Oct) I was greeted by everyone asleep - it was 4am outside my hostel near Uluru and the truck was heading to The Rock for sunrise. Uluru was an odd and fantastic sight having traveled through flat outback for hours on end with nothing other than low bush to look at. I think the fact that it is the biggest indiviudal rock mass in the world and is surrounded by the immense Australian outback will help you to realise quite what a sight it is (also check out the photos). Strangely enough though, I actually preferred Kata Juta. Kata Juta sat 10km from Uluru but instead of one gigantic red mass it was a series of them, creating colossal spaces where the wind pushed you all over the place
The Sheila's
. No wonder the aboriginals look/looked at these with such high spiritual significance.A night at an empty campsite 50km from Uluru was followed by a days drive south. The bush disappeared altogether and we were left with the kind of expanses experienced in the Iranian/Pakistani desert, nothing but sand for as far as you could see. Bush camps were excellent and, between the thundering roar of road trains, all that could be heard were the strange noises of the nocturnal Aussie wildlife. Throughout the outback we bush camped and about half of that I just threw my thermarest (mattress) down and slept on it because I'd rather fall asleep staring at the stars. The stars were clearest here than anywhere else; you could see the misty curve across the sky that is the Milkway; watch a satellite move steadily across the sky; and, if lucky, catch a shooting star disintegrate into the atmosphere. I only slept out after seeing Steve (outback pro) and others doing the same. The dangerous and poisonous animals are simply not to worry about - only saw two snakes the whole journey. But there were lots of spiders. Their eyes would twinkle at night, catching in my head torch when going for a bush pee. Creepy.
We stopped at Cooper Pedy, an opal hotspot littered with mines and where buildings are built underground in the rock to escape the blistering midday temperatures. (It wasn't peak temperatures when we were there.) Oodnadatta Track was next, a series of slighlty corrugated dirt tracks that we travelled for a few days, scenery much of a muchness. We would stop in dusty and seemingly deserted towns comprised of maybe ten or so mid-late 19th century Victorian buildings, plaques here and there describing their rather boring history as homesteads to European settlers
Moi
. Enter the local pub and you would find the what could be the whole population of the town. William Creek was the most notable as it was a single pub in a cattle station the size of Belgium. We spoke to the farmer (can you even call him that?) who would fly his fixed wing aircraft rounding up cattle each day. After 30mins on the road the next day, we saw him having a break at the side of the road, sat in his plane with the door open. Cool, I thought.Flinders Ranges kept us busy for the next few days, a small mountain range home to Kangaroos, Wallabees, Emus, stumpy tailed lizards and numerous birds to name what we saw.
On the 3rd November we left the outback and entered the English countryside...
Comments
WOW
man, the whole place just seems spectacular! im so dam jealous!
I didnt realize Aussies werent allowed to buy booze from a pub if they were drunk!! whats that all about? that mean u gotta get ruined before you go out then just enjoy the pub atmosphere?
lol, the drive through off license if awesome though! i wish we had them here! lol, and the lesbian fishing club!!?? whats the deal with that!!??
Glad your arm is all healed....again
hey man. I cant believe you slept outside! i would be shitting myself in case a spider eat me (or something more realistic, but just as lethal) still, must have been amazing to see.
so the doctors are a bit mixed over there then, suppose you gotta believe the one that told you just to give it more time, then you get to see the outback, glad you made it, and im sure you are too