Stranded!!!!!!!!!!!!!!- Alice Springs to Cairns
Trip Start
Aug 07, 2008
1
15
22
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Cairns,
Queensland,
Australia
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
SD - Leaving Alice Springs in the evening, there was only one other passenger with us on a large coach and within a couple of hours we were the only ones on the coach. Our bus driver was friendly and became a bit of a tour guide, bless him! It was still difficult to get much sleep, even with a quiet coach, because of the ungodly hours of the night the driver had to stop to take breaks. The drive was eerie being the only ones on the coach in the middle of the deserted outback. One stop was at a roadhouse where the owners were waiting for their post delivery even though it was the early hours of the morning. I should explain that the coach company acts as a delivery service to these remote areas. At this stop we were greeted by the most amount of bugs I'd ever seen, attracted by the only lights for miles, it could have been a challenge from 'I'm a celebrity get me outta here' just walking through them
A-It goes on and on and on......
! The owners of the roadhouse were lovely and showed us where the scorpions lived in a plant pot and just before we left they found a giant scorpion in the bar! They gave us a tour around their bar, told us about the history of the area and their family history. It was far from a minimalist bar, with things covering most surfaces and the walls covered in signed money. Visitors can leave money with their name on to be pinned on the wall, so if you ever go back there again (its pretty unlikely you will) and your short on money you can take back your money to buy a drink. The roadhouse claim to fame, although its grim, is that a British backpacker was abducted just 12k down the road, he's never been found but his girlfriend managed to escape the attacker and she was at times suspected to be involved in his disappearance but she wasn't, perhaps you remember it? Back on the coach and the backpacker disappearance wasn't far from my mind and I can't reiterate enough how baron it is in the middle of Aus, the cattle farms out here are the size of some European countries! Most of the night there were spectacular lightening shows all around us, which were cool to watch. In the morning we stopped at another roadhouse for breakfast and a change of drivers. The owner of the roadhouse was again full of local knowledge and was keen for us to hold one of his various snakes which we managed to avoid. Here we got a great photo of a road train, which are very long trucks used on these long straight roads due to little other traffic being on the roads, plus to make the long journeys more efficient
B-Katherine Gorge
. As we drew closer to Katherine the scenery became greener and the road sides were filled with giant termite mounds. Lunch time the day after we left Alice we arrived in Katherine after about a 17 hour journey!It was out of season in Katherine due to it being the rainy season. The main reason for stopping here is the Katherine Gorge, as the town has nothing else to offer a tourist. On the drive to the gorge, there were lots of wild wallabies, which are similar to Kangaroos but they are smaller and cuter, plus wild water buffalo, which were brought here by early settlers. I expected to see more Kangaroos on the drives through Aus, but as it was quite wet in most places the roos don't have to come close to the roads to get food, which is a good thing really as we didn't see much road kill. We travelled by boat along the picturesque gorge with a guide and took a couple of walks to see a waterfall and aboriginal rock art. There are several gorges but we were only able to access one at this time of the year, due to the high water levels. The other issue with the water being so high is that the crocs that are usually held down river are able to swim up river and the rangers therefore set traps. Typically, only a few days before a beast of a croc was caught in the gorge and it was the first one in about 14 years. The trip on the gorge was a nice afternoon despite a bit of rain.
In Katherine town we unfortunately encountered the social issues of the Aboriginals again, with large groups hanging around the small shopping centre
C-This is as far as we could go
. After seeing the gorge we didn't hang around in Katherine much longer and we were back on the coach to Darwin.We arrived in Darwin after about 4 hours and our backpackers looked initially like one of the nicest we'd stayed in, more like a hotel, the rooms were fab. However, like many of the backpackers they only advertise a kitchen not an actual working kitchen, so there's no equipment to cook with and it was dirty. Toby touched on this last time - a lot of backpackers generally don't take care of things therefore the owners of backpackers spend as little money as possible on their places, particularly the communal areas. We're not the usual backpackers per se, or that's what I like to think, so I felt we had to suffer due to the type of backpackers Aus attracts particularly on the east coast, I called it the Magaluf of the backpacking world! Unfortunately, as this was a reoccurring issue throughout Aus it was a big negative for me and I think a bigger budget could of helped to avoid having to stay in places like this. So that first night Toby muddled through to cook our dinner, whilst I sat with my feet up to avoid the cockroaches and then we decided we'd eat out after that! And you guys thought travelling the world was a breeze!!!!!!!
Darwin is tropical, so its wet and humid
D-Taking a break at a waterfall
. From Darwin its actually a shorter flight to places in Asia than it is to most other places in Australia! Unfortunately, even with the tropical weather the beaches are not really used, one because of jelly fish in the water most of the year round and two because the crocodiles that are regularly found near the beach, which are caught and relocated! We enjoyed our time in Darwin, it has a good party/social feel about it, bars/restaurants are close enough to walk to for a night out and it wasn't too big.The next night we met up with our friend Jay who we met in South America and some of his friends to celebrate his belated birthday. The following day Jay took us to a crocodile park, where we were given a tour which was quite interesting. They claim to be a research centre but weirdly sell crocodile meat and products? The guide gave demonstrations on how the crocs can jump out of the water by dangling food out for some of the females, as long as the water is deep enough a croc can jump their own body length out of the water, remember that when climbing trees over water! Some of the male beasts were also fed and the sound of the air being pushed out of their jaws when they snap it shut is chilling. The park has a museum of all things crocs, which my most vivid memory was a picture of a croc that had been caught and cut open as it was suspected to have eaten a little boy and it had this poor little boy whole in his stomach! The park also has some other animals which we checked out before going off to have a McDonalds (one of our guilty pleasures whilst we are away, particularly when hung-over) and calling it a day as we were all feeling a bit delicate. That evening, Jay picked us up and took us to his place in Fannie Bay (yes we laughed too) for a very nice home cooked meal.
Next morning we were leaving on our tour to Kakadu at 6:30am, which is a world heritage listed national park and owned by the Aboriginals
E-Does he look hungry?
. Like a lot of tourist spots in Aus there is an agreement that tourists our allowed to visit Aboriginal owned areas whilst abiding by their rules. For example, some frequent rules are; some things sacred to them are not allowed to be photographed, areas can be closed at short notice if the Aboriginals request so and names of anyone deceased are covered up in museums and in guidebooks etc. Along the way we saw some more of Aussies wildlife with wild dingoes running across the road, they may look like dogs but are not to be approached as they will have small children for dinner! Once in the park we took a trip along the yellow water billabong and saw a crocodile and various colourful birdlife, including one bird known as 'jesus bird' as it looks like it walks on water from a distance. It was a nice boat ride but you really had to be a bird lover to fully appreciate it. Usually in the dry season we would have boarded the boat much further down the river, however due to the high water levels the usual car park was under water and you could just make out some of the walk way railings under the water. After lunch we took a hike up to the Nourlangie Rock which had a nice view over the park and various rock art and aboriginal stories along the way. Lastly we visited the cultural centre of the aboriginal land owners, which explained their beliefs and traditions. Often with the aboriginal influenced museums they have comments on welcoming you to their land but mostly it comes across with some resentment and we really got the impression that most aboriginals would prefer not to share their land
F-Jumping Croc
. Due to the time of year parts of Kakadu are not assessable and we were lucky to get to see what we did as the day after the road to Kakadu was closed due to flooding. So although we may not have seen some of the more spectacular parts of the park it was a nice day out, helped by having a guide full of info and enthusiasm. When we got back from Kakadu we all went for dinner on the pier which was busy and had a nice atmosphere, it was canteen style dining with lots of different food options. We sat outside and I fed the fish some leftovers.
So taken by the fish feeding I went to do this the next day too, but at a fish centre by the sea. After this we walked to the museum. You might not know that Darwin has an interesting history, it was bombed in WWII by the Japanese and it was hit by a devastating cyclone in the 70s. The biggest and more devastating bombing in 1942 some named 'The Pearl Harbour' of Australia, because there were more bombs dropped in this raid than in the Pearl Harbour raids. The city had to be re-built after the cyclone and most of the residents were evacuated out whilst the city was reconstructed. In the museum we got to listen to a cyclone in a little pitch black room, scary stuff! On display in the museum was a famous Northern Territory croc, called Sweetheart. Sweetheart was 5.1 meters in length and was captured after it was thought she'd become a danger to the public after numerous attacks, but died in the capture process. This is the biggest croc I think we saw dead or alive whilst in Aus, however its thought by experts that as crocs don't stop growing there could be bigger ones out in the wild and as hunting is now illegal there is potential to see bigger crocs in the future.
G-Yellow Water Billabong
Our final night with Jay we ate at the sailing-club, which overlooks the beach and Jay treated us to a yummy meal, always appreciated when your on a budget! Darwin is well known for spectacular sunsets and we got to witness one for ourselves and it was pretty good.
Darwin was great and whilst we went there to see Jay it has plenty to offer tourists. Special thanks to Jay - you were a star!
The very heavy rain caused floods and by the time we were ready to leave the roads out of Darwin in most directions including the direction we were planning to take were flooded, we therefore flew to Cairns on the east coast.
Cairns is one of the main jumping off points for the Great Barrier Reef and we stayed here longer than expected as the roads south were closed due to flooding, plus we waited for better conditions to take a trip to the reef, as the huge volume of rain was making visibility poor. The highlight here was the reef trip even if the visibility wasn't at its usual best. We boarded our boat and headed for the snorkelling/dive spot, we briefly saw some playful dolphins
H-Some rock art at Kakadu
. Although we were on a large boat we both felt quite sick on the way out for no apparent reason, so were glad to arrive and get into the water. You'll have to imagine the next bit as we have no pictures of us (thankfully). We hired stinger suits as jelly fish had been spotted in the water, these were lycra full body suits much lighter and thinner than a wet suit and as the description sounds, not very flattering. I also opted for a life jacket and a buoyancy aid to begin with, which Toby thought was funny as apparently I looked a little uncomfortable, but better that than drowning. The boat stopped off a reef, so you have to get into deep dark water which didn't look particularly appealing, then you swim across to the reef. The current was surprisingly strong, Toby pulled me along when I looked like I wasn't getting anywhere fast! It was rewarding once we reached the reef though as there were every possible colour of fish, very psychedelic and all different sizes. The coral wasn't as bright as I expected but because of the amount of rain, I think the coral may have been covered in sand. We snorkelled several times at two different sites and afterwards had a nice BBQ lunch on board. If I came back to Aus I would take another trip to the reefs as there is so many places to snorkel and considering it was fab the way it was, it could be amazing with better visibility. After the reef trip we'd done all we wanted to do in Cairns and were then waiting it out for the roads to open to travel south. So, we had a lot of lazy days here but one day we hired bikes, rode along the promenade by the sea and checked out the Botanical gardens. Eventually we grew tired of waiting for the roads to open and the supermarkets were out of fresh food despite the news saying that supplies had been delivered by boat, so we decided to fly south. Before leaving though we had a BBQ at our backpackers which was a really good night. We got to try emu, kangaroo and crocodile meat, of which emu was the nicest. After dinner the owner demonstrated how to play a didgeridoo and then selected a few people for a competition, it proved to be hard work to master, but as you can imagine the innuendos that can be used with playing a didgeridoo were endless, so it was all good fun.
Bye for now, next time Toby will wrap our Australia trip up.
