The three day slog was as painful and boring as you could imagine and we were racking up some serious mileage at this point. The one good thing was that we got to stop at geikie gorge on the way back to break up the monotony. Its a pretty enough little gorge and worth the diversion. For a bonus we saw an olive python on the way out of the gorge. The rest was boring and we were super happy to get to Katherine. It was almost the end of the road trip and we had 5 days left to see the top end.
We set off for Kakadu NP and first aimed for Yurmikmik to do some hiking first. This was super dull and a waste of time. We vowed to stick to the highlights. We were told that Gunlom would require a high clearance 4WD to get there. We were later told that this is not true, but it was too late by then. Even more frustrating when we realised that the beautiful infinity pool shot from LP was taken there. Cannelle had wanted to check it out, but I said no as the car was already damaged. Stupid me. Afterwards we did go to Maguk (which actually needs a 4WD for one point) but we handled that fine. We were a little wary as someone had been eaten at Kakadu by a saltwater crocodile not long before our trip. I have never been as scared of water as I was in that park. Maguk is a beautiful little rock pool and well worth the 'hike' as the Australians call it. Yeah its a hike alright lol. Anything more than 1km is a hike for them. From here we headed to yellow waters where the boat cruise was too expensive but the wetlands themselves are really beautiful and well worth a visit. I think the tour is more for birdwatchers than mammal lovers. We finished up at Nourlangie rocks where we saw some aboriginal rock art. I liked some of them, but the others liked them a lot more than I did. There was one evil spirit who used to wear a head marker, bash women over the heads with yams and eat the people it killed. I don't know about you, but that sounds like a perfect description of a tribal Papua New Guinean so I assume that the evil spirit was probably based upon some Papuan raiders. We couldn't make it down to Jim Jim Falls and Twin Falls because it needs a high clearance 4WD and we didn't want to risk it. Good job as our battery died only 2 days later.
The next day we went back to Nourlangie to take the longer walk on the other side. Apparently almost noone goes there because you have to walk 3.5km lol. It is a little pathetic when you can walk 60km a day that 3.5km is considered a big walk. I don't even consider less than 10km to be a walk, let alone a big walk. From here we headed up to Ubirr to see the main gallery of aboriginal art. This one is really beautiful and the views over into Arnhem Land were much prettier than we were expecting. Really special place. Even saw some rock wallabies. We then went down to Cahills Crossing. Here you can sometimes see crocodiles. We only got to see one on the bank. The river crossing for vehicles here is tidal and it had flooded so noone could get across. People were still standing by the side of the river. Despite the death and the warnings it seems that some people are still super stupid. We were disappointed not to see more wildlife there, though we did get to see a lot of birdlife. We figured we would get to the wildlife park on the way back to the city. On the way across to Litchfield we opted for a jumping crocodile cruise. Given the frankly ridiculous prices of tours in Australia it was amazing to see such a good tour for just $35. You get an hour on the river watching the saltwater crocodiles being fed and later some action from the kites. They claimed that noone has ever been killed on their river so they must be doing something right. The sight of these huge crocodiles attacking the meat is enough to educate you not to hang too close to the water edges. The raptor takes were equally impressive and it turns out that kites will take a fire and eat all the fleeing animals. Then they will pick up sticks and make more fire so they can hunt down even more animals. Impressive no? This tour is well worth the money and we were enjoying the North end of Australia.
We had got to Litchfield for the night and it was our last full day with the car when the battery went flat in the morning. It took a local to tell us as we had no idea. All car illiterate. Damn it. We had to wait 2 hours for the company to send someone to jump start the car. I think the mileage took the car way beyond its servicing date. We the discovered that there was dead bird in the engine as well. Nice. We eventually got started and decided to just do Litchfield as we no longer had enough time for the wildlife park. Litchfield is a small little park and has a number of waterfalls and swimming holes. I think its really pretty and would be a fun day trip from Darwin. There is nothing exceptional, but if you like swimming in safe, very cold water then that place will be for you. We finally limped in to Darwin and frantically cleaned all the sand off the car so that they wouldn't know what we had done with the car.
In the morning we gave it back and the road trip had come to an end. We had had a lot of fun on it and seen a lot of places with a lot of dull driving in the middle. We asked them how many kms we had done. Bear in mind we only had it for 3 weeks. The guy did a double take and said 'if this is correct then its 11,500km. Does that sound right?' Yep it does and we used the car well in that time. We had seen a large chunk of Australia. We would leave the country with just Queensland to really see. We were covered so the windscreen was no probem. That will serve them right. Cost them more money by getting us to take the insurance. We sat back and decided to kick back in Darwin for 4 days while we waited for the Ghan back down south to Adelaide. Varun only had 2 days so we visited the botanical gardens and the museum (which is a really interesting museum) and the sunday we went down to the waterfront and to the Mindil Beach sunday night market (this is an awesome place). It has kick arse music in its bars, a nice museum, is multicultural and has a nice vibe. After 3 days I think Darwin is probably the coolest city in Australia. I really like the place and would highly recommend it as a place to visit. Just going to head to the doctor maybe for my nose and go to the cinema tomorrow for cheap tuesdays. Trying not to spend any more money now as we just count down the days to Perth and hopefully until my passport arrives. Will probably be short entries until we go now as I am off to ring the passport people. England lost 2-1 Italy but I don't expect much from us in this world cup. We had a cool road trip. Australia is expensive and a lot of it is repetitive, but the outback is still a cool place. Just be prepared to drive a lot.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Australia Part 7 (Stuart Highway, Mataranka, Katherine, Kununurra, Broome, Karijini NP and Ningaloo)
We set off super early in the morning as we were intending to cover 1200km in a day. It was the start of some serious long slog driving. Just after leaving Alice Springs we were pulled over to the side of the road by some aborigines who had broken down. We didn't have a jump lead though so they decided they would wait for someone else. Cannelle and Varun were doing 300km each in relays and the first half was uneventful. My God what a boring road. We would drive some long and super boring stretches of road but this was one of the most painful. Thank God we only had to do it once. About halfway we came to the famous Devils Marbles. I had assumed they would be a few boulders on the side of the road and they actually have much more than that. It takes a while to walk around them all and they are better than the photos. Not saying they are anything special, but they definitely make for a pleasant break of journey on the way North. We stopped for lunch in Tennant Creek which was another depressing shithole and I was surprised to find a French girl working there. What possessed these foreigners to live in the middle of nowhere I will never know. Rather her than me. We detoured for Newcastle Waters ghost town but there is nothing much there now. Waste of time. We eventually limped into Mataranka quite late and decided to stay the night there.
In the morning we went to the famous hot springs and while they are not really hot (maybe 30 C or so) they are warm enough to have a pleasant swim in. A wallaby came down to the water edge while we were in them as well. We finished up there in the morning and headed on to Katherine Gorge. By this point we were in no mood to see yet another gorge. The boat ride is expensive so we opted to just walk for a view of the first gorge. Its funny how your targets on a trip are constantly shifting depending on what you have seen before. The massive amount of gorges had meant that we were reluctant to see any more. We saw another whip snake here though, which a park ranger identified for us. We spent a couple of hours here and then decided to push for Kununurra. At this point we were making good time and we realised that our ambitious plan could work although we were going to inevitably going to spend a lot of money on petrol. With petrol at on or around $2 a litre it was significantly more expensive here. The road across to Western Australia is much more windy and more fun to drive apparently. It also involves some changes of scenery. We had come from the desert of the middle into the jungle of the north and then back into the boab decked landscape of the west. The boab trees are super cool. I think the fact that they don't have forests but just pop up randomly all over the place makes them that little bit more special. At the camp site the woman told us the bungle bungles were cool but that with the creek crossings we were going to need a high clearance 4WD to make it through. I wasn't happy risking the car there. She also told us they had the mini bungle bungles in town so we decided to visit them in the morning. A 4WD tour to the bungle bungles is $300 for a day. Sick money. I think they list a lot of the 4WD tracks as 4WD when they aren't really, because they want people to take their expensive tours and not to risk their vehicles. I found out from the passport office that there were delays with the applications as well so I will try and call them again tonight to see if anything can be done.
In the morning we visited the mini bungle bungles which made for a pleasant hour or two. We then had a drive past the lake. I would say that Kununrra is a pleasant little town and its probably the only nice town that we saw from Melbourne to Darwin. We had to move fast and got to Halls Creek around lunchtime. There we grabbed some food and also went to visit China Wall which is a ice quartzite rock sticking out of the ground. Worth the diversion. We then did some mental relay driving to get all the way to Broome for the night. That's 1000km in a day including visiting some places. Again the Kimberley was much of a muchness but its probably the least boring of all of the drives. We decided to take a day off and just chill in Broome.
I am not sure Broome was the best place to take a day off the road. Its a bit ugly, there is fuck all to do there and I have no idea how it became a resort town. I pity the West Australians if that is the best they have. We wandered around 'china town' and then went to the famous cable beach, but couldn't be bothered to hang around until sunset. We went out in the evening and had a stroll around, but this town had the largest group of drunken aborigines and it was just becoming far too depressing now. Sometimes we saw some younger people who seemed integrated and you hope that's the future for them and not the drunken sitting around. I am not sure the money they are given by the government is really that beneficial to them. Anyway we were all underwhelmed by Broome but appreciated having the day off the road.
The next day we grabbed breakfast and set off for Karijini NP. We saw on the map that the entrance road was unsealed so we did not make it into the park as we didn't want to drive an unsealed road in the dark. Only the next morning did we find out that it is in fact sealed. The road between Broome and Port Hedland makes the fucking Stuart Highway look fantastic. Maybe Australians would be the only people to find the dull route 66 exciting.
We drove into Karijini and were super pumped because we had heard such great things about the park. It did not disappoint. First we went to Dales Gorge and did a little hike down to some waterfalls. It wasn't what we had seen online but it was very scenic. We spent the morning over there and then headed to the west of the park. We had a look out over jofre falls (which made me laugh as a game of thrones fan) and then we went for a walk down into knox gorge. This is why this place is so fantastic. Australians usually take safety way too seriously but here you are allowed to hang off rocks, scale little precipices and hike in somewhat unsafe terrain. Maybe the fact someone died by falling from the cliff in Kings Canyon today may change all that though. Here we had to balance over water while we traversed the rock place and followed the gorge to the end of the markers. You can take the easy option and swim or you can try to stay high and dry. We grabbed lunch and the best was now to come. We headed over to oxer lookout where you can see 4 gorges coming together. Then we went down into hancock gorge where you have to wade in ice cold water. Its so cold I thought I had frost bite after 2 minutes in it. Fuck it was cold. Reminded me of how fun it is to hike in Zion National Park. You have to do some hanging to make it round the rock walls and then some spider walking down to kermits pool. This is a lot of fun. Not sure you will gain too much from the $300 tour but if I had a crazy budget I would have been tempted. The gorge on the other side is even tougher where you have to wade almost up to your crotch in ice water and then lower yourself down slippery rocks on an iron bar. As there was no way I was going in that ice water I thought the last part was too much risk for the reward but this was a lot of fun. It was probably one of the highlights for all of us. Its a really beautiful place and a definite highlight of Australia. Get down there to see it. So much fun. We got out of the park and again drove through the dark to get to Nananurra roadhouse.
The next day we got to Exmouth by 10am to get to the furthest point of our mad drive. I forgot to mention that on the way to Karijini a road train let fly with a huge rock that cracked a chunk in the windscreen. Thank fuck we took insurance. We were now even more reluctant to take it on an unsealed road because we were uninsured there and if something happened we would be liable for a $2000 windscreen. When we got to Exmouth we found an awesome little bakery with great apple turnovers. We were also told that because of the huge wind all the boats had been cancelled. No diving, no snorkelling and no chance of taking the glass bottom boat out to see. This was disappointing as it had looked good and Varun was a little nervous about snorkelling in the sea as he hadn't been before. We took some snorkels from the visitor centre and headed to turquoise bay to go snorkelling on our own. How disappointing. Like a lot of things in Australia, the hype far exceeds the reality. The beach was beautiful and the water was only a little cold, but the snorkelling was shit and my mask was total bollocks. When you have dived in great places, you can't put up with this kind of bullshit snorkelling. I think I have to give up on snorkelling altogether as I am beginning to hate it as a useless sport. Maybe if we had seen the whale sharks ($400 when we paid $10 in the Philippines) or dived Navy Pier (too expensive for us this time) then it would have been good, but as it stands it was a waste of time going there to be honest. Nevertheless we had a lot of fun pissing around and decided that we would begin our 3 day sprint back to Katherine the next morning. 3000km in 3 days. It was just going to be a relay of slog driving through places we had basically already seen.
In the morning we went to the famous hot springs and while they are not really hot (maybe 30 C or so) they are warm enough to have a pleasant swim in. A wallaby came down to the water edge while we were in them as well. We finished up there in the morning and headed on to Katherine Gorge. By this point we were in no mood to see yet another gorge. The boat ride is expensive so we opted to just walk for a view of the first gorge. Its funny how your targets on a trip are constantly shifting depending on what you have seen before. The massive amount of gorges had meant that we were reluctant to see any more. We saw another whip snake here though, which a park ranger identified for us. We spent a couple of hours here and then decided to push for Kununurra. At this point we were making good time and we realised that our ambitious plan could work although we were going to inevitably going to spend a lot of money on petrol. With petrol at on or around $2 a litre it was significantly more expensive here. The road across to Western Australia is much more windy and more fun to drive apparently. It also involves some changes of scenery. We had come from the desert of the middle into the jungle of the north and then back into the boab decked landscape of the west. The boab trees are super cool. I think the fact that they don't have forests but just pop up randomly all over the place makes them that little bit more special. At the camp site the woman told us the bungle bungles were cool but that with the creek crossings we were going to need a high clearance 4WD to make it through. I wasn't happy risking the car there. She also told us they had the mini bungle bungles in town so we decided to visit them in the morning. A 4WD tour to the bungle bungles is $300 for a day. Sick money. I think they list a lot of the 4WD tracks as 4WD when they aren't really, because they want people to take their expensive tours and not to risk their vehicles. I found out from the passport office that there were delays with the applications as well so I will try and call them again tonight to see if anything can be done.
In the morning we visited the mini bungle bungles which made for a pleasant hour or two. We then had a drive past the lake. I would say that Kununrra is a pleasant little town and its probably the only nice town that we saw from Melbourne to Darwin. We had to move fast and got to Halls Creek around lunchtime. There we grabbed some food and also went to visit China Wall which is a ice quartzite rock sticking out of the ground. Worth the diversion. We then did some mental relay driving to get all the way to Broome for the night. That's 1000km in a day including visiting some places. Again the Kimberley was much of a muchness but its probably the least boring of all of the drives. We decided to take a day off and just chill in Broome.
I am not sure Broome was the best place to take a day off the road. Its a bit ugly, there is fuck all to do there and I have no idea how it became a resort town. I pity the West Australians if that is the best they have. We wandered around 'china town' and then went to the famous cable beach, but couldn't be bothered to hang around until sunset. We went out in the evening and had a stroll around, but this town had the largest group of drunken aborigines and it was just becoming far too depressing now. Sometimes we saw some younger people who seemed integrated and you hope that's the future for them and not the drunken sitting around. I am not sure the money they are given by the government is really that beneficial to them. Anyway we were all underwhelmed by Broome but appreciated having the day off the road.
The next day we grabbed breakfast and set off for Karijini NP. We saw on the map that the entrance road was unsealed so we did not make it into the park as we didn't want to drive an unsealed road in the dark. Only the next morning did we find out that it is in fact sealed. The road between Broome and Port Hedland makes the fucking Stuart Highway look fantastic. Maybe Australians would be the only people to find the dull route 66 exciting.
We drove into Karijini and were super pumped because we had heard such great things about the park. It did not disappoint. First we went to Dales Gorge and did a little hike down to some waterfalls. It wasn't what we had seen online but it was very scenic. We spent the morning over there and then headed to the west of the park. We had a look out over jofre falls (which made me laugh as a game of thrones fan) and then we went for a walk down into knox gorge. This is why this place is so fantastic. Australians usually take safety way too seriously but here you are allowed to hang off rocks, scale little precipices and hike in somewhat unsafe terrain. Maybe the fact someone died by falling from the cliff in Kings Canyon today may change all that though. Here we had to balance over water while we traversed the rock place and followed the gorge to the end of the markers. You can take the easy option and swim or you can try to stay high and dry. We grabbed lunch and the best was now to come. We headed over to oxer lookout where you can see 4 gorges coming together. Then we went down into hancock gorge where you have to wade in ice cold water. Its so cold I thought I had frost bite after 2 minutes in it. Fuck it was cold. Reminded me of how fun it is to hike in Zion National Park. You have to do some hanging to make it round the rock walls and then some spider walking down to kermits pool. This is a lot of fun. Not sure you will gain too much from the $300 tour but if I had a crazy budget I would have been tempted. The gorge on the other side is even tougher where you have to wade almost up to your crotch in ice water and then lower yourself down slippery rocks on an iron bar. As there was no way I was going in that ice water I thought the last part was too much risk for the reward but this was a lot of fun. It was probably one of the highlights for all of us. Its a really beautiful place and a definite highlight of Australia. Get down there to see it. So much fun. We got out of the park and again drove through the dark to get to Nananurra roadhouse.
The next day we got to Exmouth by 10am to get to the furthest point of our mad drive. I forgot to mention that on the way to Karijini a road train let fly with a huge rock that cracked a chunk in the windscreen. Thank fuck we took insurance. We were now even more reluctant to take it on an unsealed road because we were uninsured there and if something happened we would be liable for a $2000 windscreen. When we got to Exmouth we found an awesome little bakery with great apple turnovers. We were also told that because of the huge wind all the boats had been cancelled. No diving, no snorkelling and no chance of taking the glass bottom boat out to see. This was disappointing as it had looked good and Varun was a little nervous about snorkelling in the sea as he hadn't been before. We took some snorkels from the visitor centre and headed to turquoise bay to go snorkelling on our own. How disappointing. Like a lot of things in Australia, the hype far exceeds the reality. The beach was beautiful and the water was only a little cold, but the snorkelling was shit and my mask was total bollocks. When you have dived in great places, you can't put up with this kind of bullshit snorkelling. I think I have to give up on snorkelling altogether as I am beginning to hate it as a useless sport. Maybe if we had seen the whale sharks ($400 when we paid $10 in the Philippines) or dived Navy Pier (too expensive for us this time) then it would have been good, but as it stands it was a waste of time going there to be honest. Nevertheless we had a lot of fun pissing around and decided that we would begin our 3 day sprint back to Katherine the next morning. 3000km in 3 days. It was just going to be a relay of slog driving through places we had basically already seen.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Australia Part 6 (Uluru, Kata Tjuta, Kings Canyon, Hermannsburg and the West MacDonnells)
We had seen the first part of the road trip and we were making faster progress than we had expected so I was starting to think that we would be able to make really good time and visit a lot more places than we had been expecting to see. It was around now where I was starting to realise that there was a lot of nothingness in the Outback and you can cover some very long distances before you see anything interesting. I also had regrets about not visiting Karijini. Looking at the map we decided we could go there and opted to add Karijini and Ningaloo to the original plans. We drove onwards and stopped for a short walk to a salt lake and a look over Mt Connor on the way in. We were managing to see at least one cool thing everyday on this trip so far, so it was off setting the extreme driving and the fatigue was yet to kick in. We got to Uluru resort in time to head for the famous sunset. Its very nice and although I am not much of a sunset man, you can see the subtle shift in colour tone on the rock as the sun descended. It was a little surreal staring at the iconic Australian image. So many people had told us how disappointed they had been with Uluru etc that we had our expectations suitably low and I think that really helps to appreciate the magnificence of the place.
In the morning we headed down for sunrise. That was a mistake as it looks exactly the same as the sunset only in reverse. For someone who doesn't care that much for the sun it was a little boring watching it a second time. Then we drove to Kata Tjuta to do the Valley of the Winds walk as they recommend doing it in the morning. This was a really beautiful little hike. The tour groups only do the walk to the viewpoint, but I definitely think its worth doing the full circuit as we saw a Euro (weird name I know but not the money but a type of wallaby). We did the second walk as well, which is nice but not as special as the most famous one. Its very peaceful and you can see why the aborigines revered the place. Of course they revered anything that is of the slightest bit of interest. Makes sense. When you live in flat, boring nothingness then everything else looks spectacular. I actually think Kata Tjuta looks spectacular from a distance, nothing special from the viewpoint and quite pretty when you hike around it. Well worth doing all three to get the different perspectives. After that we went back and did the full 11km circuit hike around Uluru. Doing 22km would normally be nothing for us, but in the middle of the day in the Outback that can almost knock you flat. The water is just sucked right out of you. The walk goes through some special places and you really get a feel for the rock. The waterhole area is one of the most serenely beautiful places we saw on the trip. Everyone just fell silent there and just absorbed the atmosphere. I don't think you need to do the full loop though, although if you drive down you will have to as the back side is just a long shadeless walk along the road. Its the front end that is more interesting. The rock is more impressive when you walk around it as you see the cracks, cuts and slashes along the surface. These are not very visible from distance when it just looks like a giant, solid slab of rock. Surprisingly for us we saw people climbing up it. A lot of Australians but also a lot of foreigners. This surprised us as we figured everyone would know that this would offend the aborigines and therefore not do it. Apparently 38% of people still elect to climb it. They won't stop it until that number drops below 20%. So much for principles. Surely it is sacred or it is not. Saying something is sacred but that money takes precedence is not going to be a very persuasive argument to people that your culture stands for something. For the foreigners I don't see the point. What do you see up there. A higher view of fuck all across the plains? Oh well. There is an interesting book of apologies in the cultural centre where people have returned rocks they took from Uluru and apologised for taking them. There are too many stupid fucks out there. Really? Why the fuck are they stealing rocks from a sacred site. That triggers off another irony. Why are the Australians panning the aborigines for getting wasted every night and stumbling around like bums. Have they never seen their own cities at night. Tell me whats the difference except one is in the streets and the other is in the bars. We finished up with Uluru and drove out to one of the free campsites.
The next day we got to Kings Canyon where we were checked in by a robot. There is no way that guy was human. Weird. Maybe they are testing robots for customer service. This seems to be quite common in Australia. Oh well. We set off to do the Canyon Walk. At first it looks like it was going to be a boring gorge walk, but it actually morphs into one of the highlights of the trip. Certainly for the others. I think the circumnavigating walk is quite impressive, but its the beehive style domes at the end that caught me by surprise. They looked very much like a dilapidated version of the bungle bungles. Very beautiful. We also saw what were probably a couple of red kangaroos here. We decided that we wouldn't go to the bungle bungles now if it was difficult as we had seen something similar. Apparently all these rock formations had been part of a giant inland sea and that probably explains the colour and uniqueness. Its definitely a cool place, though I preferred Uluru, I think I was in the minority of just me. All of them were special. In the campsite in the evening we got to see our first dingo as well. Cool.
In the morning we took another unsealed road round to Hermannsburg. It had looked interesting and after camping for a few days already now, the idea of having some apple strudel had some serious appeal. We got there and toured the old mission for the aborigines. It is weird to see some old historical buildings and interesting to read the history of the place. The food was also really cheap and good for the outback. Well worth the deviation. We even saw a lot of aborigines in better conditions than Alice Springs. It had a more positive vibe until the petrol station guy told us he had to lock the petrol pumps in order to prevent petrol sniffing. Fuck sake. The depression continued. We pushed on from here and saw a lookout over some lush green vegetation before making it to the west of the West MacDonnells.
The mountain range is kind of similar and after a while you get to be a bit sick of gorges. There are a lot of gorges in the outback. It is definitely the most proliferous of sites. Some of them were really beautiful and some were not bad. They were all quite similar. I am glad that we decided just to spend the one day here and not two as we originally planned. This is where we knew we would be able to push it harder for the rest of the trip as we were beginning to get saturated with some things. We did see our first whip snake here, which is a little scary as you know all these little bastards can kill you here. We also saw our first redback spider after all our time here. Still haven't managed to see a huntsman though. In the final gorge, closest to Alice Springs we saw a black footed rock wallaby. Lots of the little guys. So unbelievably cute. It was a pleasant roll back into Alice Springs where Laura would leave us to fly back to Sydney. We spent another half day in the depressing shithole before we would have to leave in the morning. Here we met an old Australian guy who had been doing a lot of salvation army work with aborigines. He said a lot of old men in Queensland take alcohol out to aboriginal women in exchange for sex. Ah the joys of mankind. He also told lots of stories f his time in the British army and it was interesting to hear about Cyprus and Northern Ireland from someone who had actually been there. The first part of the trip had been pleasantly paced and we had enjoyed all of it. Now we were going to pick up the pace and go mental for the second half of the trip.
In the morning we headed down for sunrise. That was a mistake as it looks exactly the same as the sunset only in reverse. For someone who doesn't care that much for the sun it was a little boring watching it a second time. Then we drove to Kata Tjuta to do the Valley of the Winds walk as they recommend doing it in the morning. This was a really beautiful little hike. The tour groups only do the walk to the viewpoint, but I definitely think its worth doing the full circuit as we saw a Euro (weird name I know but not the money but a type of wallaby). We did the second walk as well, which is nice but not as special as the most famous one. Its very peaceful and you can see why the aborigines revered the place. Of course they revered anything that is of the slightest bit of interest. Makes sense. When you live in flat, boring nothingness then everything else looks spectacular. I actually think Kata Tjuta looks spectacular from a distance, nothing special from the viewpoint and quite pretty when you hike around it. Well worth doing all three to get the different perspectives. After that we went back and did the full 11km circuit hike around Uluru. Doing 22km would normally be nothing for us, but in the middle of the day in the Outback that can almost knock you flat. The water is just sucked right out of you. The walk goes through some special places and you really get a feel for the rock. The waterhole area is one of the most serenely beautiful places we saw on the trip. Everyone just fell silent there and just absorbed the atmosphere. I don't think you need to do the full loop though, although if you drive down you will have to as the back side is just a long shadeless walk along the road. Its the front end that is more interesting. The rock is more impressive when you walk around it as you see the cracks, cuts and slashes along the surface. These are not very visible from distance when it just looks like a giant, solid slab of rock. Surprisingly for us we saw people climbing up it. A lot of Australians but also a lot of foreigners. This surprised us as we figured everyone would know that this would offend the aborigines and therefore not do it. Apparently 38% of people still elect to climb it. They won't stop it until that number drops below 20%. So much for principles. Surely it is sacred or it is not. Saying something is sacred but that money takes precedence is not going to be a very persuasive argument to people that your culture stands for something. For the foreigners I don't see the point. What do you see up there. A higher view of fuck all across the plains? Oh well. There is an interesting book of apologies in the cultural centre where people have returned rocks they took from Uluru and apologised for taking them. There are too many stupid fucks out there. Really? Why the fuck are they stealing rocks from a sacred site. That triggers off another irony. Why are the Australians panning the aborigines for getting wasted every night and stumbling around like bums. Have they never seen their own cities at night. Tell me whats the difference except one is in the streets and the other is in the bars. We finished up with Uluru and drove out to one of the free campsites.
The next day we got to Kings Canyon where we were checked in by a robot. There is no way that guy was human. Weird. Maybe they are testing robots for customer service. This seems to be quite common in Australia. Oh well. We set off to do the Canyon Walk. At first it looks like it was going to be a boring gorge walk, but it actually morphs into one of the highlights of the trip. Certainly for the others. I think the circumnavigating walk is quite impressive, but its the beehive style domes at the end that caught me by surprise. They looked very much like a dilapidated version of the bungle bungles. Very beautiful. We also saw what were probably a couple of red kangaroos here. We decided that we wouldn't go to the bungle bungles now if it was difficult as we had seen something similar. Apparently all these rock formations had been part of a giant inland sea and that probably explains the colour and uniqueness. Its definitely a cool place, though I preferred Uluru, I think I was in the minority of just me. All of them were special. In the campsite in the evening we got to see our first dingo as well. Cool.
In the morning we took another unsealed road round to Hermannsburg. It had looked interesting and after camping for a few days already now, the idea of having some apple strudel had some serious appeal. We got there and toured the old mission for the aborigines. It is weird to see some old historical buildings and interesting to read the history of the place. The food was also really cheap and good for the outback. Well worth the deviation. We even saw a lot of aborigines in better conditions than Alice Springs. It had a more positive vibe until the petrol station guy told us he had to lock the petrol pumps in order to prevent petrol sniffing. Fuck sake. The depression continued. We pushed on from here and saw a lookout over some lush green vegetation before making it to the west of the West MacDonnells.
The mountain range is kind of similar and after a while you get to be a bit sick of gorges. There are a lot of gorges in the outback. It is definitely the most proliferous of sites. Some of them were really beautiful and some were not bad. They were all quite similar. I am glad that we decided just to spend the one day here and not two as we originally planned. This is where we knew we would be able to push it harder for the rest of the trip as we were beginning to get saturated with some things. We did see our first whip snake here, which is a little scary as you know all these little bastards can kill you here. We also saw our first redback spider after all our time here. Still haven't managed to see a huntsman though. In the final gorge, closest to Alice Springs we saw a black footed rock wallaby. Lots of the little guys. So unbelievably cute. It was a pleasant roll back into Alice Springs where Laura would leave us to fly back to Sydney. We spent another half day in the depressing shithole before we would have to leave in the morning. Here we met an old Australian guy who had been doing a lot of salvation army work with aborigines. He said a lot of old men in Queensland take alcohol out to aboriginal women in exchange for sex. Ah the joys of mankind. He also told lots of stories f his time in the British army and it was interesting to hear about Cyprus and Northern Ireland from someone who had actually been there. The first part of the trip had been pleasantly paced and we had enjoyed all of it. Now we were going to pick up the pace and go mental for the second half of the trip.
Australia Part 5 (Overland, Ghan, Alice Springs, Coober Pedy, Breakaways and Painted Desert)
Just got back from 3 weeks in the Outback with no real internet connections so this is the first time I am able to update the blog. Still waiting on the new passport and its looking likely that we may have to work in Perth while we wait for it as we arrive there on the 28th June and its less than 2 weeks to go now. Hopefully I am wrong. If not Cannelle may go ahead of me to Kuala Lumpur and sort out her own French passport so we don't have to waste loads of time in two places. This holiday is becoming a nightmare logistically. Need to follow my own rule of no more islands lol.
Anyway we spent a couple of days in Melbourne just chilling out and catching up with Larissa who I hadn't seen in ages. Was nice just to chill out doing not too much. We took the Overland train to Adelaide and so far all of the train rides are super boring. You get to see a lot of nothingness that is the outback which is nic, but if you are planning on road tripping around the outback at all then I don't think its necessary to take these journeys. Not for the prices they charge anyway. For foreigners though it remains a cheap way to get around the country and see all of the big cities. Most of the passengers were old Australians doing trips around. In fact there are almost no young Australians travelling around the country. Just old people and foreigners. We got into Adelaide and just caught up with my friend Michael. No time to do anything as we would be coming back here later on. We picked up the Ghan the next day to head to Alice Springs and passed through yet more boring scenery. The seats recline well though and you can sleep fine. The food is also reasonably priced so you don't really need to bring your own.
Then we arrived in Alice Springs. There really isn't much to do here. Its a pretty depressing city. I had been told about the drunken aboriginals hanging out, but nothing can quite prepare you for how thoroughly depressing it is. Cannelle even asked 'what did we do to these people?' Fuck me. I have never seen such abject hopelessness as this and I have travelled all over the place. We managed to buy all of the supplies that we would need on the road trip for around $100 and just chilled out for a couple of days. I played some football with guys at the hostel and just chatted with a bunch of random people. Eventually Saturday came and Laura and Varun joined us. I told them that there wasn't much to see and so we just did a food shop, picked up the car and set off down the Stuart Highway. While picking up the car they twisted our arm to get a full insurance which was lucky for us as you will see later. The guy was super road and when Varun was spelling his name he had to correct his spelling with 'No its an I. I for idiot'. He and Cannelle had trouble keeping a straight face after that one. We were off and running on our outback roadtrip. We visited Rainbow Valley on the way and took the car onto the first 4x4 track. It seems that most of the 4x4 tracks in Australia really don't require a proper 4x4 as we took our Mitsubishi Outlander onto most of them. Only the high clearance tracks would probably have been too much and we didn't want to risk the car on those tracks as we were uninsured for them. Rainbow Valley is very beautiful and we had the place to ourselves which would happen a lot on the outback trip. We didn't get too far from Alice Springs before we had to stop for the night. The famous roadhouse no longer has a dingo playing the keyboard, but it still serves decent camel burgers. Varun realised he had forgotten his tent and so we had to call Coober Pedy to check if they had one in stock for the next day. Luckily they did. We were woken up by an emu patrolling around our tent. I was hoping it was a portent of all the wildlife we were going to see on the trip.
The next day we got cracking early (a theme for the trip) and set off for Coober Pedy with relays of driving. On the way we stopped off to visit the Breakaways and the Castle north of Coober Pedy. This actually ended up being the highlight of the trip for 3 of us. Not so much for Laura as she had seen similar rock formations in Salta in Argentina, but at least I now knew why that region was so popular as I had missed it when I was down there. Won't be so spectacular for me now when I get down there. The Breakaways look a little like the painted desert and if you can't get down there then you should definitely get to this place. It looks like runs on an artists palette with the range of colours and the yellow and white castle is really nice. The dog fence is just a fence and the moon plain is a bit of a waste of time, but the others are definitely worth visiting. We made it into Coober Pedy and decided not to stay in the underground hostel (one of two regrets and the only one we could have changed). The city looks like an industrial wasteland and you can see why it was used for films like Pitch Black. Went to see the spaceship from the film set and climbed the central hill for a sunset over the plains. The sunsets in the outback are something else completely and every one is uniquely spectacular. I think when you are out here you get that sense of great emptiness. You can't really appreciate it in photos as I think half of the appeal of places comes from their emergence out of the complete nothingness. I mean you drive for 5 hours seeing absolutely fuck all and then all of a sudden you emerge from the nothingness and in front of you is something unique, spectacular and utterly isolated. Though Coober Pedy was not one of these places lol. We got chatting with some older travellers. The 4x4 and caravan community are very chatty around Australia. People say Kiwis are friendlier. I disagree. They are just comparing the South Island with Queensland. Thats not a fair comparison. If you compare the South Island with Tasmania or the Outback then you find its more or less the same.
In the morning we went up to see the big winch. I liked it while everyone else was underwhelmed. Oh well. Can't please everyone. We tried to visit an underground house but they were all closed so we ended up just seeing an underground church which was super cute. We left and drove up through the moon plain and were aiming to camp in the painted desert that night. The only problem was the rain. It was raining sporadically and we were driving on an unsealed road. We weren't insured for this. Damn it. We eventually got there and somehow even managed to spray sand into the boot of the car. we didn't clean it until the end of the holiday. The painted desert is beautiful but so much smaller than I imagined. Varun didn't tell us it was so small or we would have walked around for longer. Its a pleasant place to be and once again we had the place completely to ourselves. Special. We saw our first kangaroo like animal as well. We are not sure if we ever saw a red kangaroo or if they were all euros. I now think that this one was a euro and the ones at kings canyon were possibly red kangaroos. We decided not to camp there as we weren't sure about the weather and so we decided to drive on back to the Stuart Highway. Its a beautiful place though. We had completed our first few days. We also got feedback from Laura about Queensland. She had said it was nice but not spectacular, which seems to be most of Australia, especially given the prices. She most liked the barrier reef and fraser island. Oh well. No regrets as I think we will come back and do Eastern Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Queensland on one giant diving and wildlife holiday in the future.
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