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Published: March 29th 2021
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South Australian Museum
Dinosaur leg. I believe it is from a Diplodocus A blog entry with Bon Scott and Mick Dundee
This, the second blog from my trip in Australia in 1995, pretty much covers the second month I spent there.
Adelaide I clearly remember that I wasn't very fond of Adelaide. I stayed only a very short time there and I saw very little. The only thing I saw in Adelaide that I'll mention here is South Australian Museum. There were two really cool exhibits there: one was the leg of a dinosaur and the other a really large meteorite. I think it might be the largest meteorite ever found in Australia.
Kangaroo Island Kangaroo Island is an island just off the coast to the south of Adelaide. I decided to take a tour there and that was a good decision since a tour is a good way to travel when there are a lot of things worth seeing in a small place.
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Kelly Hill Cave: A limestone cave with the typical features any decent limestone cave has- stalactites, stalagmites and columns.
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Remarkable Rocks: Strangely shaped boulders. Their shapes are so odd that they look more like manmade sculptures than naturally shaped rocks.
South Australian Museum
The largest meteorite found in Australia => Little Sahara: A large sand dune.
=> Seal Bay: A bay famous not for seals as you might think, but for sea lions.
Norseman After leaving South Australia I came to Western Australia. The first place I stopped at there was the small mining town
Norseman. I went there because I wanted to go on a tour of the gold mine. It is active gold mine and I thought it could be interesting to see it. My plan got a bit derailed when it utrned out that I was the only one in town that day who had signed up for the tour. They want to have a minimum of two people on the tour to run it so it was cancelled. Well, I got to see what a small mining town look like.
According to legend, the first gold nugget found in the town was found by a horse, not a human. The horse, named Norseman, was scratching the soil with its hoof and uncovered a gold nugget.
Perth Perth is the largest city in Western Australia. I remember spending a two or three days there. The
Kelly Hill Cave
Kelly Hill Cave is a limestone cave on Kangaroo Island only thing I saw there that i feel is worth mentioning here in this blog entry is my visit to Fremantle Cemetery.
Bon Scott, singer of the rock band AC/DC in the 70-ies, is buried there.
Guilderton I ended up in
Guilderton just by coincidence. When I came there they told me that the local river, Moore River, had an unusual feature. Across its mouth there was a sand barrier that prevented the water from reaching the ocean. The river ended in a lagoon. They told me that when it rains the river overflows and the sand gets washed away. But then the ocean rebuilds the sand barrier again and the lagoon is recreated. I've never heard anything like that before.
The Pinnacles The Pinnacles is an area with thousands of limestone pillars.
Monkey Mia Monkey Mia is best described as a tourist resort and on its beaches is where people spend most of their time. However, the big attraction there is the dolphins. The dolphins come up to the beach and tourists are permitted to interact with them. To keep the dolphins safe the entire interaction thing is very regulated
Kelly Hill Cave
A limestone cave with the typical features any decent limestone cave has - stalactites, stalagmites and columns. and the dolphins know the rules. The dolphins know the rules very well. The tourists line up and the dolphin comes up only if he/she wants to interact. The dolphins do come up but they have actually been known by staying just out of reach to tease the tourists.
Murujuga/Dampier Rock Art Complex Murujuga is an area with Aboriginal rock art near the town Dampier.
Broome I went to Broome mainly because I wanted to visit Tunnel Creek National Park. That turned out to be impossible because rains had destroyed all the roads there. But since I was there I decided to take a tour to see some dinosaur tracks they had discovered there. It was a very small and simple tour and the guide was not good. He actually didn't seem to enjoy guiding people. But it was fun to see dinosaur tracks.
Broome to Darwin Between Broome and Darwin me and five others travelled with a campervan. We didn't have to pay rent for it, because the rental company needed someone to drive it for them. Basically we did tem a favour by driving it and
Kangaroo or wallaby
I met this little friend on Kangaroo Island. It would be fitting if it actually is a Kangaroo, but it might also be a wallaby. To me they kinda look the same (hope I don't get too much hate mail from Aussies for saying that) we also paid the fuel. This allowed us to make a few short stops on the way. It's nice when you have your own vehicle because it allows you to stop for five or ten minutes, see something, and then keep going again. If you go by bus, any stop you make will take hours or perhaps even an entire day. The places we visited between Darwin and Broome were the following.
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Litchfield NP : OK, that one was close to Darwin so I could have seen it by taking a tour from there I guess. One cool feature in Litchfield NP is the so called magnetic termite mounds. These termite mounds are flat and always oriented in north-south direction.
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Katherine Gorge: A scenic section of the Katherine River.
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Boab Prison Tree: A hollow boab tree that according to legend has been used to imprison people. But likely, it is just a legend. Why use a hollow tree? It sounds impractical to me.
Darwin Of the things I saw in Darwin a few things. But here I will only mention one of them
Kakadu National Park.
When I was in Darwin it was
Emu
Emu is the second largest species of bird in the world in the end of the rainy season. The rains caused parts of Kakadu National Park to be flooded. But there were still plenty of places that were accessible so the visits there, I made two visits to Kakadu NP, were still rewarding.
Other than the nature, the rain forests and the spectacular scenery the big attraction is the large galleries with Aboriginal rock art. Oh yes, in the 90-ies another attraction in Kakadu NP was the fact that some scenes in
Crocodile Dundee were recorded there. But that movie was made well over 30 years ago, so I guess hardly anyone who visits the park today care about that it was featured in one of the most successful Australian action comedy movies ever. If you haven't seen it, I think it has aged well over the years and is still worth seeing.
Alice Springs After Darwin I went to Alice Springs right smack in the dry centre of Australia. I will write more about Alice Springs in the next blog entry. Here and now I will only write about the balloon flight I took.
Flying hot air balloons is big business in Alice
Remarkable Rocks
Remarkable Rocks are some strangely shaped boulders. Their shapes are so odd that they look more like manmade sculptures than naturally shaped rocks. Springs. I got really lucky because the owner of the guesthoust I was staying at had a friend who was going to fly one morning in order to collect training hours. He wanted some company and all he asked for was money for the fuel. So I got to go on a balloon ride for well over an hour for almost nothing.
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Lucky!
You were lucky to have so much time to spend in Australia since it is such an incredibly vast country with so much to see. That's an interesting story about the horse Norseman finding gold. I also like your photos of the Aboriginal rock art.