Visiting Abandoned Places in Australia

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Australia is a friendly county that’s definitively worth visiting. By friendly, I mean there are a lot of people who will make you feel at home. On top of that, Aussies love tourists, which is the reason why the visa polices of this country are rather relaxed. I had no problem getting it, so I set my way to visit this beautiful country.

Because me and my mates are a rather adventurous group of people, we didn’t want to go on a usual tourist route in Australia. Instead of visiting Sydney, Melbourne and other big cities, we decided on visiting some bit more dangerous places on the continent. Our logic was that we can see large cities like Sydney in the United States as well. However, places like Farina in South Australia are not something you can see everywhere.

If you’ve never heard about Farina, it is okay – we didn’t either before our trip. According to the official data, this town has only 55 inhabitants. It is located in South Australia, on the edge of the desert. Farina is a proper ghost town, but what inspired us to visit it, was the story of how it became one.

The settlers who found the city in the 19^th century were all farmers looking for a better future. These optimistic settlers decided to risk all they have and make their own settlement, hopping that the rail will go through it soon enough. Unfortunately, they were wrong, so the inhabitants started moving away from this town. Over the years Farina’s population decimated. People left, leaving behind spooky reminders of the town’s past.

I was very surprised to see Afghan gravestones that are facing Mecca. Honestly, I had no idea Australia had a significant immigrant population from Islamic countries. The friendly people of Farina told me the story behind the cemetery. Those buried in Farina were Afghanis who were involved in camel trade. In fact, they used camel caravans to transport people and goods from other parts of Australia to Farina and vice versa.

In fact, I found out an interesting fact from people from Farina about camels. Australia is the country with the largest population of feral camels on the planet. Finding out that there are over 750,000 camels roaming wild in Australia, my friends and me decided on a trip to find them. We booked an outback tour in a 4x4 SUV to go and get familiar with the Australian desert.

We were very hopeful of bumping on wild camels on our desert trip, but unfortunately it didn’t happen. As the tour guide told us, feral camels cover a distance of about 40 miles every day, looking for food and water. That is why you need to be very lucky to run into them. Instead, we enjoyed having the opportunity to see the amazing landscape of South Australia. When it comes to wildlife, we did see some interesting animals, like koala for example.

Every time I think about my South Australia trip, I start thinking how awesome it would be if I moved here. Okay, I wouldn’t want to live in Farina exactly, but a city like Adelaide seems like a good choice.

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