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Published: January 19th 2006
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Flinders Ranges
I'm like a young Crocadile Dundee Apologies people for my rather slack attitude of late. I will blame this in part on spending much of the last few weeks in the middle of nowhere, where internet, should it exist at all, tends to be fairly expensive.
Some of you might know that my plans did not involve heading in to the red centre, but i am very glad i changed my mind. Travelling through the outback was a fantastic experience, and now i am considering shortening my time on the east coast even more, and heading back into the wilderness for a while. It has been three weeks since i left civilisation (unless you include Alice Springs as civilisation), and being back in a big city (and a very touristy one at that) feels a little stange.
So i headed off from Adelaide in the 21st December for an eight day trip, arriving at Ululu on day five and at Alice on day 8. It was a great trip, good people, enthusiatic driver. We travelled up through the Flinders Ranges, onto the Oodnadatta track, through the town of Coober Pedy (crazy place where we spent christmas eve - 50% of population live underground, big opal mining place, locals have a strange love of high explosives), and then onto Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and Kings Canyon.
Day 2 challenged us, demanding us to bow down to the unpredictable might of the outback. By 1pm we were experiencing 48 degree heat in the shade. The air con started to act up and we travelled some 300km along unmade roads. As we arrived at our destination for the night - William Creek, population 9, complete with golf course - we found ourselves in a serious dust storm. The local bar gradually filled up with dust, and as we were supposed to be camping the driver made the decision we should continue to the next town. As we left the air con finally died, providing us with a lovely smell. We managed to arrange accomodation in William Creekm and with the dust storm raging outside, we cooked out food in a shed, and the collapsed into our beds.
Uluru was great, although we missed out on the sunrise 'effect' as it was cloudy. Far more impressive, i thought, was Kata Tjuta, formed in a similar way but of a material more easily eroded, leaving spectacular formation. In the middle is a little bit of tropical forest, left behind after all the rest in the area long long ago vanished, giving the place a real 'lost world' vibe. Kings Canyon was bloody huge, amazingly impressive place.
Alice Springs was good fun. Didn't really do much. Met some nice people, spent New Years at some random locals house party. There were dogs on the dance floor. Visited the 'Baby Kangaroo rescue centre' a couple of times, where i hung out with little baby Albert and slightly older Elizabeth.
Then I took a tour bus over to Cairns. It was suposed to take 3 days, but i was given the option to spend a week at a cattle station. It was an awsome week, a real outback experience. We did a little work in exchange for our accomodation and food. It was very hot and the flies were a little annoying, but sleeping under the stars (and what stars!) every night and cooking our food on an open fire more than made up for it. Plus the animals who lived there were very cool; 4 dogs (one so small we spend much of the time trying to convince it that it was a cat..), 1 calf and 2 kangaroos were the coolest of the bunch. One of our jobs was to feed them every morning.
Other hightlights of the week included visiting a nearby river to swim and catch crayfish (we didn't catch that many), rescuing an orphaned baby lamb (cute little guy we called Spikey) and above all, sleeping under the stars - after the generator was turned off there was not one light in any direction for over 35 kms, so the stars looked amazing.
Back on the road the rest of the trip went fairly quickly. Saw a few sights, including the place where 'waltzing matilda' was written, but fairly uneventful. We finally arrived at the rainforest, where, thanks to my superb planning, it is the wet season. We went on a very wet walk, complete with leeches, to a waterfall, where we went for a swim.
That is a fairly brief account of the last few weeks, which have probably been some of the most eventful of my trip. I haven't mention the singing dingo. Or the numerous kangaroos we saw. Or our visit to eccentric Talc Alf. Other details will have to wait until i see you good folks in person. So until next time - which will, i am sure, be sooner than the last - look after yourselves, and keep thinking about Paulie.
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Ian & Chally
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Cool Beans!
HAPPY NEW YEAR PAULIE!