The Stuart Highway

Today we drove 700 kilometers up the Stuart Highway, a two lane (one in each direction) road that runs from Adelaide in the South to Darwin in the North. It is desolate outback, at first scrub desert, now starting to turn into grasslands. Long stretches of arrow straight flat road, absolute wilderness. Only a few other vehicles are driving the road, and road trains - trucks hauling up to five 45 foot trailers - when they pass you, you feel it. Thankfully Andrew is doing the driving, and he is doing a great job. Being an Australian, he is used to left hand drive - the roundabouts, and there are many, seem pretty hairy to me. 

The attraction of the day was Devils Marbles, huge boulders randomly piled up, like a giant was playing. Just being among the rocks is a window into our insignificance. When we arrived we were met by Dingo in the parking lot, who looked pretty hungry. 

After Devils Marbles we had planned to have lunch in Tennant Creek - maybe 100 kms away, but it was really grim. Mostly an aboriginal community it was pretty scary, aboriginals hanging out, drinking at 1pm, only bars, no real restaurants - all the windows boarded up. We found a couple of sandwiches and headed north, fast. We passed a couple of great roadstops (generally consisting of a combination gas station / pub with colorful characters inside), one of which (Barrow Creek, established 1932)  had an incredible combination of Canadiana - flags, posters, money - which the owner proudly showed us.

We are spending the night in a cabin (we camped last night) at Daly Waters, an iconic pub / roadhouse stop - the interior of which is festooned with hundreds of bills, caps and pairs of underwear donated by travelers, men and women. At happy hour if you order a beer the bartenders flips a coin, if you win the beer is free, if not you pay for it - I went for heads - and had a free beer. For dinner we had an authentic Australian barbie (steak and barra - barramundi, a local fish) and more local beer. Real outback. Tonight they have a local singing. I chatted with a chap named Peter, who lives in Adelaide but is working in the outback laying 10-12 kms of fibre optic cable a day for the internet - as Bob Dylan sang, the times they are a changin.

Tomorrow we go on to Katherine or Darwin - we will see what the day brings. So far, this  has been an incredible journey, as I said, Real Outback here.