To Darwin

We started our day with a great Australian omelet breakfast at Daly Waters, but it was the merest snack compared to what Scotty ate. Scotty is a ringer (pronouced ringa - an Australian ranch hand) who was staying at Daly Waters on his way back to the ranch he works at - a 12,000 square kilometer spread with 18,000 head of cattle. At roundup they use horses, motorbikes, trucks and helicopters! Scotty had a real Australia ringa breakfast, numerous eggs, a steak, 3 long sausages, potatoes, multiple pieces of toast etc. He also had the best bush hat I have ever seen. Another Aussie, my new found friend Paul was having another type of Aussie breakfast, as shown in the photo below, at 7am!

Scotty, our Aussie ringa, hving his Aussie ringa breakfast

Paul having his Aussie breakfast, at 7am!

We stopped at Mataranka in the Elsie National Park, a tropical oasis of lush Palms and hot springs, then had lunch at Katherine, a decent sized modern looking town, with lots of aboriginals just sitting around, but a great coffee shop. An oasis of civilization staffed by the pregnant Roxanne, and speaking of so-called civilization, I have yet to see a Starbucks since leaving Sydney, although there are lots of coffee shops serving long blacks, short blacks, flat whites etc - and those are the types of coffees, not the people. Viva Australia.

From Katherine to Darwin was another 350 kilometers of more emptiness, dry, hot, arid grasslands. The land is dotted by termite mounds, some of them 8 feet tall - quite amazing to see. We ventured off the road on a 4wd track, and its not a place to be stranded - real hot, real dry, real desolate. There are a lot of dead wallabies (small kangaroos) lying by the road - they wander on the highway, get dazed by headlights, and pow. It’s the Outback. 

An 8 foot termite mound

Watch out for the roos!

We have just arrived in Darwin, named after Charles, the botanist on the Beagle. It is a beautiful seaside town on the Timor Sea (Beagle Bay) which was totally rebuilt after it was flattened by Cyclone Tracy on Christmas day 1974. Wes and I went for a steamy run, I can’t imagine what it is like in summer.

May 11 and 12 - Uluru to Aeliron

Uluru, which until 1994 was known as Ayers Rock, is the largest rock in the world, it is huge, 885 meters above sea level at the top. It is massive, but more than that it is primeval,  sacred to the aborigines, and very special. It takes your breath away, even at first site, when it is more than 50 kms away.

We arrived from the Western MacDonnell Range around 5,30 pm on Wednesday and were magnetically drawn to Uluru - we watched the sun set on the Rock, displaying an ever shifting display of glorious red light. In a word, it was magnificent.

This morning, we woke up at 6am, before dawn and drove from the Uluru Resort town (20 kms  from Uluru, where we had slept at the very rustic Outback Pioneer Hotel) to watch the sun rise - another display of spectacular color. We then visited the cultural center, and then climbed to the top, up a steep rock face, at times more than 45 degrees, supported (at least sometimes) by a chain rope. Halfway up the chain stopped and we were on our own - it was an arduous, and at times a scary climb, but it was worth it, both for the satisfaction of hard effort and the spectacular view.

We then drove back to Alice Springs, 350 kms from Uluru via the Lasseter Highway then the Stuart Highway, both two lane roads, nothwithstanding their names. Yesterday we drove from Glen Helen Gorge to Uluru via a different route, through the  West MacDonnell Range, 600 kms through a  combination of sealed (paved or what the called bitumen) and unsealed (dirt roads) - the unsealed are a deep red, they call this area the Red Center.

One thing that surprises me is the amount of vegetation, mostly scrub, low bushes and grasses. Not what I expected from what is essentially a desert. It is probably at least in part due to the amount of rain they had from November to March - the Aussie summer, what they call the Big Wet. We haven’t seen any kangaroo or crocs yet - but we have eaten plenty. There are a lot of wild horses - we haven’t eaten any of those. We saw a dingo crossing the road.

Tonight we are in Aerilon, a gas stop / roadhouse /  campground on the road from Alice to Darwin - a real outback roadstop, with some noisy and drunk aboriginals, a geology team prospecting, a few outback characters, dingoes and not much else. We are camping out. living the outback life.

Somehow they have an internet connection, but too slow to upload photos.

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.

The Outback

We flew to Alice Springs this morning, it is 3 hours from Sydney on Quantas, smack in the middle of Australia. The land is vast and empty, huge tracts of red and ochre scrub and hills - what they call The Bush. I found out today that Quantas stands for Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service - a piece of Australian trivia.

After landing in Alice we picked up our 4WD vehicle and after a brief exploration of Alice (not much to see - a small town with a frontier feel) and a great lunch ( Kangaroo and beet salad - seared, it tastes like very tender beef, wonderful) we headed east into the McConnell Range, a long range of red rock mountains, and we stopped to view the dry stream beds which flood in the summer rains, and the ochre pits, an important site for the aborigines, where white clay and iron oxide (rust!) have combined to form multi hued formations of colored ochre cliff faces.

We are spending the night at Glen Helen Gorge, camping out at the Glen Helen Lodge, which offers dinner and internet, and a cold beer after a day on the road.

I have the impression we are heading into the real Australia, a land of vast empty space, spectacular vistas, and the raw power of nature. The vastness is a lesson in humility, man pales into insignificance.

A happy note form dinner - after every meal Wes and I flip a coin to see who pays - until today I had lost 6 in a row - that's lunch and dinner every day we have been here. Tonight, at the Glen Helen Gorge Lodge (rustic, yet functional, and we are camping) my luck changed - Wes paid for my roo (my second roo today)- happy days are here again.

The internet here is not fast enough to post pictures, so I will post them when I can.

Woolloomooloo (or the story of O's)

May 9, 2011

We spent today exploring Sydney before our outback adventure begins. After a sumptuous breakfast at the hotel, we started our day by taking the ferry to Manly, a small beach town on the opposite side of Sydney harbor, where one side of the town faces across the harbor to Sydney, and the other side of town is on the Pacific Ocean, with a spectacular broad beach. 

We walked around a bit, admired the beach, then took the Ferry back to Sydney where we walked through the exquisite Royal Botanical Gardens to Woolloomooloo (pronounced Woo-lah-mah-loooo, or as the residents call it The Loo). Is there any place on earth with more oooooooo’s in it - I doubt it, count them, 8 o’s. Not only that, but almost 2/3rds of the letters are o’s - even Oslo and Ohio are only 50% o’s.  

We had lunch in Wolloomolloo at the pub (which dates back to the 1880‘s - old in Australia) where Geoff’s sister Helen works. Satiated by food and ale,  we returned to Sydney City Centre, and walked George Street, the main drag. 

Sydney is beautiful, full of life, a City with a spirit.

The iconic Sydney Opera House

Crocker, Wes and I on the ferry to Manly

Playing for tourists at the Sydney Quai

The Beach at Manly

Crocker, Sister Helen and Wes

City Hall

Iconic Sydney

We spent the day walking, the City and the weather were glorious and at 5 we met Geoff Crocker, an Aussie friend who spent 30 years in Montreal, and returned down under in 95. Great sights, including a contortionist squeezing into a 16 inch Plexiglas cube, a real crowd pleaser.

Far Far Away

I left Montreal at 4 p.m., the first leg of my trip was to Toronto, where Wes joined me. As I disembarked in Toronto, after my first flight of the day, it occurred to me that I was barely 1/22nd of the way to Australia - a daunting thought.

I went to the Air Canada lounge to wait for Wes, and the fellow sitting next to me turned out to be a fine Australian chap, a mate in his local lingo. Mike and I chatted, and he gave me some tips, including on snakes and spiders, and other things that kill you. When Wes arrived we conspired to tell him a wonderful (but alas a tall) story about a fellow who found a brown snake (the second deadliest in Australia - second only to the famed Taipan) in the toilet bowl, quite luckily,  just before he sat down. Great fun.

The next flights were long, 5 hours to Vancouver and over 16 hours from Vancouver to Sydney. It is a blessedly long time - no phone, no BlackBerry, nothing that needs to be done. Thinking of it as long flight misses the point, it’s a lot more fun to think of it as a short vacation. I read a newspaper, slept for 8 hours, had a snack (dim sum), read a second newspaper, read my Australia travel guide and made some notes, slept for 2 more hours, had more dim sum, watched a movie, edited some photos, wrote part of this entry, had breakfast, and read a little. Quite the trip.

We just arrived in Sydney, we are staying The Four Seasons, Wes’ favorite hotel, and we are going out to explore.