...
...
...
How much skies did you see? In most cities, you are lucky to see half of the sky's dome. Out in the nature you'll probably see more. But try to remember when did you the full dome of the skies stretching from one horizon to the other?
Australia is actually made of two parts. There is the coastal part which consists of people, cities, tourist attractions, forests, waterways and animals, and there is the outback which is a big empty nothing. Nothing but skies, that is. If you head to the outback, make sure you love the skies, because that's all you are going to see for some days.
Going to the outback from the east coast is a sharp transition. We left Cairns on the afternoon, after we said goodbye to Itay that started his journey back to Israel, and slept in Milla Milla, high in the Atherton tableland.
This was a very wet night and the mist was so thick that we couldn't see anything, not to mention the tree-kangaroos that should have been there, at least according to road signs.
On mid day of the following day, once we passed the "Great Dividing Range", we were already in the middle of nothing. The air became dry, the rainforest had changed into open Eucalyptus forest and the distances between towns grew from 20km to 200km and on the next day to 500km.
We drove through the northern outback road, which is longer but passes through the gulf savanna. It is truly a beautiful road that stretches through the light forest covered planes of the Gulf of Carpenteria, and passes through tiny towns that pop right out of the 19th century. In between it's the land of the cows, kangaroos and the road trains - massive trucks carrying 3 and even 4 trailers behind. The unfortunate encounters between the kangaroos and the road trains leave a trail of road kills that become the meeting place for craws, falcons and eagles.
We drove more than 10,000km in the 20 days between Cairns and Port Augusta, in South Australia, doing more than 900km per day in some days. We switched every 200km or 2 hours of driving so it wasn't really hard.
On the first night we slept in Kurumba, right on the coast of the gulf. We were hoping to see a beautiful meteorological phenomenon called "Morning Glory" that happens every year few weeks before the beginning of the wet season. Although we didn't see it, we did see a lot of animals in the small caravan park we stayed in. We saw a blue thong lizard, and an owl. We also had a closer look on the wallabies that were eating the grass in front of our tent and on the green frogs that shared with us the kitchen where we made our dinner. We also met interesting group of men that left their wives and kids for a "boys only" fishing trip. They were all equipped and ready for the great Barramundi fishing out in the gulf. They came from Brisbane and had more than a 1000km more to go through unsealed roads until they'll reach the place where they planed on casting their nets. This yearly fishing trip provides them with frozen fish for the whole year. A modern hunters society indeed.
The only major city on the way is Mt. Isa, which we got to at the end of the second day of driving. A big sign welcomes you to the city: "You are not a real Ausie until you have visited Mt. Isa". If that's true, we are probably more Ausies than most of the Australians.
We planned on sleeping for free that night so we took a free and cold shower in the visitor center. But that wasn't too bad since the temperature outside was probably 35 degrees. It was also useless because we slept in a caravan park eventually.
The third day of driving was the longest. We drove about 920km. As soon as we crossed to the Northern Territory, the road kills disappeared and we were left with the skies alone to accompany us.
There are two fun elements in driving in the Northern Territory. The speed limit is 130km/h which is actually achievable with the empty and straight roads, and there is a free coffee for the drivers in every gas station. Not too many of those, though, since they can be as far as 300km one from another. The fuel price is defiantly the downside of driving there, reaching almost twice the price at the large cities.
We stopped at Larrimah, about 200km south to Katherine. Larrimah is a rather large town with a population of 13 (people, not thousands) and 2 dogs. We actually saw all of them in the "world famous" Pink Panther pub which was next to the camping ground. The biggest attraction (except for the people themselves) is the free zoo. The pub owner had a nice collection of native animals, including one salt water crocodile, few lizards, parrots and cockatoos and three absolutely stupid emus. There was also a wallaby that was curious about Lilya's pants so he tried to eat them. These pants are probably appealing to wildlife because these were the same pants that the toucan in Brazil tried to eat.
We arrived in Katherine on the next day and drove to the world famous (this time for real) Katherine Gorge. We were quite happy to complete this part of the road, which we planned for 5 days in only 3 and a bit.
Tip 1: There are rest areas in the Northern Territory that can be used for free overnight camping. Try to get a good road map of the area that includes them. You can get the Northern Territory map produced by the Queensland auto club (RACQ) in Cairns. If you are from the type that needs shower, you can take one in caravan parks. They usually offer only showers for 3-4 dollars per person.
Tip 2: There are good free thermals in Mataranka just south of Katherine. We didn't mention them in the post because we stopped there only on the way south.
Tip 3: The fuel on the way between Mt. Isa and Katherine is very expansive. The far that you are from these towns the more you'll pay. Try to plan your drive so you will not have to fill to much on the way.
Tip 4: The small pubs in these outback towns are an important part of the experience. You haven't really seen the outback until you sat in an outback pub.
Tip 5: There are 50 million kangaroos in Australia and you really don't want to meet one while driving 120km/h. The kangaroos get out at dusk and might be on the road at night. Try not to drive when its dark.
Tip 6: Part of the Gulf Savanna road is one lane for the two direction and there are road trains on these roads. If you see a road train from a distance, coming in front of you, it is best to get off the road and let it pass. You don't want to force these monsters off the road.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment