The stretch of road between Alice Springs to Katharine is rather uninspiring. It’s flat and monotonous and there is really nothing to fix your eyes to. The only things we saw of interest was Devil’s Marbles, which are huge granite boulders strewn on the side of the road in precious-looking piles. They are called Karlukarlu by the local aboriginal people who believe them to be the eggs of the rainbow serpent.



We stayed the night at a cattle station, Banka Banka. During the night they showed a slideshow about life on a cattle ranch, and I can honestly say that “life on the land” as a jillaroo doesn’t attract me in any way. Twelve hour days mustering cattle for 4 months at a time, the heat, the dust, the flies… not for me.

The landscape changed before our very eyes during this drive. From a hot, dusty, acrid environment with scrubby bushland set in red dust, it because a hot, humid environment with lush greenery and plenty of water. It feels like we are in SE Asia already. The flies are gone, but the mozzies now take their place. And there are frogs everywhere! The old “flog in the bog” really holds true here, you don’t want to sit down on the toilet before checking first, believe me.

Bad things come in threes

Grandma was right – three is the magic number. After the roofrack fell off the car #1), we drove for a long time before finding a (dodgy looking) campground to gratefully collapse into bed. There were no “not drinking water” signs around, so Tim filled his water bottle from the tap. I didn’t (not by design, but just so happened). Everything was fine, and we got to Alice Springs the next day, and had a juicy stake and a bottle of wine to celebrate.

That night however Tim was definitely not well and he didn’t get any better the next day (#2). After about 24 hours of not being to keep food or water down, he was so dehydrated we thought it was better to go to the hospital where they could put him on a drip. Which is what we did, and I have to say the Alice Springs Hospital is more efficient than many I have seen in Melbourne (and I have seen quite a few). It was quite somewhat different an being the only two white people in the emergency room, but he was on a drip within 2 hrs and we were out of there in 4 hrs. And now he is all better!

Alice Springs is a pretty town, but the atmosphere is somewhat rough; I wouldn’t want to be out on the street after dark. I was quite happy that we were staying just out of town. Nevertheless, there was a lot to see, I would recommend seeing the Royal Flying Doctor Base and School of the Air to hear about the amazing work they do in the outback.

We headed out towards Katherine after lunch, and what do you know – 2 hours later the car started to shake, the rear left tire let out a massive gush of air, and we skidded to a stop (#3). To give Tim credit he had the spare on within half an hour, and it was hot and dusty work too, with many flies. There wasn’t that much air in it and it’s a good thing the next roadhouse (Ti Tree) was only a 20 min drive because the different pressures made the card limpy and bumpy.



However, all is well that ends well, and at the roadhouse they directed us to a local jack-of-all-trades, Barry, who seemed to have come out of the bush for that night only to help us out. Even more helpfully, he had a friend coming down from Alice that night who could bring up a spare tire tube. In the end we got the tire back the next morning, avoiding a drive back to Alice Springs, and costing only $45.

In the centre of Australia...

there really isn't that much, as we have ascertained, but what there is spectacular. But I will start at the beginning as to what we’ve been doing:

We went to the Barossa Valley and bought some more wine. Overall I think I prefer the MacLaren Vale region for quaintness and scenery, although Barossa is home to some amazing wineries (Kay Brothers, Henchke, Two Hands…)

We camped at Flinders Ranges National Park. This is when I really started to notice the landscape changing – instead of hills and farms we were now driving across a very flat landscape, with spare yellow grass.



We drove the Oodnadatta Track. The unsealed road is in surprisingly good condition – we were doing 80km to 100km an hour nearly all the way. The towns on the track all look the same – a petrol station, which is also a supermarket, which is also a post office, which is also a bank next to a pub which is also a hotel. The “towns” are on average 200km apart, so in the interest of conserving fuel we stitched the aircon off. Wouldn’t want to be here in the heat of summer! Meanwhile, it is rather cold at the night – I had to acquire a big green blanket from the Salvation Army to keep warm.
I am actually learning a lot along the way about Australia’s settlement history, and the people who came out here to start sheep and cattle stations. It looks like such a hard and lonely life – every day a battle to acquire the necessities of life such as water, fuel and food, in the middle of nowhere. We drove past a cattle station that is larger than Belgium and half the size of England. But I digress.
I could also dedicate a separate blog to flies, and how much I’ve come to hate them. Until the sun goes, it is impossible to start making dinner or do anything really. They is literary a swarm of them, and there is nothing worse than the feeling of them crawling on your face, into your eyes, into your lips, into your ears. The only thing to do out here is get a hat with a net and swat swat swat until sunset.








This is Tim trying to get away from the flies:



Coober Pedy
We stayed in an underground room – it’s the only way to be comfortable here. No matter the outside temperature, underground it is always a constant 24C. Cooper Pedy is different to any other small SA town we passed before – to date the towns have been part of the goldrush/mining era that have seen their glory days go by, and are now left with historical sites of interest and charming sandstone cottages. Coober Pedy sprang up relatively recently and I can tell you not much effort has gone into town planning to cleaning up of old junk. It’s haphazard, ramshackle, and without charm or grace – but it feels like it’s all happening here, people are here to make money right now.






However the Breakways Reserve around Coober Pedy was magnificent for outback scenery – Priscilla, Queen of the desert was partially filmed here.






Uluru - Need I say more?



The Olgas (next to Uluru)



From King’s canyon, rather than doubling back and taking the Stuart Highway to Alice Springs, we decided to do a loop on an unsealed road around some aboriginal land, thinking it might be interesting. Well it wasn’t – the scenery was dull, and the road the worst I’ve been on in Australia, so corrugated we were bouncing around at 20 km an hour until Tim let some air out of his tires. It helped a little, but we still had to slow down all the time, it was just unrelentingly bad.
After about 200km of this, I heard a strange noise – like a hubcap coming off, but much louder. It was the sound of our roofrack coming off the car, together with out spare wheel, radiator, solar shower, hammock, water container and 2 chairs. Later examination revealed that 3 of the plastic bits that s3cured the basket to the racks broke after 3 hrs of unrelenting jarring. Thank god there was no one behind us when it happened, and that we are carrying a spare water container. At the end of the day out losses were:
- One chair smashed beyond repair
- A cracked water container, unusable
- A hole in the solar shower
- Broken roofrack
- Crack in the canopy of the car where the impact of the roofrack was when it came off

The Great Escape - Week 1

The first week of our journey was relatively uneventful. Because we’ve camped in Victoria so many times before, in many ways it felt just like a weekend away. Now that we are in less unfamiliar territory (South Australia), it’s starting to sink in that I am on holiday!

Sleeping in the ute has worked out pretty well – the mattress is thick and comfortable, and it’s exactly the space of a double bed. There are two downsides though – mozzies (I got bitten on my face!) and rain. The first problem was taken care of with a mosquito net, the second only became a problem this morning. It was late enough to get up when our feet got drenched and thankfully we are in a caravan park so we could tumble everything dry. I think we will put a tarp over the back tonight.


Day 1: Melbourne to Otways National Park


Day 2: Cape Otway to Port Fairy


Day 3: Port Fairy to Mr Gambier (South Australia)


Day 4: Mt Gambier to Coorong National Park


Day 5: Coorong National Park to Victor Harbour


Day 6: Victor Harbour to McLaren Vale


This is our rest day in McLaren Vale, a very nice wine region in SA. We broke the budget a bit with a self-tour of the wineries, but when in Rome you really must do as the Romans do :) So far we have been pretty good at a-la-cheapo tour of Australia – we are only paying for a caravan park every third day or do, the car runs on gas and we cook all our own meals.

Janet's Wedding

Honestly I don't know how Janet did it (kudos to you girl), she remained so calm and serene throughout the day, whereas I was completely exhausted by dinner time. Did I say dinner? I meant a 12 course banquet, which was yummy, except for the sea cucumbers (they were weird).

Janet's Hen's

was great fun! We did all the things girls like to do - shopping, massages & facials, gossiping, reading trashy magazines, cooking, consuming naughty foods, watching chick flicks, painting toenails and drinking wine :)


And I will always cherish the following photos as a reminder:













Especially the one of Samet trying to get away from the gingerbread man:

How many words does it take to say "stuff you"?

A friend of mine received an email from his manager, to whom he replied as follows:

From: Manager X
Subject: Monday Morning Attendance

Good Afternoon,

It has been noted that you were late/did not attend to Monday the 16th of March weekly firm meeting. Can you please explain why you were late or did not attend?

Thanks

To: Manager X
Subject RE: Monday Morning Attendance


Dear Manager X,

Yes, I am able to explain why I was late.

I was late to the Monday morning firm meeting on the 16th of March because as I was getting ready to leave my house and get on the train, I was unable to locate my wallet. I looked on my desk, where I usually leave it, and it wasn’t there. I subsequently checked my bedside table, and it wasn’t there either! At this point, I started to get a bit concerned, as if my wallet isn’t in any of these places, chances are I’ve probably misplaced it. (I don’t usually lose things, as I’m a pretty observant individual.) Anyway, so after checking my bedside table, I checked the TV stand in my room, but it wasn’t there. I went downstairs and checked the kitchen table, (I usually have heaps of stuff on it, so I had to look under all the papers), and I still couldn’t find it. At this point I was starting to worry a bit more. I thought to myself, ‘where did I last leave my wallet?’ Then I realized that I probably left it in the car, as I have been known to do this before. I quickly ran down to the car and had a look inside, but to no avail, no wallet. I ran back upstairs, and now I’m really starting to get panicked. Losing a wallet is a really big deal! I started to think about all the things in my wallet that I would have to replace, all my credit cards, drivers license, AFL membership, FlyBuys card (but lets face it, nobody ever gets anything decent from FlyBuys.) I considered calling the credit card company to stop my credit cards, but then I decided that this was probably premature, as it’s only been lost for about 10 minutes.

I just bought that wallet, it was really expensive, and I really liked it. I got it from a website that I like called www.rushfaster.com.au. Excellent site. Well, I got back in my house, and went straight back to the most likely place it would be, my desk. I checked there again, in a bit more detail, but alas it was still not there. I was very annoyed at this stage, and I considered calling my friend Helena, as she was the last person who saw me with my wallet, as we went out to lunch on Sunday. I decided that calling her would be a waste of time as she is not going to be able to tell me where my wallet is. Suddenly, I had a brainwave! Maybe I left it in my jeans! So I rushed off to check my jeans that were hanging on the stairs. I picked them up, and shook them around in a nervous panic but there was nothing solid in them. The wallet was not present. I thought wow, I can’t believe I’ve lost my wallet.

I decided to get on the internet and check my bank balance to see if anyone had used my credit cards. My online banking balance didn’t seem to have any strange transactions on it, so I felt a bit more comfortable that perhaps my wallet was not yet lost. At this point, I figured, I suppose I better just leave, and goto work without my wallet. I had some coins downstairs in the kitchen, where I keep a box of spare change that I could grab in order to buy myself a train ticket. I keep that box of coins there because I don’t like keeping coins in my wallet. I found sometime ago that they severely shorten the life of my wallets, as they break the seams when I put too many coins in there. I decided that before I leave, I’ll just check the main places one more time, so I again checked my desk, my bedside table, my TV stand, kitchen table, and jeans, still, the wallet was nowhere to be found.

A small sense of acceptance crept over me, as I pondered that fact that it could have been worse. I wasn’t carrying much cash on me, and credit cards and licenses are easily replaced. If there was a good time to lose a wallet, this was probably it. I sat down to my computer desk and reluctantly gave up. As I sat down, I noticed that under a CD on my desk was hiding my little black wallet. I cursed myself and my lack of observation, ran out the door to catch the train, relieved that I had been saved some significant inconvenience.

To answer your question as to why I was late to the Monday morning meeting this week….… I slept in.

Regards,