Day 5
November 3, 2011
My hatred of time zones has been well-documented on this blog. For whatever reason, my brain just cannot wrap itself around the concept. Ordinarily, this is not a massive deal, as I have developed several workarounds to allow me to communicate with friends and family around the globe, namely lurking around on gchat until they show up. Not overly sophisticated, but it works. This trip has KILLED me. We have been in a different time zone every day, thanks to Queensland not believing in Daylight Saving, and the maddening half-hour increment time zone changes which is just like....COME ON. The point of the story is that when we woke up on Wednesday morning, we had absolutely no idea what time it was. My watch said one thing, Jamie's another, the car clock a third and both of our cell phones, a fourth and a fifth. This is how we ended up on the road at 4:30 am.
We decided to take advantage of our bright and early start, and detour to the Caiguna Blowhole, a prominent feature in one of our travel brochures. We followed a sign down a dirt road (as usual), bumping along, swerving to avoid the lizards sunning themselves on the dirt. Right away, we noticed this road was slightly...sketchier than the other dirt roads we had previously ventured down. This one quickly devolved into little more than a set of tire tracks through the brush, and we swerved around in the vague direction of the ocean until we unceremoniously dead-ended in front of a thick patch of gum trees, no path in sight. We had come so far, we figured surely the famous blowhole was just through the trees, but as Jamie disappeared into the bush, alarm bells started ringing in my head: Wolf Creek, Peter Falconio, a dingo ate my baby! We had only made it about ten metres into the bush before realizing the car had all but disappeared behind us, with no sign of the alleged blowhole ahead of us. We beat a hasty retreat and vowed to write a strongly worded letter to the Australian Blowhole Commission.
After all the fanfare about the stark beauty of the Nullabor Desert, I'll admit to being...underwhelmed. Perhaps I was desert-fatigued, but the ceaseless scrub and dead kangaroos just didn't seem as majestic as they once had, and I was glad when we stopped in the town of Caiguna to have our "I Crossed the Nullabor" certificates notarized by the local publican (seriously).
A few more hours and we were in Esperence, a small but pretty coastal town with truly spectacular beaches. At a service station outside town, Jamie befriended a trucker who told us we absolutely had to head to a place called Lucky Bay. Being wary of travel tips from strange truckers (Wolf Creek, Peter Falconio, a dingo ate my baby), I reluctantly agreed. I hereby renounce any hesitance or prejudgement once heaped upon travel advice from potential serial killers, because Lucky Bay and the surrounding areas was one of the most beautiful places I have seen in Australia. This time our camera remained functional, so stay tuned for pictures.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
The Transaustralian Adventure: Part V
Day 4
November 2, 2011
This has probably been my favorite day on trip so far. In our (four page and totally excessive...have I mentioned that?) brochure on Ceduna, it mentioned that we could go and visit a "Wombat and Australian Fauna Rescue Centre." I was immediately intrigued. I have a sort of Australian Wildlife Bucket List going, where I am trying to see all Australian fauna in some sort of "up close" encounter, and up until yesterday, the only animals I was missing were wombats and platypi, so I knew we would have to make a quick stop. We pulled up outside a non-descript house in a residential neighborhood, unsure if our malevolent GPS Karen has yet again led us astray. Then we noticed the baby emu in the front yard. We followed the signs around to the back of the house, were we joined an elderly couple also awaiting their wombat encounter. We met Val (may or may not be her real name...neither of us can remember), the chatty proprietress who led us into a rather non-descript back room, equipped with a fridge, a table, and a couple of large crates from whence came a suspicious thumping. Val spent seemingly ages chatting to us about the trials and tribulations of the amateur wildlife rehabilitator (I was interested, but I wanted to see some wombats, yall), before finally opening the crate and introducing us to Soul, who she cradled in her arms like a giant hairy baby. Wombats have got to be one of the strangest creatures I have ever laid eyes on. They are marsupials, but they sort of look like a giant guinea pig on some serious steroids. Wombats, though not higher off the ground than your average Jack Russell Terrier, are so incredibly solid that hitting one on the road can FLIP YOUR CAR, as the male half of the elderly couple enjoying the wombats with us seemed to macabrely enjoy telling me. Fortunately, Soul looked like he would rather eat my shoelaces than flip my car, so I let him do just that, until he got tired (rough life, bro) and fell asleep under the table. As Val prattled on about internal feuds within the wombat protector community (oh, they exist), I explored the room slightly. When we walked into the room, I had noticed a jacket hanging from the back of the chair with the sleeves and bottom sewn shut. While Val spoke about her rival in the wombat biz, I noticed the jacket start to twitch and suddenly a small head popped out the neck of the jacket. A joey! A tiny orphaned baby kangaroo named Annabelle, to be exact. We met other wombats, including an adorable and incredibly rare baby white wombat, but Annabelle had captured my heart. She nibbled my fingers, she tried to eat my watch, she reached two impossibly delicate arms up and grabbed my hand with tiny claws. If death from a cuteness overload is possible, I definitely came close.
We finally extricated us from Val's Wombatapalooza and hit the road. I wanted to stop in a local Aboriginal settlement to see a rare Giant Wombat, but Jamie was all wombatted out and voted we head to world famous surf spot Cactus Beach instead. As with most of our detours, we headed off down a poorly signed, bumpy dirt road that would hopefully take us where we wanted to go and not to an inbred family of hillbilly cannibals (I've seen the movies ok, I know it can happen). Fortunately, this time we were headed the right direction, and the drive turned out to be absolutely beautiful, past shallow pools rimmed with salt crystals, one of which was a brilliant purple, that stubbornly refused to be photographed. After about 30 km of bouncing down this narrow dirt road, we came to the beach. White sand, clear aquamarine waves rolling in perfect rhythm towards the shore, the whole nine yards. Of course, you'll just have to take my word for it, because obviously the camera ran out of battery the second my foot touched sand. Alas.
The final excitement of the day was entering the Nullabor Desert and seeing the head of the Great Australian Bight. The Bight, or Bite, as I humorously like to call it, is the largest coastal indentation on the continent in Australia. Get it? Because it looks like a bite and it's called the bight? How I laughed. Personally, I thought actually going to see the Bight would be pretty boring, plus I was slightly miffed my Bight/bite jokes weren't going over better, so I was pretty anti this detour, but I was enticed by the promise of seeing whales. When we arrived at the visitors' centre, however, we were informed by the surly man behind the counter that we had missed the whales for the day, and to add insult to injury, we had to pay five dollars for the privilege of walking to the end of the path. Rude. We paid up and went to have a look, and despite the utter lack of whales, I have to say that the Bight far exceeded my (admittedly low) expectations. Sheer cliffs jutted out of crashing waves and the air was salty with spray. Though it pains me to say, it was worth the five dollars.
We crossed the border into Western Australia without much fanfare that afternoon and collapsed into our sleeping bags. Tomorrow, we cross the Nullabor.
November 2, 2011
This has probably been my favorite day on trip so far. In our (four page and totally excessive...have I mentioned that?) brochure on Ceduna, it mentioned that we could go and visit a "Wombat and Australian Fauna Rescue Centre." I was immediately intrigued. I have a sort of Australian Wildlife Bucket List going, where I am trying to see all Australian fauna in some sort of "up close" encounter, and up until yesterday, the only animals I was missing were wombats and platypi, so I knew we would have to make a quick stop. We pulled up outside a non-descript house in a residential neighborhood, unsure if our malevolent GPS Karen has yet again led us astray. Then we noticed the baby emu in the front yard. We followed the signs around to the back of the house, were we joined an elderly couple also awaiting their wombat encounter. We met Val (may or may not be her real name...neither of us can remember), the chatty proprietress who led us into a rather non-descript back room, equipped with a fridge, a table, and a couple of large crates from whence came a suspicious thumping. Val spent seemingly ages chatting to us about the trials and tribulations of the amateur wildlife rehabilitator (I was interested, but I wanted to see some wombats, yall), before finally opening the crate and introducing us to Soul, who she cradled in her arms like a giant hairy baby. Wombats have got to be one of the strangest creatures I have ever laid eyes on. They are marsupials, but they sort of look like a giant guinea pig on some serious steroids. Wombats, though not higher off the ground than your average Jack Russell Terrier, are so incredibly solid that hitting one on the road can FLIP YOUR CAR, as the male half of the elderly couple enjoying the wombats with us seemed to macabrely enjoy telling me. Fortunately, Soul looked like he would rather eat my shoelaces than flip my car, so I let him do just that, until he got tired (rough life, bro) and fell asleep under the table. As Val prattled on about internal feuds within the wombat protector community (oh, they exist), I explored the room slightly. When we walked into the room, I had noticed a jacket hanging from the back of the chair with the sleeves and bottom sewn shut. While Val spoke about her rival in the wombat biz, I noticed the jacket start to twitch and suddenly a small head popped out the neck of the jacket. A joey! A tiny orphaned baby kangaroo named Annabelle, to be exact. We met other wombats, including an adorable and incredibly rare baby white wombat, but Annabelle had captured my heart. She nibbled my fingers, she tried to eat my watch, she reached two impossibly delicate arms up and grabbed my hand with tiny claws. If death from a cuteness overload is possible, I definitely came close.
We finally extricated us from Val's Wombatapalooza and hit the road. I wanted to stop in a local Aboriginal settlement to see a rare Giant Wombat, but Jamie was all wombatted out and voted we head to world famous surf spot Cactus Beach instead. As with most of our detours, we headed off down a poorly signed, bumpy dirt road that would hopefully take us where we wanted to go and not to an inbred family of hillbilly cannibals (I've seen the movies ok, I know it can happen). Fortunately, this time we were headed the right direction, and the drive turned out to be absolutely beautiful, past shallow pools rimmed with salt crystals, one of which was a brilliant purple, that stubbornly refused to be photographed. After about 30 km of bouncing down this narrow dirt road, we came to the beach. White sand, clear aquamarine waves rolling in perfect rhythm towards the shore, the whole nine yards. Of course, you'll just have to take my word for it, because obviously the camera ran out of battery the second my foot touched sand. Alas.
The final excitement of the day was entering the Nullabor Desert and seeing the head of the Great Australian Bight. The Bight, or Bite, as I humorously like to call it, is the largest coastal indentation on the continent in Australia. Get it? Because it looks like a bite and it's called the bight? How I laughed. Personally, I thought actually going to see the Bight would be pretty boring, plus I was slightly miffed my Bight/bite jokes weren't going over better, so I was pretty anti this detour, but I was enticed by the promise of seeing whales. When we arrived at the visitors' centre, however, we were informed by the surly man behind the counter that we had missed the whales for the day, and to add insult to injury, we had to pay five dollars for the privilege of walking to the end of the path. Rude. We paid up and went to have a look, and despite the utter lack of whales, I have to say that the Bight far exceeded my (admittedly low) expectations. Sheer cliffs jutted out of crashing waves and the air was salty with spray. Though it pains me to say, it was worth the five dollars.
We crossed the border into Western Australia without much fanfare that afternoon and collapsed into our sleeping bags. Tomorrow, we cross the Nullabor.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The Transaustralian Adventure: Part IV
Day 3
November 1, 2011
Day 3 has been fairly uneventful, though it started on a rather disappointing note. One of my favorite uniquely Australian phenomena is the Big Objects series. All around Australia, there are models of normal objects and animals, replicated on a much larger scale for no apparent reason. OK, partially for tourism (I'm told an entire tourist park was run around the Giant Pineapple), but I prefer to think of them like Stonehenge or those South American rocks that slide across the desert, that is to say, quasi-supernatural phenomenon. As soon as we decided to drive to Perth, I started looking up Big Objects along our route. So far we have seen the Big Plane, Big Beer Can, Big Picnic Bench, Big Gulah (like a parrot, but more annoying. It's possible) and the Big Kangaroo. All have been spectacular. Except the Big Plane, which really wasn't much bigger than a real commercial airliner, thought to be fair, it would have to be truly massive to dwarf one of those. It does beg the question, however, why try for a Big Plane in the first place? Why not a Big Biplane? Or a Big Glider? Or even just change the name to the Big Model Airplane (sneaky!)? But I digress. Anyway, imagine my surprise when, as we were leaving Peterborough, I saw a sign for the Big Gum Tree, which wasn't even listed on any of my maps! How exciting! So we trundled off down this dirt road (nearly every road besides the main highway we are driving on is dirt) for a couple hundred metres, only to find a big gum tree. As in a REAL tree, not fashioned whimsically out of fibreglass and painted gaudy colors. Imagine my disgust. You just shouldn't be able to call something Big when it is really only big. Write to your Members of Parliament, Australia!!!
Fortunately, the rest of the day passed without incident. We continued through the rolling hills of South Australia onto our next stop at (according to our brochure) the quaint, charming seaside town of Ceduna. Supposedly the town got it's name from the word Cheedoona, which means "come and rest awhile" in the native Aboriginal language, and it's not that it wasn't charming, but a four page brochure for a town with two streets seems...excessive. Fortunately, our afternoon was planned for us. The Melbourne Cup was on, and, like any good Australians, we were headed to the pub to place our bets on the popular horse race. Unfortunately, because we were running late, Jamie had to hustle to get our bets in in time and he accidentally bet on the wrong race. Improbably, we won 40 dollars. Because, as I mentioned, Ceduna is minuscule, and contrary to what the brochure claimed, there is nothing to do, we decided to take a from the locals and spend the afternoon "getting on the piss." We rounded off the the evening by purchasing oysters from a trailer (it was in the brochure so it's safe?) and retiring to our tent with a movie. Tomorrow, we enter the Nullabor.
November 1, 2011
Day 3 has been fairly uneventful, though it started on a rather disappointing note. One of my favorite uniquely Australian phenomena is the Big Objects series. All around Australia, there are models of normal objects and animals, replicated on a much larger scale for no apparent reason. OK, partially for tourism (I'm told an entire tourist park was run around the Giant Pineapple), but I prefer to think of them like Stonehenge or those South American rocks that slide across the desert, that is to say, quasi-supernatural phenomenon. As soon as we decided to drive to Perth, I started looking up Big Objects along our route. So far we have seen the Big Plane, Big Beer Can, Big Picnic Bench, Big Gulah (like a parrot, but more annoying. It's possible) and the Big Kangaroo. All have been spectacular. Except the Big Plane, which really wasn't much bigger than a real commercial airliner, thought to be fair, it would have to be truly massive to dwarf one of those. It does beg the question, however, why try for a Big Plane in the first place? Why not a Big Biplane? Or a Big Glider? Or even just change the name to the Big Model Airplane (sneaky!)? But I digress. Anyway, imagine my surprise when, as we were leaving Peterborough, I saw a sign for the Big Gum Tree, which wasn't even listed on any of my maps! How exciting! So we trundled off down this dirt road (nearly every road besides the main highway we are driving on is dirt) for a couple hundred metres, only to find a big gum tree. As in a REAL tree, not fashioned whimsically out of fibreglass and painted gaudy colors. Imagine my disgust. You just shouldn't be able to call something Big when it is really only big. Write to your Members of Parliament, Australia!!!
Fortunately, the rest of the day passed without incident. We continued through the rolling hills of South Australia onto our next stop at (according to our brochure) the quaint, charming seaside town of Ceduna. Supposedly the town got it's name from the word Cheedoona, which means "come and rest awhile" in the native Aboriginal language, and it's not that it wasn't charming, but a four page brochure for a town with two streets seems...excessive. Fortunately, our afternoon was planned for us. The Melbourne Cup was on, and, like any good Australians, we were headed to the pub to place our bets on the popular horse race. Unfortunately, because we were running late, Jamie had to hustle to get our bets in in time and he accidentally bet on the wrong race. Improbably, we won 40 dollars. Because, as I mentioned, Ceduna is minuscule, and contrary to what the brochure claimed, there is nothing to do, we decided to take a from the locals and spend the afternoon "getting on the piss." We rounded off the the evening by purchasing oysters from a trailer (it was in the brochure so it's safe?) and retiring to our tent with a movie. Tomorrow, we enter the Nullabor.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
The Transaustralian Adventure: Part III
Day 2
October 31, 2011
If yesterday was the day of emus and roadkill, today definitely belongs to the goats. Of all the animals I was hoping to see on this trip, goats were not high on the list. Yet there they were, scurrying along the roadside. The novelty of seeing literally hundreds of goats in the middle of Outback soon wore off due to their love of darting into the road just in front of our car, causing me near cardiac incidents, before skittering to safety, leaving me clutching the dashboard and gasping for air. Fortunately, Jamie soon discovered that goats hate the sound of car horns. We would see them lurking in the bushes, planning their next assault, and one well-timed blast of the horn would would send them scurrying for cover. How we laughed (especially Jamie, who seemed to take a sick delight in their terror..). Fortunately, goats weren't the only wildlife experienced, and we also saw tons of (live) kangaroos, including a mother kangaroo hopping across the road with her joey's head peeking out of her pouch.
If anything, the landscape was even more desolate than yesterday. Flat scrub streatched all the way to the horizon, and we went over an hour without seeing another car on the road. We clipped along at 120 km for most of the day, only slowing to pass through the tiny towns that appeared sporadically. In a country the size of the US with a smaller population than the state of California, "remote" takes on a whole new meaning. As beautiful as the landscape is, it is a harsh, rugged beauty. There are signs along the road reminding you that even as you drive through a sea of dead grass and cross parched, empty riverbeds, you are crossing a massive floodplain, with markers along the side of the road showing how high the water can get. Most of the "towns" we've driven through have been little more than a small cluster of houses, a church, a pub and a gas station. In one town, there were men sitting outside the servo in lawn chairs, just watching the cars pass by. As we drove past, one raised his hand to us in greeting.
The major stop of today was in Broken Hill, one of Australia's oldest mining towns. Mining is a massive industry in Australia, and driving a dump truck in one of the larger mines can earn you a six-figure paycheck. For skilled workers, paychecks are nearly unbelievable. The trade-off, of course, is that mining is almost always in remote, inhospitable environments. Broken Hill is no exception, and it has had over 100 years to develop. From the Miner's Memorial, on a hill probably 150 high, we could see the entire town. We poked around a bit, visited the Big Picnic Bench (just what it sounds like), and hit the road.
When we crossed the border into South Australia, the terrain seemed to instantly change. Grass became greener and hills sprouted out of the horizon. We were headed for the strangely named Peterborough (though not as strangely named as our originally-planned stopping place of Yunta, which Jamie kept accidentally calling Yemen and I kept accidentally calling Yalta). We had gone a bit brochure wild in the visitors' centre in Broken Hill, and had gotten about seven brochures on the various remaining stops. I entertained Jamie by reading from the Peterborough brochure as we wound our way through South Australia.
A former bustling stop on the railway, it seems Peterborough (founded by a German migrant as Petersburg but Anglicized due to WWI anti-German sentiment) is facing something of an identity crisis in its post-railroad incarnation. It seems they have decided to reinvent themselves as a tourist town, and the insistent chipperness of the brochure seemed to veil an edge of desperation as it outlined the various (limited) attractions one could enjoy in Peterborough. We could only surmise that tourism in a small town 400 km away from the nearest grocery store wasn't going to be its saving grace, and the utter silence of the town seemed only to support this fact. Nearly ten years after the reinvention, the town still only boasted one small gravelly caravan park.
It's all a bit sad, and it does beg the question: what will these people do? And not just the people of Peterborough but all of the remote Australians. Living remotely in the bush is as Australian as meat pies, but how much longer can it endure when growing channels of communication constantly remind people of what they're missing out on? And yet there is something intoxicating out here, a sense of exclusivity. So few people throughout history have has a chance to travel this part of Australia, and its beauty, though rugged, is spectacular. I have spent nearly all of the time in the car looking out the window at the passing scenery, and the sunrises and sunsets are otherworldly. I'm a pragmatist at heart and I know you can't pay a mortgage with a landscape, or feed your family with a sunset, but I like to think that remote Australia will continue to be inhabited for a while longer.
October 31, 2011
If yesterday was the day of emus and roadkill, today definitely belongs to the goats. Of all the animals I was hoping to see on this trip, goats were not high on the list. Yet there they were, scurrying along the roadside. The novelty of seeing literally hundreds of goats in the middle of Outback soon wore off due to their love of darting into the road just in front of our car, causing me near cardiac incidents, before skittering to safety, leaving me clutching the dashboard and gasping for air. Fortunately, Jamie soon discovered that goats hate the sound of car horns. We would see them lurking in the bushes, planning their next assault, and one well-timed blast of the horn would would send them scurrying for cover. How we laughed (especially Jamie, who seemed to take a sick delight in their terror..). Fortunately, goats weren't the only wildlife experienced, and we also saw tons of (live) kangaroos, including a mother kangaroo hopping across the road with her joey's head peeking out of her pouch.
If anything, the landscape was even more desolate than yesterday. Flat scrub streatched all the way to the horizon, and we went over an hour without seeing another car on the road. We clipped along at 120 km for most of the day, only slowing to pass through the tiny towns that appeared sporadically. In a country the size of the US with a smaller population than the state of California, "remote" takes on a whole new meaning. As beautiful as the landscape is, it is a harsh, rugged beauty. There are signs along the road reminding you that even as you drive through a sea of dead grass and cross parched, empty riverbeds, you are crossing a massive floodplain, with markers along the side of the road showing how high the water can get. Most of the "towns" we've driven through have been little more than a small cluster of houses, a church, a pub and a gas station. In one town, there were men sitting outside the servo in lawn chairs, just watching the cars pass by. As we drove past, one raised his hand to us in greeting.
The major stop of today was in Broken Hill, one of Australia's oldest mining towns. Mining is a massive industry in Australia, and driving a dump truck in one of the larger mines can earn you a six-figure paycheck. For skilled workers, paychecks are nearly unbelievable. The trade-off, of course, is that mining is almost always in remote, inhospitable environments. Broken Hill is no exception, and it has had over 100 years to develop. From the Miner's Memorial, on a hill probably 150 high, we could see the entire town. We poked around a bit, visited the Big Picnic Bench (just what it sounds like), and hit the road.
When we crossed the border into South Australia, the terrain seemed to instantly change. Grass became greener and hills sprouted out of the horizon. We were headed for the strangely named Peterborough (though not as strangely named as our originally-planned stopping place of Yunta, which Jamie kept accidentally calling Yemen and I kept accidentally calling Yalta). We had gone a bit brochure wild in the visitors' centre in Broken Hill, and had gotten about seven brochures on the various remaining stops. I entertained Jamie by reading from the Peterborough brochure as we wound our way through South Australia.
A former bustling stop on the railway, it seems Peterborough (founded by a German migrant as Petersburg but Anglicized due to WWI anti-German sentiment) is facing something of an identity crisis in its post-railroad incarnation. It seems they have decided to reinvent themselves as a tourist town, and the insistent chipperness of the brochure seemed to veil an edge of desperation as it outlined the various (limited) attractions one could enjoy in Peterborough. We could only surmise that tourism in a small town 400 km away from the nearest grocery store wasn't going to be its saving grace, and the utter silence of the town seemed only to support this fact. Nearly ten years after the reinvention, the town still only boasted one small gravelly caravan park.
It's all a bit sad, and it does beg the question: what will these people do? And not just the people of Peterborough but all of the remote Australians. Living remotely in the bush is as Australian as meat pies, but how much longer can it endure when growing channels of communication constantly remind people of what they're missing out on? And yet there is something intoxicating out here, a sense of exclusivity. So few people throughout history have has a chance to travel this part of Australia, and its beauty, though rugged, is spectacular. I have spent nearly all of the time in the car looking out the window at the passing scenery, and the sunrises and sunsets are otherworldly. I'm a pragmatist at heart and I know you can't pay a mortgage with a landscape, or feed your family with a sunset, but I like to think that remote Australia will continue to be inhabited for a while longer.
The Transaustralian Adventure: Part II
Day 1
October 30, 2011
Though we left approximately two hours and two days later than we planned, our (somewhat grueling) schedule still has us getting to Perth next Saturday, so it's all good.
We started the drive from Jamie's parents' house just outside Brisbane. From there, we went inland through Toowoomba (foggy) and crossed the state border from Queensland to New South Wales at Goondawindi (non-descript) where we began to head Southwest into the Outback to our stopping point for the night in Bourke.
As we drove, it became readily apparent just how remote we were getting. Green grass and busy highways with clean edges and shining guardrails gave way to scraggly trees, scrub brush and that deep brick red-colored earth so characteristic of the Outback. Heat waves shimmered ahead of us and emus casually trotted beside the road. My meltdown at Jamie for not stopping at the emu farm in Goondawindi became slightly ridiculous as one large emu, seemingly inspired by the recent Australian release of Fast Five, attempted to race our car. Bet you they don't let the farm emus do that. However, impressive though it was, a large and very stupid bird running at full speed along a highway did nothing to lessen my fear of running over an Australian animal. In addition to (live) emu, kangaroo, lizards and birds, we saw dead kangaroos, birds, rabbits, lizards, snakes and one very sad (and very dead) fox.
It seems this Australian highway is a veritable killing field for Australian fauna and I live in fear of killing anything larger than the bugs who kamikaze themselves into our windscreen. We narrowly avoided participating in what appeared to be a magpie suicide pact, and Jamie avoided killing what must have been the world's bravest lizard who refused to move from his comfortable spot dead in the middle of the road, forcing Jamie to run directly over it, allowing it to pass unscathed between our tires. I actually performed a similar feat a couple hours later with a snake, but the more I think about it, I'm pretty sure mine was already dead so....less impressive.
Well, I hate to leave you with tales of flattened animals, but I am exhausted. Tomorrow, Broken Hill.
October 30, 2011
Though we left approximately two hours and two days later than we planned, our (somewhat grueling) schedule still has us getting to Perth next Saturday, so it's all good.
We started the drive from Jamie's parents' house just outside Brisbane. From there, we went inland through Toowoomba (foggy) and crossed the state border from Queensland to New South Wales at Goondawindi (non-descript) where we began to head Southwest into the Outback to our stopping point for the night in Bourke.
As we drove, it became readily apparent just how remote we were getting. Green grass and busy highways with clean edges and shining guardrails gave way to scraggly trees, scrub brush and that deep brick red-colored earth so characteristic of the Outback. Heat waves shimmered ahead of us and emus casually trotted beside the road. My meltdown at Jamie for not stopping at the emu farm in Goondawindi became slightly ridiculous as one large emu, seemingly inspired by the recent Australian release of Fast Five, attempted to race our car. Bet you they don't let the farm emus do that. However, impressive though it was, a large and very stupid bird running at full speed along a highway did nothing to lessen my fear of running over an Australian animal. In addition to (live) emu, kangaroo, lizards and birds, we saw dead kangaroos, birds, rabbits, lizards, snakes and one very sad (and very dead) fox.
It seems this Australian highway is a veritable killing field for Australian fauna and I live in fear of killing anything larger than the bugs who kamikaze themselves into our windscreen. We narrowly avoided participating in what appeared to be a magpie suicide pact, and Jamie avoided killing what must have been the world's bravest lizard who refused to move from his comfortable spot dead in the middle of the road, forcing Jamie to run directly over it, allowing it to pass unscathed between our tires. I actually performed a similar feat a couple hours later with a snake, but the more I think about it, I'm pretty sure mine was already dead so....less impressive.
Well, I hate to leave you with tales of flattened animals, but I am exhausted. Tomorrow, Broken Hill.
Monday, November 7, 2011
The Transaustralian Adventure: Part I
I realize it's been a hot second since I've done any updating, and for that I offer a half-hearted, non-committal apology. Yes, the intention of this blog was to keep everyone up to speed on my Australian adventure, but sometimes adventurous things just aren't happening. So unless you want to hear about that time Jamie and I went to the grocery store and...bought things, then you're out of luck.
Fortunately, the adventure drought has ended with a veritable flood of adventure, a deluge of excitement, a monsoon of FUN. To get everyone up to speed, Jamie and I have moved to Perth. And not just moved, we have driven to Perth. Time for everyone to get out their globes, atlases and Google maps. Put your finger on Brisbane. Now drag to way over to Perth. If you aren't suitably impressed, use your fingers to gauge the distance between Perth and Brisbane, and then move your now claw-like hand to the United States for a better understanding of just how far we are driving. Impressive, no? 5,000 kilometres, 7 days and hopefully no running over of indigenous Australian animals later, we will be in Perth.
I kept a small travel journal throughout the trip and will be transcribing it onto my blog in installments to build excitement/give me something to do in the two weeks of unemployment before I head back to the good ol' US of A for Thanksgiving.
Day 0
October 29, 2011
Despite living the hectic, nomadic life of a college student for the past four years, during which I moved a staggering ten times, I have never gotten the hang of moving, and in fact, I am beginning to think it may not even be something you can "get the hang of." On paper, it seems so simple. Clothing and other possessions are moved from their current locations into boxes and suitcases, which are then transported to their (and your) new home. In reality, for me at least, it usually involves sweat, tears, profanity (in fairness, most major events in my life involve that unholy trinity) and at least one existential crisis wherein I ponder the need for so many possessions, man. Invariably, all these things occurred, but we did eventually manage to get everything (tightly) packed away into the back of Jamie's station wagon.
Tune in tomorrow for our first day on the road.......
Fortunately, the adventure drought has ended with a veritable flood of adventure, a deluge of excitement, a monsoon of FUN. To get everyone up to speed, Jamie and I have moved to Perth. And not just moved, we have driven to Perth. Time for everyone to get out their globes, atlases and Google maps. Put your finger on Brisbane. Now drag to way over to Perth. If you aren't suitably impressed, use your fingers to gauge the distance between Perth and Brisbane, and then move your now claw-like hand to the United States for a better understanding of just how far we are driving. Impressive, no? 5,000 kilometres, 7 days and hopefully no running over of indigenous Australian animals later, we will be in Perth.
I kept a small travel journal throughout the trip and will be transcribing it onto my blog in installments to build excitement/give me something to do in the two weeks of unemployment before I head back to the good ol' US of A for Thanksgiving.
Day 0
October 29, 2011
Despite living the hectic, nomadic life of a college student for the past four years, during which I moved a staggering ten times, I have never gotten the hang of moving, and in fact, I am beginning to think it may not even be something you can "get the hang of." On paper, it seems so simple. Clothing and other possessions are moved from their current locations into boxes and suitcases, which are then transported to their (and your) new home. In reality, for me at least, it usually involves sweat, tears, profanity (in fairness, most major events in my life involve that unholy trinity) and at least one existential crisis wherein I ponder the need for so many possessions, man. Invariably, all these things occurred, but we did eventually manage to get everything (tightly) packed away into the back of Jamie's station wagon.
Tune in tomorrow for our first day on the road.......
Monday, September 12, 2011
Endless Winter
In 1966 a movie was made that followed two surfers around the world as they veered between the northern and southern hemispheres, chasing the perfect wave. They mused on the concept that if someone had enough time and money they could roam between the hemispheres and experience an “endless summer.” Well, I’m here to tell you that it can been done. Not the endless summer of course, because that actually sounds fun, but the cold, dark alternative: an endless winter. Yes, dear readers, in my movements between America and Australia over the last two years, I have experienced four winters in a row, and haven’t seen a complete summer since 2009.
In addition to discovering exactly how pale I can become (answer: very), I have also developed a mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder, the phenomenon that causes depression after prolonged exposure to winter, with the appropriate acronym SAD. There is something incredibly sad (or SAD) about experiencing darkness between 5 and 6 pm for two years and looking longingly at flimsy sundresses that haven’t seen the light of day since the previous decade. My legs are becoming allergic to denim. But rest assured, from now on the only denim touching my legs will be my beloved jorts, as we are two weeks into spring here in Queensland!! And herein lies the true dilemma: I’m scared for summer in Queensland. Much as a starving person must be introduced to food slowly so their stomach doesn’t explode (not 100% sure that’s what happens if they eat too much, but go with it), I feel that I should be reintroduced to warmth and sun gradually, perhaps experiencing a summer in Sweden or Germany or somewhere foggy and still slightly depressing. I don’t know if I am ready for summer in tropical Queensland, an area that is already becoming so hot that by the time I arrive to work at 8 am after a twenty minute bike ride I am dripping in sweat (gross, but necessary to understand the experience). Even worse, anyone that I choose to share my worries with does absolutely nothing to allay my fears, saying things like, “Well as long as you have air conditioning” (we do not) or, “Well as long as you don’t have hair that fros up when a drop of moisture hits the air” (I do) or, “Well as long as you love the sensation of marinating in your own sweat” (I most certainly do not).
But I suppose that is all part of the experience of living in a new country. An experience, I have discovered, in which I am always slightly disoriented. Australia is on the twenty-four hour clock, the metric system and uses Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. Basically this means I am never entirely sure what time it is, what the weather is like, or where I am, an experience similar to always having just gotten off a spinning carnival ride. Or being an infant. Technically, all I have to do is apply a few quick conversions, and really, if the ENTIRE AMERICAN ARMY can use a 24 hour clock, so can I, though Jamie has been oddly resistant to my fun new habit of barking out, “Dinner is at 1900 hours.” But conversions are hard, y’all, and it’s difficult to quickly double numbers and add 30 (the conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit), or the reverse! They say you are truly fluent in a foreign language when you begin to dream in it. Well, I may not be learning a foreign language, but I think I will know I am adjusted when I start dreaming in the metric system. And those will be some boring dreams.
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