The Australian Outback

The ferry from Kangaroo Island is cancelled due to rough seas so we camp for the night in the parking lot. We’re not the only ones: when the resident Little Blue Penguins come ashore at dusk, a pair settles in directly outside our window! Through the night they don’t get much sleep, and neither do we. He has sex on his mind, she’s willing, and there’s a lot of conversation and strolling around. By dawn penguin-reveille is sounded, and our short friends join their comrades in returning to sea.

Back on the mainland we decide to cover some ground, postponing explorations of Adelaide till later. We’re itching to taste the Outback. On the way we spend several days in Mt Remarkable and Flinders Ranges national parks, scaling cliffs and whatnot as you know we are wont to do.

And then quite suddenly we have reached Nowhere. It’s important to carry a lot of water and fuel; who knows where we’ll find more of either. We test Art’s four wheel driving capabilities, honed on Vermont’s dirt roads, with a trip out to Lake Eyre, a salt water lake that dwarfs America’s Great Salt Lake…except that it’s dry. Water is, however, just below the surface. The farther we walk out, the spongier the salty sand becomes, and we leave deeper and deeper puddles of footprints. The water has evaporated from other’s prints, leaving pure white salt thick enough to scoop up.

After the rough track out and back, we’re glad to be back on average unsealed roads for the next few hundred kms. If we trade in our Troopy for something a bit larger, would the ride be smoother?

Contrary to popular opinion, there’s plenty of variety in the Outback. You just have to go pretty far to experience the diversity. In remote areas of the U.S. one often finds signs riddled with bullet holes. Here in Oz more ingenuity is displayed. We wish we had photographed more (and will doubtless have the opportunity). A couple we remember: CREEK becomes I LIKE GREEKS; CREST becomes BREAST TESTING AHEAD; FLOODWAY becomes FLOODWAY open between 6 & 7 and sports a fish silhouette.

Coober Pedy’s claim to fame is opal mining. Signs caution people not to walk around after dark or even to walk backward lest they fall into a mine shaft. The area is dotted with hundreds of pyramids of bone-dry limestone slag. The heat is ferocious in the summer and nights are near freezing in the winter. Back in the 1960s miners discovered that the temperature remained a constant and comfortable mid-60 degrees underground. By now many of the town’s residents live (and even go to church) in underground caves.

The famously persistent flies are out in force. What do they want? They don’t bite; they just like to crawl around on people’s faces, in their ears, eyes, noses, lips. Head netting is essential, and it’s time to replace the screen with the holes in it. Stitching a new one in (ouch ouch ouch), we feel great appreciation for Gerda and Franz who replaced the other two.

We drive north, out of South Australia and into the Northern Territories. At last we reach awesome Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock. It is sacred to the Aboriginals, and they ask people not to climb it (it’s over 1,000 feet high) so we just walked the 10 km around it. A curious thing happened at sunset. We don’t know how to explain it. Here’s the sequence:
1. Late afternoon sun
2. The rock and Art bathed in the warm light of the setting sun
3. The sun sinks below the horizon leaving the rock and Art in shadow
4. A glow begins in one corner and grows (though the land is still in shadow)
5. The rock seems to be lit from within (though Art & land are in shadow)
6. The rock slowly darkens for the night.

We press on to Watarrka N.P. (King’s Canyon) to satisfy our constant urge to hang around in high places. After that, disaster strikes. We drive a couple hundred kms of corrugated (washboard) red dirt. At the site of an ancient comet crash, far far from civilization, we discover our rear fuel tank (which is full) has sprung a leak. We spend the night near feral camel tracks, serenaded by dingoes, with a bucket under the leak. We have timed it so we only have to awaken once during the night to pour the contents into our front fuel tank. In the morning we make a run for Alice Springs, about 250 kms away. Upon arrival we seek a repair shop. Every time we stop we have to put the bucket under the leak. No one can help us till Monday, 5 days hence. So we buy a siphon hose, park on an unused street, and gradually transfer the remaining fuel from the back tank to the front.

Then it’s back out to the gorgeous gorges of West MacDonnell N.P. and Finke Gorge N.P. Camping on a hilltop we set up a Barbershop with a View. Another night we bush camp in a dry riverbed with a glorious sunset. Calmed, we return to Alice Springs on Sunday for our Monday a.m. welding appointment. We stroll the Sunday market and return to find a punctured tire! Further, we seem to be missing part of the jack. Well, we have a king-sized bush jack lashed to the rhino bar in the front, so Art jacks the rear up alternating between that jack stuck into the hitch receiver and the regular jack under the axle. Hair-raising!

We’re all fixed now, and this has become much too long so we’ll leave further news for another episode.