Back out into the Outback

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Our views along the Southern Ocean, from Western Australia to the peninsulas near Adelaide, have been breathtaking (there's Art on top), so we’re a little sad to bid the turquoise and deep cobalt waters farewell. Still, unexplored lands await us, and we want to reach the far, far north before it’s too hot and rainy.

Down here the early spring weather is very changeable, from gale force winds and chilly temperatures to balmy sunshine. Here’s a bathing beauty in a sweet, private cove. The island in the distance is covered with sea birds in constant motion and raucous conversation.

Although our bouncing friends are a common sight, it’s always a thrill to encounter a ’roo or wallaby. Here’s an itchy one with a curious baby in her pocket.

We see quite a few emus, too. This mob of 13 is the most we’ve seen at one time. When they run, their feathers bounce and sway like flouncy skirts.

We have left the coast, but the wind still knows how to sweep through with insane abandon. In the flat landscape there’s nothing to stop it, and the red dust is so fine it can move through solid walls. Everything we own, including our skin, is taking on a ruddy hue.

In the harsh, arid outback, plants and animals have evolved for survival. Striking spring flowers vie for the attention of pollinating insects. We take enough photos to create a botany book. Sturt’s desert pea is one of the most outrageous of these wild blooms.

Broken Hill, a city of over 20,000, thrives as an unpretentious oasis in the middle of the vast, dusty, red desert. Mining (silver, zinc, and lead) is its lifeblood, its colorful history stretching back to the discovery of a silver lode in 1885. Early mine conditions were appalling, resulting in many deaths. The rise of unions improved conditions and gave the townspeople a strong sense of unity. We meet a young man who tells us one has to be born here to be an A-Grader. If you marry an A-Grader, you become a B-Grader. Only A-Graders and B-Graders can obtain mine jobs. No scabs here!

Broken Hill is also a hub for a phenomenal Aussie institution: the Royal Flying Doctor Service. There are only 20 million people on this entire continent, and over half of them live in the handful of cities along the southeastern coast. For the people sprinkled here and there around the bush and outback, the RFDS was born in the 1920s. It originally provided emergency medical service and now includes regularly-scheduled clinic days. The planes are set up as flying ambulances.

Back to nature, here are a couple of guys we frequently dodge on the roads: the docile sleepy or stubby-tailed lizard and the warrior-like frilled lizard. Each is about a foot long.

And check out this bizarre creature. It’s a caterpillar that has glued together a kind of sleeping bag cocoon built of small sticks. It’s hauling its burden by its front feet as it searches for a safe place to attach itself while it changes its identity.

Having left ocean-side cliffs, we’re back to finding our jollies along Oz’s many unstable gorges. If you can pronounce Mutawintji National Park, you may go there. From the top of this rugged world we make our fearless descent with the aid of a rope.

For marching around on rocks, we should take lessons (or not!) from these agile, feral goats. Goats are actually an introduced species in Oz and are therefore undesirable in this fragile land where they wreak ecological havoc. Nevertheless we enjoy a good show. This mama cautiously risks coming close to us as we sit on the opposite side of a desert rock water hole. We soon discover why when her twins emerge from a hidden crevice and duck under her belly to nurse. Here these two seem to be looking at the second baby back under the rock.

Wherever we go the finest of humanity emerges to greet us. Don’t be shy; you know who you are. Aussies are excellent! Thank you.