odysseyone

It didn’t look that far on the map. Maybe five centimetres from Three Ways down to Uluru and just a few centimetres more to backtrack to Darwin. And I was sure the Stuart Highway wasn’t the only option- surely there is more than just one road running the length of the Territory? The answer is NO and I have now seen the entire length of the NT. Next time I’ll pay more attention to the scale on the map.After two months and 14,000 kilometres on our not-so-new-van anymore, we have arrived back on the Sunshine Coast, via northern and western Queensland and the NT. There has been a number of times during our travels in the NT that I have double checked my passport to make sure I hadn’t flown to another country because it seems so different here- the weather, the landscape and especially the people. It really dawned on me how far we had travelled when we were watching crocodiles feeding at Cahill’s Crossing at the border, looking across to Arnhem Land.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        We made two major observations on our journey:-
 
Number 1- The grey army is a menace. It seems like there is a competition for who can tow the most fuel inefficient caravan/car/boat and top prize is for those who are burning the biggest hole in the ozone layer with all the kilometres they are driving. I’m all for a driving trip if it’s economical, but with all these oldies towing caravans the length of road trains, or driving motor homes the size of a couple of buses (and they don’t like to car pool), there’s a good chance there will be no black gold left for the next generations when they reach retirement. To our horror they are everywhere- Australia’s caravan parks and tourists attractions are being overrun by grey nomads and German tourists. We turned into caravan park snobs to avoid having to involve ourselves in one more mind numbing conversation about fuel economy, morning tea breaks and roads travelled to get here.
 
Number 2- Australia should be subdivided. Now don’t freak out- I’ve put a lot of thought into this theory after thousands of kilometres and countless days driving around what feels like the middle of nowhere. There is a lot of land out there being used for nothing and with such a small population compared to the physical size of the country, its not economical to build infrastructure and create jobs out there. It seems crazy to have all this land and almost no one on it. So this is where my subdividing idea comes in. The government should cut the country into smaller chunks and lease it out to countries with a serious lack of space. But don’t worry- my theory doesn’t allow foreign governments to have complete run of the place. The government will establish guidelines the leases need to operate under. And the best part is- Aussies can move to any of these semi-autonomous next door neighbours without a visa and enjoy the benefits of multiculturalism and ethnic food.
 
All this driving and touring means I have been rather slack on the blogging front so be warned, this will be a long one!
 
My last update was from Proserpine after we went camping in the Whitsunday’s. Our next destination was Townsville, which was where we decided to give street camping a go for the first time- and the last. Planning our street camp location was actually more time consuming than we expected, as we drove around earlier in the afternoon checking out possible locations, hunted down unlocked shower blocks then had to find ways to kill a few hours before we could carry out our escapade under the cover of darkness. We were caught out using the showers by the paying campsite residents and then had a close encounter of the police kind in the middle of the night. Justin had found a spot in a suburban street which fit all the criteria- flat ground, with little lighting and plenty of trees to make the van less conspicuous. Having the bikes on the roof and curtains on the back window probably didn’t help. All went to plan until Justin decided he needed to go to the toilet in the middle of the night. Driving to find a toilet was not really an option because the exhaust has quite a loud rattle which makes it difficult to achieve a quiet getaway. And did I mention the police parked outside? Pyjama-clad Justin was just about to hop out to find a tree to pee under when he saw a cop car parked on the street opposite. By now he was freaking out and about to pee his pants, so what did he do? Wake me up! Because I could do something about it??!! What Justin didn’t realise was there was a domestic dispute earlier that I had heard, so I figured that the cops were listening out for that. Justin did eventually discreetly relieve his bladder, but needless to say, we didn’t camp away from caravan parks again.
 
Our next destination was Mission Beach, home to the cassowary. The ridiculous amount of signs warning about hitting cassowaries had me worried that the punishment could be as bad as hitting a cow in India. The warning signs could have come straight out of a horror movie, with cassowaries portrayed as larger than cars and capable of crushing vehicles, like King Kong. We were fortunate enough to see a female cassowary in the flesh in the Daintree, and it was only about the size of an emu and a pretty cool thing to see.
 
Is Australia home to the world’s largest per capita population of freaks and red necks? It’s a question I’ve had to keep asking myself throughout the trip. There are too many experiences to mention in one blog, so I’ll limit it to our personal favourites. The next nut job we came across was in the Atherton Tablelands, where we detoured on our way to Cairns. We stopped off in a rainforest camping area for a quick bite to eat and to review our plans for the day when we had the pleasure of meeting Camo Dan. It turns out pulling out a map can be a dangerous thing when you are travelling because you could be caught out by a local, who might want to tell you all about their favourite places, whether you are interested or not. We had a rather large Scout-type leader starring at us and our maps for quite awhile before she interrupted and asked us folks where we were headed (she seemed to have forgotten about the Scout troop she was supposed to be looking out for). It didn’t take too long to realise she knew pretty much nothing about her local area, so instead of leaving us alone she hollered to her sidekick, a young guy dressed in camouflage from head to toe, who appeared to be chewing tobacco (or maybe his gums, it was hard to tell). Camo Dan asked, “Where youz all thinkin’ uv goin’” and that was about all I was able to understand from the conversation. Camo Dan had a serious case of thick Aussie accent and an inability to say his ‘ing’s’, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to understand him.
 
Cairns lived up to its reputation and all the multi-cultures, backpackers and ethnic restaurants reminded me what a homogenous place the Sunshine Coast is. The trip was made a little bittersweet by our run-in with Nat and Cam’s neighbour, who was very concerned that we were freeloading off society. We were inside their apartment when she came marching up to the door, screeching all sorts of accusations because we had parked outside and slept in the van for the night. She seemed very concerned about where we were doing our ablutions. When we tried to ally her concerns by pointing out the obvious – there was a toilet inside the apartment – we were then accused of being liars, despite having keys to the place! I thought it best not to highlight to this woman that we were employed and paying taxes up until a few months ago, and probably contributed to the unemployment payments which allowed her to be at home during the day and monitoring our movements.
 
One of the highlights of the trip was Port Douglas, just north of Cairns. It was our six month wedding anniversary (you’re allowed to count months when it’s under a year) so we thought we would spoil ourselves by going out for dinner. It’s amazing how much better the dining out experience is when you rarely do it anymore. Alas, staying in one of the many resorts was out of the equation and Port Douglas was where it started to get pretty uncomfortable sleeping in the back of our van in the tropics. We were pretty over it by Darwin! We met a German couple there who inspired us to do a cycling trip somewhere overseas- they had ridden 10,000 kilometres around the world by the time we met them. I do question their sanity though, riding instead of driving in Tropical North Queensland.
 
The Queensland highlights continue… the Daintree was fantastic and without a doubt the best national park we went to. We were able to camp right on the beach, with mountains rising straight up just inland from the ocean. But, like all other national parks in Queensland we found disappointments aplenty, in this case walks highlighted on park signs that didn’t exist anymore. Never mind, we still managed to see a few Ulysses butterflies and have a close encounter with the infamous cassowary. Our brush with the famous bird didn’t come deep in the jungle but rather almost in the picnic grounds. It’s no wonder this bird is endangered; it needs to seriously work on being more vehicle savvy.
 
It was from the Daintree that we began our mammoth sojourn to Darwin, with a 2,000 kilometre detour via Ayers Rock, or Uluru (depends on who you’re talking to). If you have never driven from North Queensland to Ayers Rock (which is almost on the SA border), let me fill you in on the highlights- nothing. The Flinders Highway from Charters Towers to Mt Isa, from the Isa along the Barkly to Three Ways, then south along the Stuart Highway was without a doubt the most testing time of my life. It was all for the greater cause of seeing the Rock but it took all I had not to jump out of the car and go screaming into the desert, never to be seen again. You know you are in an insanely big country when you can’t even make it from one town to another in a day and have to set up camp at a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere. We honestly could have been tripping around Mars, it seemed so removed from SE Queensland. There were a few notable mentions from more than three days of straight driving- a couple of desert storms, our first encounter with local Aboriginals and communities and outback folk, who are just a little different from everyone else. Case in point, a guy from a road crew who pulled us over just outside of Charters Towers. It was a scorching day and we were stopped by road works. We were on a road trip so I thought there was no harm in exchanging a few pleasantries with the stop/go guy while I waited. I had forgotten how friendly bush folk can be; within minutes I knew far more about this guy than I wanted! He had a bottle of rum waiting for him at home to kick start the weekend – and he planned to drink all of it- and he was an ex-road train driver from Cape York who was doing his time after losing his license. Did I care how he lost his license? No. But did I find out anyway? Yes. Turns out he had a run-in with a cop that landed him in jail and saw him fined thousands of dollars.
 
Alice Springs is a place I never want to see again. It’s a mystery why the town still exists and how on earth it’s the second largest in the Territory. Not only is the environment a rust colour but so are all the buildings. The most popular place in town seemed to be Centrelink. It’s the first time I’ve seen a security guard outside a welfare office. Trees and other shady areas were popular hang outs for Aboriginals in the NT but Centrelink in Alice gave every shady area a good run for its money. We had one very frightening moment when we thought we’d be stuck in the Alice for a week or more. One of the shock absorbers died on the car and there wasn’t anything in stock in the entire country. We were going to have to wait at least a week for them to arrive from Sydney. We felt it was worth the risk driving on poorly maintained roads to Uluru and back up to Darwin – a round trip of around 2,500 kilometres - rather than spend another minute in the Alice. It turns out the gamble was worth it.
 
The Azaria Chamberlain legend lives on at Ayers Rock. I wasn’t even born when she went missing but I was reminded of her every night when I saw a dingo wander around our campsite each evening. These were very healthy looking dogs so be warned- if you do head out there, keep a close eye on your puppies and small children.
 
It was unexpected but our Ayers Rock trip turned into quite a heated political debate. We originally drove out there with plans just to look around for a few days and climb the rock. What resulted was a few days of lengthy discussion about the pro’s and con’s of climbing the rock, which seems to be the only topic of discussion around the place. In the end we climbed the rock (with no disrespect to the traditional owners) because we couldn’t resist the opportunity to see the views from the top of one of Australia’s most famous landmarks. It is surrounded by hundreds of kilometres of flat countryside and the best way to get a good idea of where you are is from the top. As an Australian, I feel I should be able to climb Ayers Rock or any other mountain and enjoy my country responsibly. In deciding to climb the rock, we found that the only people vehemently against it were either too old or too unfit to scale the monolith. It was a personal decision to climb the rock and we kept our opinions about the whole debate mostly to ourselves except for that one time when I suffered a serious case of foot in mouth disease, one of those moments when as soon as the words come out of your mouth you’re really hoping a big gaping hole will open up right underneath you and swallow you whole.
 
I walked in on Justin having a conversation with a solo traveller sporting a singlet with the Aboriginal flag on the front. In my effort to be super friendly and get involved in the campsite chit chat, I asked him whether he’d picked up his ankle injury climbing Ayers Rock. The look on Justin’s face told me I’d said the wrong thing. My brain then engaged and I realised the significance of the guy’s shirt. He was quick to explain that it wasn’t called Ayers Rock but Uluru and climbing it was out of bounds for him. I thought it best not to mention the fantastic views from the top. It was all going bad and I was thinking quick change the topic, so I told him that there was a great walk around The Olgas. My foot goes further into my mouth. This guy quickly tells me they’re not called The Olgas but Kata Tjuta. It’s the first time I’d heard it pronounced so when I asked him to say it again, it came out an entirely different way. It all went rather bad so when he came over to our camp later to give Justin some brochures, I hid in the van until he was gone.
 
The drive from Ayers Rock to Darwin was pretty boring, especially as we were backtracking for half of it. We would get our hopes up when we saw a town coming up on the map, only to find each small town looked like a virtual ghost town, with just a few lethargic looking people wandering around aimlessly. Finding somewhere half interesting to pull up and make lunch was quite a challenge. I was surprised to find that some of the indigenous took advantage of the brief rest stops made by visitors to beg. Seeing someone beg in Australia came as a shock to me because we live in a country with a good social security system. An Aboriginal guy came asking for a few dollars to buy drinks for his children. A few dollars doesn’t buy you anything out there so I was suspicious, but if we hadn’t felt unsafe I would have gone and bought him food. It was sad to see generations of people sitting around under trees, with babies being carried around by teen mothers, both of whom will probably never get an education. It seems such a tragedy that this poverty and lack of education exists in a country with so many opportunities and systems that ensure equality for most people.
 
Darwin was great – fantastic markets, beautiful green ocean and a South East Asian feel – but it was pretty hard toughing out the humidity in the camper. It was hard to tell sometimes if I’d just had a shower or I was showered in sweat. We ended up stuck in a caravan park for almost a week as punishment after our car revolted after driving it so many kilometres. Justin changed the fuel filter a few days later and it seemed to do the trick. I did wonder what my life had become though when we pulled up on a shady patch of grass next to all the carnie folk sleeping in their trucks while Justin attempted to change the fuel filter in the gutter.
 
Our plan was to stay in the Top End until the end of the year and find work. With Darwin prices so expensive we went job hunting in Kakadu, where we were able to stay with friends- who had air conditioning! Turns out the recruitment process isn’t as simple as just filling jobs with the most qualified people. There were a couple of times when I applied for jobs or went cold calling, only to be told I was the wrong colour. Ironically, this comment came from a man as white as I was. I was left pretty speechless- reverse racism wasn’t something I was expecting.
 
After a couple of weeks of hanging out in Kakadu (mostly indoors) and toughing out the heat and humidity occasionally to go exploring, we decided to head back south. The trip home wasn’t too memorable, aside from Justin being poohed on by a fruit bat. The drive seemed to take forever, taking almost a week to come back via Katherine Gorge, Mataranka Thermal Pools, Three Ways, Cloncurry, Longreach, Emerald, Rockhampton, Gladstone and a final night camping in Hervey Bay before we brought the van back to its final resting place for awhile.
 
The journey isn’t over yet, with big plans in the works for next year. So stay tuned for the next odyssey update.