Like a bat out of hell we shot out of Sydney. Dropping all but the essentials with my good friends and gracious hosts the Julians, I crammed my backpack and a cooler into the boot of the Golf and we were on the road. No agenda no real destinations, just time and space to fill the void. And space there was plenty of. Being the largest city in Australia, it did take us a while to get out of the sprawl of Sydney's suburbs and out to the bush. We made a stop for a couple of last minute supplies at a small town called Goulburn. Two things you want to have when driving to some of the most remote and desolate places on earth are a spare water tank and a gas can. Don't want to take any chances when your nearest gas station could be 400km away.
Once we got moving, we started to think about where we wanted to stay that night. There was a national park called Cocoparra roughly along our route and it supposedly had some nice campsites. It was a good distance out and it would give us a sense of accomplishment for our first day so we decided to check it out. It was well after dark when we cruised past the sign off the main highway and realized we had missed the subtly marked park. We back tracked a little and spotted the sign, it was another 10km off the main road to the start of the park. This is where the pavement ended and the dirt track began. I'll just note here that about 95% of the other cars we saw on the roads anywhere in the outback, highways, dirt tracks, mud pits, etc were large four wheel drive trucks. Either large SUVs pulling obese white caravans or the hardened pure testosterone fueled utes. Not the SUVs you see sparkling at a DC Metro kiss and ride, but actual trucks. Your Ford F-150 just won't size up here. These things are outfitted with a short aluminum (excuse me aluminium) utilitarian bed in the back usually toting some sort of rusty machine parts under a flapping tarpaulin, like a gurney hauling off the remains of the last tourist's vehicle who thought they'd go for a casual drive in the outback. So when you pull off the paved road in pitch black and attempt to take on the dirt track, you may begin to question the abilities of your stout little VW. Instantly we feel like we are driving over a large rippled potato chip. It was a black, moonless night, all we saw was the red dirt track in front of us looking like the surface of Mars. The car is seizuring down the path raking up stones and stomping into deep potholes. Eventually we get to a picnic area and jump out to check the map. Shit - we had been rumbling down the wrong way and would have to back track another 15km to get to the campsite. Being our first day out and full of gusto we drudged back down the way we had come. We found the other track and started up it. It was gradually growing worse and worse, we were scraping the bottom of the undercarriage and kicking up rocks that hit with unsettling crashes. It sounded like we were going through a carwash of baseball bats. It was time to accept our limits and turn back. We would go back to the picnic area and set up there for the night. Shortly after turning around we saw a pair of bright yellow glowing eyes in the middle of the track about 20m ahead staring back at us. They paused, we paused. They turned and then darted away, as we crept up slowly, squinting off to the side to try and see what it was, we saw lying in the middle of the track, a dead wallaby. A fresh kill. Creepy.
The next morning I woke with intrigue to see what this dungeon looked like in the daylight. Gorgeous! Huge green Eucalypts towered overhead. Swarming with exotic cockatoos, lorikeets, and galahs, an assortment of tropical birds so colorful you question the mushrooms you had for dinner last night. A short hike lead us to a beautiful rock outcropping where we discovered a pack of feral mountain goats basking amongst the rocks in the morning sun. We bouldered around for a bit and it was back to the road.
I hopped in the driver's seat and gladly took my shift. We were officially in the outback now; beyond the city, beyond the suburbs, and beyond the bush. Nothing but flat open country. Gnarly sun-scorched gum trees and shrubs spaced out by that iconic red Australian soil as far as the eye can see. Cruising along we tuned into a country rock playlist Mike Julian had made for me back in Sydney. Buzzing along to The Band and Harry Nilsson I sat back and watched the world fly by. Amused by the occasional passing tumbleweed, I was just settling in to get used to a long peaceful ride when I saw a kangaroo up ahead. "Oooh look!" I pointed out to Luke. It was the first kangaroo of the trip and I was honestly pretty excited to see one. It hopped slowly across the road but was so far ahead of us there was no concern of hitting it. Then like a giant gargoyle out of the sky swoops the biggest eagle I have ever seen! It is nearly twice the size of this kangaroo and comes down on him with ominous determination. This all happens just as we are driving up so I slam the brakes and pull over to watch it play out. The eagle had giving the kangaroo a nice clamp on the noggin with its immense talons and then casually perched on a nearby fence post where it analyzed its strike. We sat with awe as the kangaroo meagerly hopped around in what we can guess were its last blurry moments. It was a powerful scene. We sat and contemplated the raw harsh reality that the outback had just presented us with. It was a great introduction to what we would see over the next two weeks. Filled to the brim with adrenaline we set off back down the road.
The wildlife just kept coming. A few hours down the road, Luke was taking a shift driving as I spotted two emus about 100 meters in front of us. They were each about 5 feet tall and casually strolling along side the highway. I pointed them out to Luke and I'm not sure it really registered with him as he cruised along at about 110 km/hr. Sure enough, just as we get within 20 meters of them they decide its a good time to cross. This was one of those moments where time slows down and you brace yourself for a horrible sight. This was a two lane highway and one emu easily takes up half a lane. They strutted out about a meter apart and then hesitated. At this point they were directly in the middle of the road and it was too late to brake. Shit shit shit shit shit!!!! I wish I could go back and see our franticly wincing faces as we miraculously split the goal posts. As we shot through in slow motion I watched each feather on the emu's torso turn up and expose the white skin underneath, the roof of the car shaving the whiskers from the bottom of its chin. If this bird had had an adam's apple it would have been taken out by the rearview mirror. The bird on the driver's side was equally close. We could not have come any closer without exploding in a giant burst of feathers, beaks and legs. Driving has never been so exciting.
That afternoon we pulled into Mungo National Park. Mungo has a great deal of archeological significance but doesn't seem to get the credit that it deserves. In the late 60's a lucky archeologist while exploring the expansive dried lake stumbled upon the remains of an Aboriginal man that dated back to over 40,000 years. These were the oldest human remains ever found in Australia and forced scientists to reexamine their theories of how man arrived in Australia. There appears to be quite a bit of controversy in the scientific community about the subject still to this day. We set up camp, cooked a quick dinner of canned soup and sacked out. In the morning we walked around a bit and drove through part of the park to experienced true desolation. Just to get to the park was a 90 km drive on unpaved roads. Once there, you can opt to drive a 70km loop around the dried lake. We had enough driving to do without the loop and decided it was best to move on.
Needing a change from the dry desolate landscape of Mungo we pushed west and were headed towards the Barossa Valley, Australia's most renown wine region. We drove well into the night after discovering that our first choice of campsites was overrun with mosquitos. They even swarmed the car from the outside, I've never seen them so aggressive. Finally we found Sandy Creek, according to our camping book this was not only a valid campsite, but a highly recommended one. Well the book was about ten years old and when we got to the end of the dirt road it was pretty clearly marked that this was in fact not a campsite. At that point did we care? No, we did not. This was home for the night and no one was there to tell us otherwise. The ground was soft with pine boughs, there were no obnoxious camper vans and we had been driving all day. Popped the tents up, boiled some noodles, hit the sack, out like a light. The next morning the air was cold and crisp I threw on my down jacket and stumbled bleary eyed out of my tent, eager, once again to see what my campsite actually looked like. It was surprisingly agrarian and consisted of a short nature trail winding between some pastures. We hiked the nature trail to get the blood circulating and stopped to watch a herd of about 40 kangaroos grazing in a field. In the early morning light this was a real treat. We got back to the car and both had the same thing on our mind. The night before we had driven through a handsome little tourist town called Tanunda. Being wine country and chock full of yuppies we had a good notion that there would be a mighty fine breakfast establishment in this town. Indeed there was. We stepped out of "Nosh" rubbing full bellies and doing the sort of lazy calisthenics one does before an ambitious day of wine tasting. It was just a bit early to be drinking so we killed some time at the library and visitor's center. On the north end of town is the start of the Barossa Valley scenic drive which takes you through about 30 different wineries and vineyards. This sounded like a good choice and possibly idiot proof. In case you don't already know this about me, I haven't the slightest clue when it comes to wine. I know there's a red kind, a white kind, and a kind that comes in a large cardboard box (I believe the proper way to consume this one is with a novelty plastic straw.) So it was time to get into character and start throwing around words like "oakey" and "tannins" with a straight face. It was time to delicately stick my entire nose in a glass and smell vigorously without snarfing it up with snot bubbles in fits of laughter. I was going to have to swirl and hold the glass up to the sunlight without spilling all over myself then turn my head at a pretentious angle flare my nostrils and ponder deeply. Well it was about time to educate myself and after seeing Sideways I've always wanted to do this.
The pride of the Barossa Valley is its shiraz. They claim to do a variety of other wines out there but everywhere we went all we saw was shiraz. It was a nice way to learn about one type of wine, which I'm sure you could spend ages doing. Out of dozens of wineries we drove past we stopped into just two of them. The first, Murray Street Vinyards with its gorgeous stone buildings and vine draped pergolas sat on of picturesque back drop of calmly rolling hills lined neatly with rows upon rows of burning yellow and red grape vines. For those of you in the northern hemisphere, you have to remember that its fall down here and consider the colors that come with it. For five bucks we got a seat on the porch over looking the vineyard and about a 30 minute presentation of all the wines in the tasting. Our server was patient and accommodating, she didn't even laugh at our questions. Even after paying for the tasting we felt obliged to buy a bottle, which wasn't as cheap as hoped. The second winery was called Whistler and this had more of a family farm vibe to it. The dirt road was lined with sheet metal folk art cut outs of families and some hokey looking animals. The tasting was much less formal but very free. We stood at the counter and made small talk with one of the proprietors. After a few nips and at this point a warm feeling in the soul we felt obliged to buy a bottle here as well. We stepped back out into the sun and walked over to an enclosure to pet some kangaroos who were quietly napping in the shade. They had absolutely no interest in us and we took that as a sign to get back to the wild side. Enough of this posh rigamarole, we were vagabonds and it was time to embrace it!
We took off for Adelaide, an easy drive from Barossa and spent the night with Luke's brother George. George is a surveyor and has seen more of Australia than anyone I've met here thus far. Not only does he spend vast amounts of time looking at it from satellites and studying remote outback sites for work, but he is an avid bush walker and explorer. When we pulled out the maps to get some ideas flowing, what we got a gully washer! Within moments no less than 20 other maps appeared mysteriously on the table and were being unfolded in stacks. "If you go this way you can cut over and do the Oodnadatta track and see the Simpson Desert. Oh and you can't miss the Macdonell Ranges. What you've gotta do is take this small dirt track here through the Aboriginal territory, you need a permit to be there and there's no way they'll give you one but just tell them you're there to buy art work and they shouldn't give you any trouble." This guy had seen a lot! Even his eight-year-old boy scoffed at us when we told him we were doing mostly car camping instead of bush camping. Shaming aside we left Adelaide with a boat load of ideas.
We decided to head North to the Flinder's Ranges and hike Mount Remarkable and the Wilpena Pound. I don't mean to sound redundant but the outback can be extremely flat. Shrubs, gumtrees, grass and dirt and thats about it for sometimes what seems like an eternity. So when one sees the slightest bit of a geographical feature of any sort it is easy to get over excited. And I'm assuming this is how Mt. Remarkable got its name. I don't mean to come down on it, but remarkable is a term I might reserve for something a little more astounding. Given its surroundings however, it does grab your attention. As we approached from the vast plains and the small yet hilarious town of Quorn, Mt. Remarkable makes its presence. A modest height of 995m it doesn't put the fear of god in you like some of the craggy monsters I experienced in New Zealand's Southern Alps, but its enough to stand out amongst the casual rolling hills that buddy-up next to it. Feeling a bit exhausted from all the stop-and-go, we pulled into the Melrose show grounds camping area and splayed out on the grass. The campgrounds were quiet and surreal. An old worn down Australia Rules Football (AFL) field sat at one end of a gently sloping savanna. The widely spaced, broad-trunked gumtrees provided enticing shade. Tufts of golden grass stretched in between and waved softly in the breeze. Mt. Remarkable would have to wait, I had to soak this up. After drifting in and out of consciousness for an hour or so I got up and packed some muesli bars and fresh clementines into my rucksack. I topped off my water bottle and grabbed my down jacket. The day was crawling into late afternoon and we wouldn't be off the mountain until after dark. As soon as that sun goes down the temperature in the outback drops like a rock. It was about 7km up an easy grade to the summit. We took our time and stepped cautiously as we crossed several precariously posed rock slides traversing the entire side of the mountain. They were the kind that echoed as the rocks shifted under your feet, suggesting that if you were a professional yodeler you could easily bring this mountain tumbling down. We reached the peak just as the sun was setting. I can honestly say the sunsets in the outback are unlike any I've seen before. And its not just an occasional one, its every night. Because there is so little topography the horizon goes on forever in all directions. There is really nothing you can say about it, you just stare and melt beneath it. We walked back down as far as we could without switching on our headlamps. I love night hiking, it seems to heighten all of your senses, plus its great to go spotlighting. Spotlighting is where you point your flashlight into the woods to see what kind of eyes you can find staring back at you. While I couldn't find any eyes on this hike I kept seeing hundreds of little blue reflective specs buried in with the rocks along the trail. Upon closer inspection it turns out they were eyes! Tiny little spider eyes shining back like blue sequins. Further along the trail Luke called out to me to come look at something. I walked over to find a brilliant gecko illuminated under his headlamp. This poor guy was missing his tail and oddly enough (after later looking him up in my reptile book ) I identified him as a fat-tailed gecko. Maybe it got
too fat.
The next morning we continued North with our sites set on Wilpena Pound, a horseshoe shaped loop in the Flinder's Range that hosts dozens of hiking trails, breath-taking rock formations and lots of wildlife. We pulled up to the car park outside the visitor's center and decided that since there were so many directions to go in and all of them seeming equally great that we should split up for the afternoon and get some much needed headspace. Luke chose to do the highly regarded St. Mary's Peak track, while I decided to do the shorter, steeper, and rockier Ohlssen Bagge track. As I stepped away from the visitor's center I was instantly amidst herds of kangaroos and emus. They had obviously become acclimated to people and were probably well fed because of it. Its still a bit unnerving to walk past a bird thats of equal size to you and has anything but a calm look in its eye. They seem wiry and unpredictable, even the thinning feathers on their heads gives them the look of being just about at wit's end. So I slinked past and began trudging up the rocky path. I met a couple more exotic lizards and wallabies along the way and before I could realize it I was climbing almost vertically up massive red boulders. The view from the top was stunning, just as expected. But I won't lie to you there is a point at which you have seen one too many scenic outlooks in a short amount of time. I was ready to move on. I met up with Luke back at the car and we started out for the campsite. It was just about dusk and the campsite was another 30km up the road. Now anyone in Australia will tell you, if you're in the outback driving at dusk… well its just better not to. Kangaroos for some unexplainable reason love to gather by roadsides just as the sun is going down. They'll just sit there either gazing across it or undecidedly hopping along it. And in The Flinder's Ranges National Park they were out in full force, it was like a parade gathering. In that 30km stretch of road we must have dodged or swerved a dozen times, all in all probably passing over a hundred of the bouncy assholes.
The next couple of days it was time to cover ground. Out sights were set on Uluru Kata-Tjuta National Park to see the iconic red monolith that competes with the Sydney Opera House for the number one postcard image of Australia. When the kangaroos weren't around the only challenge of driving the long straight two-lane Stuart Highway was the road trains. A road train is just your typical 18-wheeler times 3, if you do the quick math, thats like 197 wheels. They're not small. Three trailers linked together in sequence, they can be over 50 meters long, thats half a football field of truck. Since there is no major railway running the length of Australia latitudinally, the major freighting method through these routes is the road train. Sizing up to them in the Golf was daunting to say the least. The speed limit for most of the Stuart Highway is 130 km/hr and when one passes you at that speed you can't tell if its pulling you in or throwing you clear off the road. The best bet is to get over as far on the left as you can and just hold on to the steering wheel for dear life. Sometimes showering you in a barrage of pebbles, or just leaving you blinded in a red cloud of dust you can't help but feel violated and small as you make it past another one. Between hair raising road train encounters we occasionally came across a town in the outback, and by town I mean gas station. Most of the time you have to stop because the next gas station will surely be out of range and as you can tell by the heaps of rusted out cars littering the roadside, you don't want to run out of gas here. People don't even bother to tow them, they just brown in the sun and become part of the landscape. So the typical town/gas station usually consists of just one establishment that acts as gas station, cafe, grocery store, pub, hotel, and caravan park. You gotta love the roadhouse!
After a day and a half of straight driving we had arrived at Uluru! Well sort of. Camping at the national park costs a hefty 36 bucks a night. A nearby "town" called Curtin Springs has free camping, we chose the latter. To see the sunrise or set on the great rock was apparently a sight not to be missed, I set my alarm for 5am the next day and was up headed for the park in pitch black. Being a major tourist attraction entry to the park is of course not free and don't worry someone will be up at the ticket window ready to take your $25 per head even before the crack of dawn. Once through the gate we drove over to the official sunrise viewing area. It was a large car park crawling with tourists, but thats ok, I've learned to love fellow tourists. Most people like to laugh and shun them. Keeping themselves a safe distance from the masses of embarrassing camera toting, map folding, sign reading nincompoops. But the truth is, we're all tourists. Anyone who enters a park of that scale is instantly a tourist the moment they cross through the gate. It doesn't matter how deep your motivation or calling may be, once you pay that admission boy, you have purchased your temporary identity: Tourist. But seriously, who cares. Thats just the way the system works, no matter how you slice it something this impressive is going to draw millions of people, and guess what, that doesn't make it worth any less. So you share the space with your fellow man, as tackily dressed as they may be, no big deal. Once you have accepted your true identity and huddle around with the other lemmings on your designated viewing platform and get to a spot where your view is unobstructed you look up and become entranced. The lemmings will fade out and you get sucked into the giant red rock. As the sun rises over the rock, you ooh and ahh as the hues of red become more intense. Its the largest rock in the world and perhaps for that reason has an unworldly feeling about it. Its a bit eerie, like it has a hold on you. Like buried in its core is an alien spaceship drawing you in with some invisible electromagnetic ray. Ok that sounds a little nutty but there is something entrancing about it. In the distance are the Olgas or Kata-Tjuta as they're known to the Aborigines. Another breathtaking gargantuan rock formation, this one looks like a neat cluster of odd-shaped village-sized boulders, like a cache of giant Easter eggs God never found. When walking alongside both Uluru and Kata-Tjuta (a cruisey 50 km apart) you get an urge to grasp them and start hauling yourself up the side. Now officially you are allowed to climb them but it is made obvious that this is discouraged. The Aborigines ask that you stay off of them because of their sacred meaning, and the park service asks that you stay off of them because so many people have fallen off or gotten stuck up there. Yet there is no rule saying you cannot climb, the reason: it would deter tourists. Kind of funny huh?
After a long day of awing over geology and bizarre paranormal forces we were once again back in the car. No destination for the night we just kept cruising. Eventually we both got to a point where setting up tents in the dark in a mysterious field off the side of the road was just too much effort. We needed a break from the routine. So we pushed on to Alice Springs, the biggest town in the outback, I guess it could be considered a city? There we schlepped into a hostel and collapsed on the "luxurious" dorm beds. The next morning, with the triple S out of the way and feeling totally rejuvenated we split up to canvas the little oasis town. If Australia was a plate and you were to balance it on one finger, Alice Springs is where you would put that finger, its smack in the middle of nowhere. I was intrigued to witness the city's unique demographic. Alice Springs has the highest Aboriginal population of any large town or city in Australia. To an outsider they are a complete mystery. As I began strolling down the city streets lusting after a
real cup of coffee, I noticed several groups of Aborigines walking up to each other from across courtyards, gathering around park benches and having quiet conversations around the fringes of common areas. Nothing odd about that until I realized after an hour or so that this was the case all across town and that these groups had found their destinations for the day. They didn't seem to go anywhere or have any agenda. They looked neither content or desperate, sort of like they were all sitting around waiting for something. But you get the feeling that this is the daily routine. They don't panhandle or busk and for the most part don't even make eye contact with westerners. They are there but they aren't. I felt particularly ignorant about the whole situation and decided I needed to educate myself. So I stepped into the Mbantua Gallery and Cultural Centre. Here they had a very concise and informative exhibit explaining some of the history and lifestyles of the Aboriginal people. Having been traveling through the outback with the luxury of a car and paved roads and yet still feeling it to be a struggle made me appreciate how resilient these people were. For 60,000 years they have been living off the land with almost no belongings or even clothes to protect them from the harsh elements. Just about every story I have read about westerners who get lost in the outback ends up with them dead as a doornail in 48 hours or less. Its that intense! The exhibit showed pictures and samples of the various seeds, berries, fruits and tubers that they would sustain on. It showed how they would locate water holes underground and communicate to each other how to find them. There were glass cases displaying the different spears and boomerangs used for hunting, fighting, and ceremonial purposes. And all of this had pretty much stayed the same for 60,000 years, talk about sustainability. Screw the mountain,
this was Remarkable! The devastating thing is how fast it all crumbled. For the minuscule 200 years that westerners have occupied the continent they brought to a screaming halt the oldest sustaining culture in the history of the world. What remains is what I had just witnessed congregating aimlessly in the streets. Their art is a solid attempt to bridge an unfathomable gap. There's a plethora of galleries in Alice Springs and the art is probably the best way to spark interest in the fleeting culture. Each painting is a story. Without a written language, the paintings and drawings are the only non-oral way of relaying information through the generations. The patterns and dots all represent specific elements of the nomads' daily lives in a beautifully abstract manner.
We had made an attempt the day before to visit an aboriginal community the the intention of buying some art, as suggested by Luke's brother who proudly displays his two paintings above the dining room table. It sounded like a great idea. A way to directly support a struggling community and also a way to find an authentic piece of art that hadn't been skimmed over by a buyer. The art gallery George told us about was in a village called Iwantja and located a few kilometers off the Stuart Highway. We saw a sign and followed it down the unpaved path. Then right before the turn off another nice welcoming sign pointing into the community. As we pulled up to the village we were immediately removed from the western world. Packs of dogs roamed through the streets, ramshackle houses and cars baked in the sun, doors fallng off hinges, shattered windows, dead appliances strewn across the yards. Children played in the schoolyard behind heavy black metal bars. Across the street from the school a pack of men stood like tall shadows slugging on a paper wrapped bottle. We drove at crawling speed, one, to avoid puncturing a tire amidst the shrapnel that covered the streets, and two, because we had stirred the pot the moment we entered that place. Every pair of eyes we passed looked at us with distrust. We didn't belong there. We made the short loop to the end of the village with no art gallery in sight. As we inched back towards the road out we pulled along side a woman walking with a limp. "Do you know where the art gallery is?" Luke asked her in the most congenial voice he could muster. As she leaned in towards the car I saw that her face was badly swollen and deformed, so bad that images of the elephant man came to mind. She told us that the gallery was closed and that they were waiting for someone from Alice Springs to come down and reopen it. We thanked her politely and crept out of there. The whole experience was unsettling. (I am not saying this to be mean or judgmental, I am simply telling it as accurately as it felt, which was truly not pleasant. I don't mean to paint this aboriginal community in a bad light, I'm just not one to sugar coat things. I think its important to describe it as it was.)
Here in Alice Springs things were not quite so bleak. I met a woman painting on the lawn outside the church. She waved me over and showed me the piece she was working on. She had just finished the base layer of black and gold and orange dots. She explained she was going to paint some waterholes and add some more dots in black and white. "Can you come back in 30 minutes," she asked. "I'll be done soon. Eighty dollars." It was a fair price compared to what they'd charge you in the galleries just in front of her. I came back in half an hour and it looked like she was far from finished. She asked me to come back in another 30 minutes and then it would be done. So I did, it still wasn't finished, and she made the same request. She had just sold another painting she had done earlier so I didn't feel bad when I decided not to go back again. It didn't quite strike me the way some other aboriginal paintings have, so I wasn't disappointed either. $80 is a lot of money on my strict budget and I didn't want to buy it just for the sake of charity.
Back on the road. I left Alice with a new perspective on Aboriginal culture, not necessarily a clear one but I had at least something to mull. As we continued north we pulled off at a couple of small art galleries in search of that great find. If I was going to bring a memento home I couldn't think of anything better. Nothing seemed to grab me (at least nothing in my price range) and we kept on truckin. As it got later in the day we decided to make the Devil's Marbles campsite our destination for the night. The Devil's Marbles was yet another mystical rock outcropping resembling giant marbles. While flipping through the Lonely Planet guide Luke noted that we were headed towards a town/gas station called Wycliffe Well. He told me that Wycliffe Well is apparently famous for its frequent UFO sightings. Huh, imagine that, some loonies out in the middle of nowhere claim to be seeing aliens. I shrugged and kept on driving. As we approached Wycliffe from about 30km to the south, it was almost time for one of Australia's marvelous sunsets. As I glanced up to admire the subtle color change in the clouds I saw what looked like a giant shooting star. Now two things were wrong here, the size, it was about 20 times bigger than any star (shooting or non) that I've ever seen, and the time, it was still plenty bright out. And to put the icing on the cake I just happened to be looking right over Wycliffe Well! I saw what I saw. I'm not saying it was an alien, I'm just saying I saw what I saw, believe what you want. Of course after this "encounter" we had to pull into Wycliffe Well and get the scoop on this place. By the time we pulled up it was getting dark but you could easily make out the neon green plastic aliens positioned all around the building. The place was great! It was everything you would hope for in an overly eccentric alien themed roadhouse in the middle of the outback. Every wall was covered with some sort of alien propaganda. Murals, old news clippings, blurry photos, bumperstickers, fridge magnets, t-shirts, mugs, bandanas, it was great! In the back they had an alien museum which seemed more like an extension of the over-the-top merchandising but unfortunately it was closed. I asked the girl at the counter what the deal was with all the aliens and she informed me that they just have a lot of sightings, but she had only been there a few weeks and hadn't seen one, yet. The place was so perfect we had to stay and eat dinner. We ordered a couple of burgers with "the lot" and I was thrilled to find mine topped with lettuce, tomato, bbq sauce, cheese, bacon, a fried egg, pineapple and pickled beets?! Its the alien roadhouse in the outback, of course they have pickled beets. I loved every minute of it and wanted to call off the Devil's Marbles and stay there and bug out all night, but was easily dissuaded when I found out they wanted $25 for tent camping. So we said goodbye, paid the tab and took off into the night. Luke took the iPod and was determined to find a song. He put on a song that I've had on just about every playlist I've ever made, which puts it in the running for my favorite song of all time. I don't think there's ever been a more appropriate time to listen to Radiohead's Subterranean Homesick Alien. If you're not familiar with the song listen to it and imagine the setting we were just in. Well played my friend, well played indeed!
About an hour or so up the road we pulled into the Devil's Marbles campgrounds. It was packed with caravans. As we crossed the car park we noticed a dog here and there waiting eagerly outside some of the fire circles. Then it struck me that these were not just dogs but yep, bloody dingos! We found a good spot at the back of the grounds and shared a picnic table and Canadian Club with a friendly German couple. I told them I saw a UFO, and they asked how much of that whiskey I'd had already. Fair enough, I thought. After a discussion comparing the crazy outback roads with the intense German autobahn I felt like it was time to hit the hay. As I lay in my tent drifting off to the serenade of howling dingos, I thought to myself, this will be a hard day to top.
I woke up at 5 in the morning to a wind that was about ready to lift my tent off the ground. I was pretty tired but the noise of the wind and the flapping tent kept me awake. I crawled out and carefully took down the tent without losing it to the wind. The sun started to peek and the boulders all around me lit up like red deities. The Devil's Marbles is a fitting name. They are stacked in such a way that it looks like something carefully positioned them. Apparently these rocks form the same way Uluru and Kata-Tjuta did. They consist of a very dense erosion resistant matter that basically holds its ground while the rest of the ground over the eons of time gets washed away. Again I was enthralled watching the sun light bring this landscape to life. The combination of the intense reds, the deep blue of the sky and the soft earth tones of the surrounding bush creates an atmosphere that is very hard to get sick of. Unlike the sacred grounds of Uluru and Kata-Tjuta the Devil's Marbles can be climbed without offending the natives. So I watched the sun come up, bounced around the rocks, took about 200 photos and was ready to keep moving. On the way out we saw a couple dingos still lingering about the campgrounds, I hope they didn't get anybody's baby.
The trip had been full on and we were growing weary of the road. We decided to push up to Tennant Creek, check another art gallery and then start the long haul back east all the way across Queensland and back to Brisbane where Luke lives. Tennant Creek was a eerie run down town but we had been told that there was a good art gallery there. At a cafe in the middle of town I went in and asked the woman behind the counter if she knew about it. We were told to drive into a neighborhood just past the BP and look for a sign or just pull up and ask someone, "You should be safe," she added, as if that made me feel any better. So we did just that and sure enough there was a sign indicating an art center. It looked like someone's house, complete with a few roaming dogs, so we were a little uneasy walking in to ask for art to buy. But we were greeted by a very nice woman who brought us back into the art room. I was surprised to see a great big table covered with canvases running the length of the room with about a half dozen women painting placidly. Our hostess pointed us to several stacks of canvases that we were free to look through. Again, I just didn't find any that really stood out to me. I think what happens with these places is that buyers from galleries come out on a regular basis and buy up the higher quality pieces. Our hope was to beat these buyers, but it appeared that we were passing one just as we walked in. We left without buying anything. I'm not quite sure how I felt about the whole situation but something didn't sit right.
We were done, over the next 40 hours we covered 2,500km of desert, pasture and bush. We spent one night in the car because we didn't feel like setting up camp. I don't recommend it. We passed a handful of cattle and mining towns occasionally stopping for coffee and stretch breaks. The second night we attempted to camp but started down a dirt road that was as good as quicksand. Queensland had apparently been getting a bit of rain. This made the golf nearly useless off of the paved roads. So as we got closer and closer to Brisbane the thought of sleeping in a warm bed became a better option than sleeping in the car again. Around 4 in the morning we pulled up to Luke's house in the suburbs of Brisbane. It took us two weeks, we covered 7,000km. The Golf was a beast.
I spent the next two days sleeping and enjoying the luxuries of a real home. Luke showed me around Brisbane and took me to get a good cup of coffee. I caught a train to Sydney, it took 14 hours. I feel like I have purged something from my system, scratched my itch of wanderlust. So now what?
After being a wandering vagabond for so long, its nice to finally have some structure to my days. Every morning residents are required to be up by 6 am to do physical exercise. I'm pretty keen on yoga these days. From there on the day is fairly well structured with community work, life coaching sessions, group workshops and meditation sessions. Enough to keep you busy but with plenty of free time in between to swim in the pool, go grab a smoothie or Thai iced coffee, or just chill out with a good book. There's no shortage of good company, so if your looking to play ping pong or a game of chess you don't have to look very far to find an opponent.
