Reef to the Outback
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
The landscape changed from mountain ranges and 99% humidity to the more bearable dry heat that we last encountered on the Silk Road in Central Asia. Our first pit stop was Charters Towers which was briefly the 2nd largest city in Queensland after Brisbane during a gold rush in the 19th century with around 30,000 people chancing their luck to pan for gold. It even had its own stock exchange but we found out that it involved a guy in a house who had a call twice a day, not quite what its like now! Our next stop was Hughenden and Richmond which is billed as the dinosaur capital of Australia as this area was a great sea millions of years ago and is home to the best specimens of fossils in Oz. We met another typically Australian dinosaur from Hughenden called Hughie!
We docked into a rest area after weaving our way through a bad storm which stopped half way through and the wind changed direction and hit us all over again. In the middle of the outback (which had the highest recorded temperature ever recorded in Oz at 53.2 degrees) we met a group of travellers and had a bit of a party with warm white wine and goon, very bizarre and I even fell asleep on the bonnet during the night as it was ridiculously hot inside the car only to be woken up by a road train pulling up. These road train can be as long as 55 metres and are particularly terrifying when the overtake you at 130 kmph.
We arrived into Mount Isa with a small hangover and docked in for a night, which to my surprise is one of the largest cities in the world. Yep honestly, as the the main street is 180 km long, not a place you want to traipse along shopping. The main street links the town with an even smaller village 180 km away near the border. It was nice to fill up on some supplies in the middle of nowhere and true to form, being the nations home of rodeo, most of the residents have matching stetson hat and boots.
The other end of the "main street" ends in Camoweal which doesn't have much in it apart from expensive fuel and very tasty cookies and warned us that the clocks go back 30 minutes and 5 years! But seriously why change the clocks by 30 minutes.....very confusing! So we crossed into the Northern Territory and the scenery changed very quickly to red ochre mud and bright blue skies. It was nice to leave the floods behind which have battered much of Australia as we have been here.
The drive form the border to Tennant Creek took most of the day to cross, passing some of the largest cattle stations in the world and some lovely examples on what a road train can do the local wildlife.....very colourful!
Tennant Creek is another gold mining town but only seems to be home to locals wandering the streets so we didn't hang around too long and we started heading south on the Explorers Highway/Stuart Highway towards Alice Springs.
First stop off while heading south was the Devils Marbles or Karlu Karlu by the local Aboriginals have many balancing rocks, quite spectacular! We also passed the UFO capital of Australia which homes a few people who have apparently been abducted by aliens and probed?! Interesting! Sightings are guaranteed if you stay the night but we moved on. We just found out today that the backpacker, Peter Falconio who went missing a few years ago was found here while we were visiting. Also stumbled upon a Hollywood stylee sign for a small aboriginal village of Aileron, with its very own large naked man and woman.
After 3 days driving we arrived in Alice Springs, the centre of Australia and surprisingly enough it is very hot (39 degrees today) We chose to stay here for 2 nights as Shelly is in for her first service and we are glad to report after having 2 new front tyres, she is ready to hit the road again.
Alice Springs can swelter to temperatures of 45 degrees in the summer and shiver to near freezing in the winter. We wandered the dry Todd river which hosts a yearly regatta with a difference, the bottoms of the boats are cut out and the teams run on the river bed. Alice is also home to the largest school in the world, as children all over the outback tune into the School of the Air and they are taught online/radio by a teacher in Alice Springs. Also the operational centre of the flying doctors is based in Alice which tends to the medical needs of the outback by flying to the remotest regions of Oz.
Well now we have reached the centre, we are heading to Ayers Rock/Uluru tomorrow for a few days before heading through more of the outback southbound towards Adelaide for Christmas.. can't really believe it's Christmas and it's kinda hard to get in the Christmas spirit in this heat - I think this picture sums it up..
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