. april 24/10 . i spent my last $10. not my last $10 for the month, week or day. not my last $10, "but it's okay as i have a back-up fund." i spent my last $10. period. on internet.
it's a wierd feeling - to have nothing and be absolutely okay with it. it's even stranger to think that i so willingly handed over all i had left in order that i might continue to remain in contact with everyone around the world. granted - i DO get paid in a couple of days. but still. i gave all i had in order that i might be able to catch up on a few emails, my blog, etc. and i am not alone.
over the course of my travels in the last 10 months i have realized that i am not alone in the quest to stay in contact with people around the world that i care about. hundreds of dollars slip through our fingers as we stock up on postcards, phone cards and internet minutes. we'll buy second phones just so that we might have a better chance of reception with a different phone company in the outback. budgeting involves choosing the absolute cheapest foods so we can buy an extra phonecard. we will live on PB & J sandwhiches for a week or two just so that we might have an extra hour on the computer. travel plans become altered on a regular basis so that we can stop through a city in hopes our cellphone might have reception. entire days are wasted running around an unknown city in order to find the cheapest internet rate. we even go as far as to cancel late night plans so that we can get to sleep early if only that we might wake up at the crack of dawn to make our phonecalls.
not even a week ago i dropped $50 for internet charges and a round of postcards to be sent back to canada. in one day. $50 - gone. at the time anika and i weren't even spending that much on food for both of us... and what we bought would last us almost 2 weeks. go figure.
there were times during our travels around australia when anika and i would be scrambling around trying to find reception so that she could call her parents - all within the few hours we had to reach them during an appropriate hour of their timezone. meanwhile we're travelling across multiple timezones ourselves in australia. makes things a little bit difficult.
as if life couldn't get anymore complicated, try to figure out what time to call home when, as travelling westward, our clocks are turning back in time, but because it's nearly "winter" (nothing compared to canadian standards) in the southern hemisphere, daylight savings causes us to jump back an extra hour still. and that's just us. the northern hemisphere gets to jump ahead an hour. then take into account that because of the time different that both germany and canada (whom anika and i are contacting) would be experiencing their evening as we are waking up for our morning the following day. and all of THAT is even simple when not considering individual schedules all persons involved have or the complicated prospect of "booking" a time to call one another. oh yeah - and did i mention none of it is free? aside from the small and rare exception of finding a public library that will offer free internet and even then there is generally a limit to how long one can use it (on average, anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour can be expected). this can be rather annoying when you have over 200 pictures to upload, a blog to write, emails to send and banking to do. i'm regularly spending (on average) $5/hour for internet, $2/postcard and $1/hour for phoning home. it sounds small in theory, but when i do 4 hours a week on internet, send at least 12 postcards home every couple weeks and spend countless hours on the phone when i call... not to mention any travel expenses to get to the places to do these things - well - it adds up quick.
my point through all of this is not to bash everyone at home and say i don't feel the love regarding my efforts in staying in touch - it's not that at all. i love what i do in trying to stay in contact and i fight my way through all the obstacles on a constant basis in order to do so. it is more that i had no idea what kinds of obstacles i would be facing when i left calgary 10 months ago and if i didn't have any idea - i can only assume those at home haven't considered the concept either.
so, as it stands - yes, i have spent my last $10 on internet. but i do have a job and will get paid here soon enough. however, that being said, i have created a new button for my blog (those reading this via email, facebook or otherwise will have to go to my actual blogsite in order to see it) in which anyone can donate money to help out my cause. now, keep in mind - i do not expect money from anyone and i will continue to update my blog and pictures regardless, but should you feel inclined to send a little money my way to help finance my travels in any way - it would be greatly appreciated.
. april 30/10 . it's hard to begin to describe life here in broome. days are filled with waking up to neighbors who are in the same boat as me. living out of a tent. sleeping on the rock hard ground only to rise when an annoying bird starts to squak from the trees above. we all work our random jobs. some in housekeeping. some in maintenance. some at restaurants. we are all dirt poor and have developed our own community of backpackers seeking to help each other out when one is in need. during the time that i had given up my last $10 for internet and was waiting on pay, my newfound friend gerwin offered to give me some of his last cash he had in his pocket - i declined, but it amazed me to know that there could be people out there just willing to help, no matter what the cost is to them.
and broome is completely full of people like that.
a couple days ago i decided that i should try to get myself a bike to get around. the bus is a little pricey and a bike would make things more flexible in order to come and go as i please. so i talked to the reception at the caravan park. lynn told me to go speak with tony who lives at the park as well. i trekked myself to the back of the park where i found tony to be living and asked him if he knew where i could get a bike. he told me he didn't have any, but would check around for me and then directed me to talk to another guy who also lives at the park. so i trekked back across the caravan park and found the new guy didn't have any extra bikes for me either. but by then it didn't matter, the word was out. all the regulars knew i was looking for a bike and were eagerly coming up to me to give suggestions on where i could get them.
i suppose i should back up here and say that broome has a very unique bike culture. quite simply - bikes are hard to come by. there is only one bike shop and even then there aren't that many in there. and those that are being sold are high in price. much higher than my budget of $50. the thing is, there are tons of bikes "lying around" in broome. people just ditch them when they are done with them. people like tony pick them up, fix them up and either give or sell them after they're done. bikes constantly are in rotation with the seasonal backpackers like myself and at the end of the season they are all dumped off at the side of the road like old shoes no one wants anymore.
so before i knew it - the next day i was talking to a co-worker who also lives at the caravan park and told him i was looking for a bike. scotty said he might have one as he had found 2 on the side of the road, dropped them off at the police station and the cops called him back to say they hadn't found the owners so would scotty like to keep them? he decided to keep one of them. i got the other. for $20. all i had to do then was head back over to tony and get the brakes fixed as they were next to nothing.
before i knew it, by the end of the day, all us backpackers had bikes. hannah's only had one pedal. kirsten's gears were a little rusty. gerwin's seat was peeling off. dalphine's bell rung while going over bumps and my gears jumped everytime i hit a bump in the road. but we had bikes and that was all that mattered.
as it were, last night we decided to head down to town beach to go see the staircase to the moon. once a month, the moon can be seen rising over the horizon and it's reflection in the ocean waters looks like a staircase. hense the name. we all went with our bikes. the girls, that is - and we weaved around the roads on our mishapen bikes (but well loved) and had a blast as the not-so-cool breeze hit our skin. definitely a night to remember.
within the last couple of days i also have received a mattress for my tent. for free. kind of. dalphine's friend had it and wanted to throw it away, but decided to trade it with dalphine for some food dalphine had. dalphine didn't need the mattress and i had an extra phone (anika's old one) so we did a trade so that dalphine's boyfriend could get a phone as he had been looking for one. and i got the mattress. i can't imagine why i ever thought the hard ground to be comfortable now that i got a nice big foamy floor. i'm living in luxary now...
and that's pretty much life here right now. trading things. making a bag of communal food from all the stuff we get for free at work. working our butts off - most of us having 2 jobs and working 6-7 days a week. riding our barely-there bikes. watching the sunsets. trying to surf super small waves. living in tents. swatting mosquitoes. baking cake in the microwave. living off PB & J. seeing who can get the better deal on bike locks. making jewellery. playing guitar.
people say i'm lucky, but luck has nothing to do with it.
life is what you make it.
live it up.
finding frank
as days go by - the thrill of being on the road fades away and begins to feel as though it was all just a dream. it hasn't even been a week and yet my life has shifted so much in the past few days that it's hard to even fathom that nearly the past 2 months have been spent exploring australia in all it has to offer. but it WAS real. it DID happen. and now i am in broome desperately trying to switch pace into what my life will be like for the next few months.
the last few days i got to spend with anika before she went back to sydney, on route to germany, on route to brazil were bittersweet. we had so much fun and yet it was hard to accept that those last few moments were just that - our last few moments.
we spent our last days cramming in as much beach time as possible, hoping no one would notice our brightly colored van parked overnight (again) in the parking lot. during one of those days we met a new friend, luke, who happens to be a flying doctor. officially called the "royal flying doctor service," this non-for-profit organization works to help those who need medical attention in the most remote areas of australia. beings that anika and i had just driven through parts of these areas on our road trip (and equally as such didn't even begin to touch on the extent of remoteness australia has to offer - we were still on a road) we took a liking to luke immediately. that and he offered us pizza (we offered him warm water - he politely declined). we had no choice but to all exchange phone numbers and become friends.
a few days later we said goodbye to bertha (the van) after spending a whopping $30 to clean her up (NOTE: never leave bug guts plastered on your car an then try to get them off 2 months later). we then checked into a local hostel (beaches of broome) where we relished the experience of "REAL" beds for the night. anika and i (okay - she paid for it and refused to let me pitch in) even threw and impromptu (but extensively fantasized) BBQ with luke and a couple of girls we met at the hostel. it was a blast, but tough knowing that was mine and anika's last night together.
the following morning, hours before anika had to catch her flight and i had to go to work, we made our last trip to the beach together where we did none other than a camel ride. i wish i could go into extensive detail about the amazingness of the ride, but it honestly wasn't that much different than riding a horse. untill you looked down and realized you were twice as high as what you would be on a horse. or the fact that the camel had to kneel down for you to get on and off. or that when the camel sat or stood it was like riding a rollarcoaster. or that it was in the back of my mind the whole ride that the one behind me might decide to huck a wad of spit in my general direction (he didn't). okay. so it was a little bit different than riding a horse. especially since no horse-riding experience i ever had was on a nude beach. yes - that's right. we got our money's worth when it came to our view of the well-known cable beach... though i was mostly glad there was lots of beach to look at so that i could avert my eyes when a man wearing no more than a baseball cap and sunglasses turned out to be REALLY excited to walk alongside the camels as we rode. made me wonder what the young children behind me were thinking of their ride...
all that aside, the camel ride over, anika left. and i went to work.
now - the whole looking-for-work adventure had started a few days prior in which i was frantically editing, printing and sending out multiple copies of my resume. all while trying to look my best in 3-week-old dirty clothes. it takes a bit of skill i reckon. as it were, in the midst of looking for work, anika and i decided to try and find frank. frank is a friend of bob and els - a couple i got to know fairly well in sydney who had come to broome and stayed at this frank's B&B. they told me to look him up. now, anika and i didn't know which B&B to check out for frank and as there are what appears to be an extensive number of B&Bs in broome, the situation seemed hopeless. but we went for it anyway. anika researched the internet for the B&Bs that mentioned a frank in their website. i called them.
the first "frank" i couldn't reach as the phone just continued to ring and ring. the second one, however, picked up immediately and i told him our ridiculous situation and pretty much just straight up asked him if he knew bob and els from sydney. he did. we were estatic to find frank and told him we'd try to drop by to meet him and his wife.
later that evening, i got a call and i answered my phone. the guy at the other end told me i had called him first and was wondering what it was about. i asked who it was and he told me his name was "frank." i quickly realized that this was the first frank we had called and i told him our ridiculous situation of trying to find "frank" and that we had found him so that he was not the frank i was looking for. he laughed and asked if me and anika wanted to come and meet him and his friends out later for drinks. i asked him if he might have a job available for me and he said he did. it all sounded perfect - even when he told us to meet him at some local bar/club where there'd be dancing at a $500 prize for the best girl who could dance on stage. anika and i figured it would be fun so we planned to do that for the night.
now - keep in mind that all this time we have been travelling, anika and i had been getting ready for bed at dark (7pm) and lights out by 8:30pm at the latest. to go to a bar/club - one only STARTS to get ready to maybe decide to head out soon around that time. it's tough to be doing hair and putting on makeup when your mind and body are saying it's time to sleep. but we did it. for the sake of a potential job and some random fun.
we got to the bar and quickly figured out this wasn't what we had in mind. we were the only girls and the "dance" contest wasn't so much dancing as it was a wet t-shirt contest. for $500. we opted out. after being offered weed from a local and hit on by some sketchy characters we decided to scram. there was no sign of frank. it was 8:30 pm. time for bed.
the job hunt continued and all the while i kept in mind that the last thing i could possibly want to do with my time would be housekeeping. this would be my "last resort" job. the job i would do if i couldn't find anything else. the job i would do if i was anyone else but myself. so what did i do? i went out and got myself a job as a housekeeper at a resort. and i love it. helps when they pay you twice as much as what they would in canada. go figure.
all i needed next was a permanent place to call "home" for the next bit. so i went out and got myself a tent and parked it at the local caravan park. i figure if i run out of money i can propose a reality tv show called "trailer trash girl." only i suppose it would be more of a "tent trash girl." okay - it's not THAT bad. it's honestly the thing that everyone does here who is not local of broome, but working for the season. it's kind of cool as my neighbors (a girl from perth and a guy from belgium) are doing the same thing as me - working like crazy to save money for the next great travel adventure.
and - as many have been asking me - what IS going to be the next great travel adventure for me? well. i am thinking new zealand. i am thinking of doing a trek. i am thinking of exploring the mountains and wild of new zealand as i did in british columbia less than a year ago. but i can't say more than that as i have plenty of planning, research and preparation involved untill i can get to do something like that. so in the meantime - this is where i am. for the next few months it's going to be me. in broome. living in a caravan park. in a tent. working as a housekeeper. hanging at the beach. chilling with friends from all over the world. and enjoying every minute of it.
the last few days i got to spend with anika before she went back to sydney, on route to germany, on route to brazil were bittersweet. we had so much fun and yet it was hard to accept that those last few moments were just that - our last few moments.
we spent our last days cramming in as much beach time as possible, hoping no one would notice our brightly colored van parked overnight (again) in the parking lot. during one of those days we met a new friend, luke, who happens to be a flying doctor. officially called the "royal flying doctor service," this non-for-profit organization works to help those who need medical attention in the most remote areas of australia. beings that anika and i had just driven through parts of these areas on our road trip (and equally as such didn't even begin to touch on the extent of remoteness australia has to offer - we were still on a road) we took a liking to luke immediately. that and he offered us pizza (we offered him warm water - he politely declined). we had no choice but to all exchange phone numbers and become friends.
a few days later we said goodbye to bertha (the van) after spending a whopping $30 to clean her up (NOTE: never leave bug guts plastered on your car an then try to get them off 2 months later). we then checked into a local hostel (beaches of broome) where we relished the experience of "REAL" beds for the night. anika and i (okay - she paid for it and refused to let me pitch in) even threw and impromptu (but extensively fantasized) BBQ with luke and a couple of girls we met at the hostel. it was a blast, but tough knowing that was mine and anika's last night together.
the following morning, hours before anika had to catch her flight and i had to go to work, we made our last trip to the beach together where we did none other than a camel ride. i wish i could go into extensive detail about the amazingness of the ride, but it honestly wasn't that much different than riding a horse. untill you looked down and realized you were twice as high as what you would be on a horse. or the fact that the camel had to kneel down for you to get on and off. or that when the camel sat or stood it was like riding a rollarcoaster. or that it was in the back of my mind the whole ride that the one behind me might decide to huck a wad of spit in my general direction (he didn't). okay. so it was a little bit different than riding a horse. especially since no horse-riding experience i ever had was on a nude beach. yes - that's right. we got our money's worth when it came to our view of the well-known cable beach... though i was mostly glad there was lots of beach to look at so that i could avert my eyes when a man wearing no more than a baseball cap and sunglasses turned out to be REALLY excited to walk alongside the camels as we rode. made me wonder what the young children behind me were thinking of their ride...
all that aside, the camel ride over, anika left. and i went to work.
now - the whole looking-for-work adventure had started a few days prior in which i was frantically editing, printing and sending out multiple copies of my resume. all while trying to look my best in 3-week-old dirty clothes. it takes a bit of skill i reckon. as it were, in the midst of looking for work, anika and i decided to try and find frank. frank is a friend of bob and els - a couple i got to know fairly well in sydney who had come to broome and stayed at this frank's B&B. they told me to look him up. now, anika and i didn't know which B&B to check out for frank and as there are what appears to be an extensive number of B&Bs in broome, the situation seemed hopeless. but we went for it anyway. anika researched the internet for the B&Bs that mentioned a frank in their website. i called them.
the first "frank" i couldn't reach as the phone just continued to ring and ring. the second one, however, picked up immediately and i told him our ridiculous situation and pretty much just straight up asked him if he knew bob and els from sydney. he did. we were estatic to find frank and told him we'd try to drop by to meet him and his wife.
later that evening, i got a call and i answered my phone. the guy at the other end told me i had called him first and was wondering what it was about. i asked who it was and he told me his name was "frank." i quickly realized that this was the first frank we had called and i told him our ridiculous situation of trying to find "frank" and that we had found him so that he was not the frank i was looking for. he laughed and asked if me and anika wanted to come and meet him and his friends out later for drinks. i asked him if he might have a job available for me and he said he did. it all sounded perfect - even when he told us to meet him at some local bar/club where there'd be dancing at a $500 prize for the best girl who could dance on stage. anika and i figured it would be fun so we planned to do that for the night.
now - keep in mind that all this time we have been travelling, anika and i had been getting ready for bed at dark (7pm) and lights out by 8:30pm at the latest. to go to a bar/club - one only STARTS to get ready to maybe decide to head out soon around that time. it's tough to be doing hair and putting on makeup when your mind and body are saying it's time to sleep. but we did it. for the sake of a potential job and some random fun.
we got to the bar and quickly figured out this wasn't what we had in mind. we were the only girls and the "dance" contest wasn't so much dancing as it was a wet t-shirt contest. for $500. we opted out. after being offered weed from a local and hit on by some sketchy characters we decided to scram. there was no sign of frank. it was 8:30 pm. time for bed.
the job hunt continued and all the while i kept in mind that the last thing i could possibly want to do with my time would be housekeeping. this would be my "last resort" job. the job i would do if i couldn't find anything else. the job i would do if i was anyone else but myself. so what did i do? i went out and got myself a job as a housekeeper at a resort. and i love it. helps when they pay you twice as much as what they would in canada. go figure.
all i needed next was a permanent place to call "home" for the next bit. so i went out and got myself a tent and parked it at the local caravan park. i figure if i run out of money i can propose a reality tv show called "trailer trash girl." only i suppose it would be more of a "tent trash girl." okay - it's not THAT bad. it's honestly the thing that everyone does here who is not local of broome, but working for the season. it's kind of cool as my neighbors (a girl from perth and a guy from belgium) are doing the same thing as me - working like crazy to save money for the next great travel adventure.
and - as many have been asking me - what IS going to be the next great travel adventure for me? well. i am thinking new zealand. i am thinking of doing a trek. i am thinking of exploring the mountains and wild of new zealand as i did in british columbia less than a year ago. but i can't say more than that as i have plenty of planning, research and preparation involved untill i can get to do something like that. so in the meantime - this is where i am. for the next few months it's going to be me. in broome. living in a caravan park. in a tent. working as a housekeeper. hanging at the beach. chilling with friends from all over the world. and enjoying every minute of it.
days go by
okay - so, as i have said in the last blog entry - we have made it. only this time it IS actually the end of our journey. we have reached our final destination of broome and it feels amazing. so many people have warned us from coming here - stating that we wouldn't like it, there's nothing to do here and that broome is only known to be a "party city" in which it will drain your bank account quicker than a gas guzzling wicked campervan. but as it stands - we love it. it's gorgeous. it's everything we hoped it would be and more. and we haven't even left our little spot by the beach yet. fortunately we still have a few more days to explore broome and the area around it before we say goodbye to bertha (the campervan) forever. anyway - continuing on where we left off, the last few days have been rather eventful.
april 6/10 . after completing our "catching up" with buying groceries, updating emails and pictures and such, we set out to make camp at our parking spot by the ferry docks. this was the only place we could find within darwin of which had no signs indicating we could not park there overnight. plus, it was well lit and many other people were parked there as well - we took it as a sign that we would sleep safely for the night.
we didn't even get to sleep before we heard a knock on our door. as it was ridiculously hot in our van we had stripped down to our undies and i didn't feel the particular need to promptly whip open the door to expose us to whomever was on the other side. so we waited quietly to see what would happen. the person knocked again. and again. and then started to yell stuff at us such as "i know you're in there." "you can't park here." "you want a ticket?" etc. etc. when he finally stated that he would call the cops on us if we wouldn't leave, i figured this was as good time as any to finally open the door and face the person on the other side.
so i did. and came face to face with an angry man (it was difficult to tell who he belonged to as he was standing behind his utility/gardening/something truck and it was dark) who immediately stated that i could not camp there. i replied that we were unaware of this "rule" as there were no signs posted anywhere saying that we couldn't and that we weren't "camping" - we were only parking overnight and wanted a couple hours of sleep. he huffed that he didn't care and that we would have to leave. i was left smelling the rubber he burned as he peeled out of the parking lot.
so anika and i discussed the matter and decided we weren't too happy with being just told to leave like that. i had recognised this guy driving past us earlier in the evening and he could have discussed the matter with us then. but he didn't. he waited untill it was late in the evening to bring forth his arguement. at this point everything was dark. campgrounds were closed for the night (we called them). we, according to our contract with wicked campervans, are not allowed to even be driving at night. we did not fully explore the city of darwin during the day and had no other ideas of where we could park for the night that we would feel safe.
when the guy came back to see if we had left, i waved him down and told him our situation. i figured i would be banging my head against a brick wall, but surprisingly enough the man responded in saying he knew a place we could go and park where we would not get a fine from the council and would be safe as he it is on his route as he makes his rounds during the night. so we hopped back in the van and followed him to a secluded park that overlooked the ocean and there we were sheltered by trees and bushes so that no one would even notice us there. it was perfect. we thanked the mystery man and he left us completely flabbergasted at his niceness.
april 7/10 . we woke up the next morning, greeted with a sunrise and gazed out over our perfect view of the ocean. we decided to spend the day at the east point reserve where we had driven by the day before. a beach, safe swimming lake, washrooms and showers - we couldn't ask for anything else. that being said, shortly into our morning of hanging out under the palm trees, it began to pour rain. anika and i hurried back to the van and decided our best course of action would be to positon the van so we could sit under the back hatch and watch the world go by. rain or not. as we proceeded to do this, i found a camping chair leaning against a tree. no one claimed it. i fixed the one arm of it with duck tape and was stoked at the fact that we now had a chair for each of us to relax in for the day. and relax we did. we let the world pass by us as we sat like vegetables in our camping chairs. it was bliss.
as the day went on, we met an aboriginal man by the name of sambo. he introduced himself by saying that he was "sambo, not rambo." we chatted it up with him - asking about his asian-style hat and he asked us about how we liked darwin. he informed us that darwin was the "last frontier" of australia, that he's the boss of it and that the rest of australia is f*cked. he amused us so much that we managed to convince him to take photos with us.
later on some cops drove by on the cycling path in front of us. they started the conversation by stopping there and saying "hi." we said "hi" back and then we waited there for what seemed like an eternity as we stared at them and they stared at us. finally anika asked if everything was okay and they said it was. we then sat there for a moment longer before they asked if we were camping for the night in darwin. they then proceeded to show us via map where they would "prefer" to have us park for the night as they have a better ability to ensure safety there. we thanked them and they went on their way, but no before the one invited us over to park at his place, swap stories and have a real bed to sleep in for the night. and just so we're clear - this was a middle-aged single father of the darwin policeforce. as they left we marvelled at how we seemed to continue running into amazingly nice people in darwin.
as it were - we skipped the cop's dinner invitation and set out back to our cliff-faced, ocean-view camping spot for the night and spent the evening watching a lightening storm from the comforts of our not-so-real bed in the van.
april 8/10 . first thing in the morning we set out on our journey to get to our final destination of broome. but first we intended to spend the day at kakadu national park. unfortnately, after driving nearly 200 km to just get to the entrance of it we discovered that it would cost us $25/person for a 14-day pass. we didn't have 14 days to spend there and they didn't have just a day pass. we didn't think it was worth it and so we drove all the way back out to the main highway and made our way to litchfield national park of which was free. after all of this we calculated we had used up almost a full tank of gas just to get only 100 km from where we started in darwin. ouch.
as it were, we managed to find a nice campspot of which had a fire pit. we immediately took to making a fire for our dinner - pancakes. we topped them with all we had - jam, peanut butter and melted chocolate from our easter bunnies and ate so much we thought we would explode. we never clued in that we could have saved some for the next day. as it were - with such full tummies we slept pretty soundly.
april 9/10 . anika and i started off our day with exploring the many water falls in litchfield. the water was soon forgotten when at one point we came up some stairs to find a rather large snake (we think it was a python) curled up in the corner. i was so focused on getting up the stairs i completely by-passed it and it wasn't untill anika came up behind me and said something about it that i even noticed it. i blamed it on their ability to blend in with the stair color.
after the waterfall exploration we drove our way to policeman's point - a few kilometres from the town of timber creek. at policeman's point we had a gorgeous view overlooking the valley where a river ran through it. we immediately set up camp for the night, but later on when a car drove through the area we got creeped out and drove back to timber creek where we parked outside the caravan park and slept under the bright lights of the local gas station.
april 10/10 . we woke up this morning to find that we looked a good couple kilos smaller than when we had gone to bed the night before. we blamed it on the fact that we spent most of the night restless and sweaty due to the fact that our side door of the van had decided to stop sliding open and closed and we had had it closed. nothing like sleeping in a steam room to help out on one's shape.
as it were - we decided to get ourselves organized for the day at timber creek. i stopped in to get some WD40 for the door and inquired about the showers they had in the washrooms. the lady (jess) said she didn't care if we had the showers for free. i was stoked. usually showers at a gas station could cost us up to $5 each. we had our showers and then i went back in and borrowed a screwdriver from jess to open our flashlights to change the batteries. back outside, when i had sprayed the WD40 on the door, i managed to find out that one of the barrings had come off and that was the real reason as to why our door wasn't working. i informed jess who summoned keith to come see if he could help us out. he could.
the next few hours consisted of anika and i helping to remove the door from our van and then holding it so that keith could get in to fix the barring. he did it all for free and we thanked him profusely as it would have cost us a great deal to go to the mechanic. as it were - the local mechanic was closed for the day as it was saturday. once the door was back on and working properly, we set out to put air in our tires, wash the windows and buy a few supplies that we needed. the entire morning at timber creek cost us a total of $26 for everything. we left promising to send a postcard of our thanks to the staff at timber creek.
the rest of the day proved to be rather uneventful as we drove our way untill the sun was setting and then we found a spot to sleep for the night and we did just that. sleep.
april 11/10 . setting out early in the morning we managed to make it all the way to broome by early afternoon. we immediately parked at cable beach and took a dip in the warm torquoise waters before showering it up in the washrooms. later on we drove down onto the beach to have supper and join everyone else who was out to see the sunset as it went down over the watery horizon. absolutely gorgeous. we had made it.
*****
now. i have had many people writing to me to find out more of what life is like driving in the outback of australia. it's difficult to describe. it's difficult to understand unless you have once had such a similar experience. but the more i have thought about it - the more i realize that it is important for those who may never have this experince to at least have the ability to imagine to some extent of what it is like. so - i write to you now - to those who have never and may never find themself hurtling down a highway in the middle of nowhere. happy reading.
. YOUR SEAT . find your local dentist and borrow one of the chairs (or something of similar material and set-up). there is no footrest and you may not, at any point, recline the chair past a 110 degree angle. as you read on, keep in mind that the material you are sitting on for the next hours, days, weeks is one that does not do well once your skin has decided to adhere to the surface.
. SEATBELT . any normal seatbelt will do though the position is that of an angle that threatens to cut of all circulation of bloodflow to your brain and during most days you have a red mark across your neck as it rubs you to the point that you wonder if you will finish the trip with no head. fortunately you still have enough oxygen in your brain for it to tell you to hold the seatbelt as far away from your body as you drive. this is your regular seating position - that of which can become more complicated should you desperately want to take a spontaneous picture of the next dead cow you see on the side of the road as you go whiping past at 130km/hr.
. CLOTHING . next to nothing, but try to limit yourself from any thong-related bottoms. it doesn't do well when your butt cheeks have to be peeled from the seat. sunglasses are a must. to get the full effect, ensure that they are scratched on the lenses - this makes driving more interesting as you try to see through the marks in front of your eyes. a hairband is also useful to avoid all your hair being in your eyes - one can only drive with so many distractions.
. SWEAT . one part oil, one part salt, one part water. should you need something to do as a passenger - occassionally wipe off your sweat and count the seconds down to when you are completely soaked again. as well, it would be a good idea to lather yourself with vaseline and warm water in your nether regions as you will get the full effect of the ride. when doing this try to keep in mind that you are only putting enough on to trick yourself into thing you are in a constant state of wondering if you just wet yourself.
. EXFOLIATE . this is something to do as a passenger when bored. simply rub your skin in any area you wish - the sweat mixture makes for a cheap exfoliation product. simply continue to rub until residue resembling eraser remains form on your skin. NOTE: do not confuse this as being an actual cleansing process.
. AIRFLOW . position a hair drying approximately 3 inches from your face and turn on at the hottest and highest settings. NOTE: do not try to move away from the hot air blowing in your face. the airflow is inescapable. should you stop the "vehicle," proceed by trading in your hair drying for a prime seat in a sauna room.
. WATER SUPPLY . boil water (as much as you think you should need for the day) and fill some in your water bottle. wait 5 min and then guzzle it down - you WANT this water as it elimitates the fact that you have had a roll of paper towel stuffed in your mouth up untill this point and the hot water tastes better than the paper-dry feeling of your tongue.
. MUSIC . any type you choose. an ipod works well - but make sure only one of your speakers works and that all musical sound exists only after the speaker has been buried in a mudhole 2ft deep. none of your songs should come out clear - that would take all the fun out of it.
. SCENERY . find the most deserted road. sit on it for 8hrs/day, 3 days straight. on then can you change positions to maybe a slightly different road. repeat. in order to REALLY mix it up - find a dead animal or two and randomly scatter them both on the sides and middle of the road.
..... and that's about it. oh yeah - don't forget your camera. this is about the only form of entertainment one can have. hense all the pictures of dirt roads i keep posting for everyone to view. ENJOY!!
april 6/10 . after completing our "catching up" with buying groceries, updating emails and pictures and such, we set out to make camp at our parking spot by the ferry docks. this was the only place we could find within darwin of which had no signs indicating we could not park there overnight. plus, it was well lit and many other people were parked there as well - we took it as a sign that we would sleep safely for the night.
we didn't even get to sleep before we heard a knock on our door. as it was ridiculously hot in our van we had stripped down to our undies and i didn't feel the particular need to promptly whip open the door to expose us to whomever was on the other side. so we waited quietly to see what would happen. the person knocked again. and again. and then started to yell stuff at us such as "i know you're in there." "you can't park here." "you want a ticket?" etc. etc. when he finally stated that he would call the cops on us if we wouldn't leave, i figured this was as good time as any to finally open the door and face the person on the other side.
so i did. and came face to face with an angry man (it was difficult to tell who he belonged to as he was standing behind his utility/gardening/something truck and it was dark) who immediately stated that i could not camp there. i replied that we were unaware of this "rule" as there were no signs posted anywhere saying that we couldn't and that we weren't "camping" - we were only parking overnight and wanted a couple hours of sleep. he huffed that he didn't care and that we would have to leave. i was left smelling the rubber he burned as he peeled out of the parking lot.
so anika and i discussed the matter and decided we weren't too happy with being just told to leave like that. i had recognised this guy driving past us earlier in the evening and he could have discussed the matter with us then. but he didn't. he waited untill it was late in the evening to bring forth his arguement. at this point everything was dark. campgrounds were closed for the night (we called them). we, according to our contract with wicked campervans, are not allowed to even be driving at night. we did not fully explore the city of darwin during the day and had no other ideas of where we could park for the night that we would feel safe.
when the guy came back to see if we had left, i waved him down and told him our situation. i figured i would be banging my head against a brick wall, but surprisingly enough the man responded in saying he knew a place we could go and park where we would not get a fine from the council and would be safe as he it is on his route as he makes his rounds during the night. so we hopped back in the van and followed him to a secluded park that overlooked the ocean and there we were sheltered by trees and bushes so that no one would even notice us there. it was perfect. we thanked the mystery man and he left us completely flabbergasted at his niceness.
april 7/10 . we woke up the next morning, greeted with a sunrise and gazed out over our perfect view of the ocean. we decided to spend the day at the east point reserve where we had driven by the day before. a beach, safe swimming lake, washrooms and showers - we couldn't ask for anything else. that being said, shortly into our morning of hanging out under the palm trees, it began to pour rain. anika and i hurried back to the van and decided our best course of action would be to positon the van so we could sit under the back hatch and watch the world go by. rain or not. as we proceeded to do this, i found a camping chair leaning against a tree. no one claimed it. i fixed the one arm of it with duck tape and was stoked at the fact that we now had a chair for each of us to relax in for the day. and relax we did. we let the world pass by us as we sat like vegetables in our camping chairs. it was bliss.
as the day went on, we met an aboriginal man by the name of sambo. he introduced himself by saying that he was "sambo, not rambo." we chatted it up with him - asking about his asian-style hat and he asked us about how we liked darwin. he informed us that darwin was the "last frontier" of australia, that he's the boss of it and that the rest of australia is f*cked. he amused us so much that we managed to convince him to take photos with us.
later on some cops drove by on the cycling path in front of us. they started the conversation by stopping there and saying "hi." we said "hi" back and then we waited there for what seemed like an eternity as we stared at them and they stared at us. finally anika asked if everything was okay and they said it was. we then sat there for a moment longer before they asked if we were camping for the night in darwin. they then proceeded to show us via map where they would "prefer" to have us park for the night as they have a better ability to ensure safety there. we thanked them and they went on their way, but no before the one invited us over to park at his place, swap stories and have a real bed to sleep in for the night. and just so we're clear - this was a middle-aged single father of the darwin policeforce. as they left we marvelled at how we seemed to continue running into amazingly nice people in darwin.
as it were - we skipped the cop's dinner invitation and set out back to our cliff-faced, ocean-view camping spot for the night and spent the evening watching a lightening storm from the comforts of our not-so-real bed in the van.
april 8/10 . first thing in the morning we set out on our journey to get to our final destination of broome. but first we intended to spend the day at kakadu national park. unfortnately, after driving nearly 200 km to just get to the entrance of it we discovered that it would cost us $25/person for a 14-day pass. we didn't have 14 days to spend there and they didn't have just a day pass. we didn't think it was worth it and so we drove all the way back out to the main highway and made our way to litchfield national park of which was free. after all of this we calculated we had used up almost a full tank of gas just to get only 100 km from where we started in darwin. ouch.
as it were, we managed to find a nice campspot of which had a fire pit. we immediately took to making a fire for our dinner - pancakes. we topped them with all we had - jam, peanut butter and melted chocolate from our easter bunnies and ate so much we thought we would explode. we never clued in that we could have saved some for the next day. as it were - with such full tummies we slept pretty soundly.
april 9/10 . anika and i started off our day with exploring the many water falls in litchfield. the water was soon forgotten when at one point we came up some stairs to find a rather large snake (we think it was a python) curled up in the corner. i was so focused on getting up the stairs i completely by-passed it and it wasn't untill anika came up behind me and said something about it that i even noticed it. i blamed it on their ability to blend in with the stair color.
after the waterfall exploration we drove our way to policeman's point - a few kilometres from the town of timber creek. at policeman's point we had a gorgeous view overlooking the valley where a river ran through it. we immediately set up camp for the night, but later on when a car drove through the area we got creeped out and drove back to timber creek where we parked outside the caravan park and slept under the bright lights of the local gas station.
april 10/10 . we woke up this morning to find that we looked a good couple kilos smaller than when we had gone to bed the night before. we blamed it on the fact that we spent most of the night restless and sweaty due to the fact that our side door of the van had decided to stop sliding open and closed and we had had it closed. nothing like sleeping in a steam room to help out on one's shape.
as it were - we decided to get ourselves organized for the day at timber creek. i stopped in to get some WD40 for the door and inquired about the showers they had in the washrooms. the lady (jess) said she didn't care if we had the showers for free. i was stoked. usually showers at a gas station could cost us up to $5 each. we had our showers and then i went back in and borrowed a screwdriver from jess to open our flashlights to change the batteries. back outside, when i had sprayed the WD40 on the door, i managed to find out that one of the barrings had come off and that was the real reason as to why our door wasn't working. i informed jess who summoned keith to come see if he could help us out. he could.
the next few hours consisted of anika and i helping to remove the door from our van and then holding it so that keith could get in to fix the barring. he did it all for free and we thanked him profusely as it would have cost us a great deal to go to the mechanic. as it were - the local mechanic was closed for the day as it was saturday. once the door was back on and working properly, we set out to put air in our tires, wash the windows and buy a few supplies that we needed. the entire morning at timber creek cost us a total of $26 for everything. we left promising to send a postcard of our thanks to the staff at timber creek.
the rest of the day proved to be rather uneventful as we drove our way untill the sun was setting and then we found a spot to sleep for the night and we did just that. sleep.
april 11/10 . setting out early in the morning we managed to make it all the way to broome by early afternoon. we immediately parked at cable beach and took a dip in the warm torquoise waters before showering it up in the washrooms. later on we drove down onto the beach to have supper and join everyone else who was out to see the sunset as it went down over the watery horizon. absolutely gorgeous. we had made it.
*****
now. i have had many people writing to me to find out more of what life is like driving in the outback of australia. it's difficult to describe. it's difficult to understand unless you have once had such a similar experience. but the more i have thought about it - the more i realize that it is important for those who may never have this experince to at least have the ability to imagine to some extent of what it is like. so - i write to you now - to those who have never and may never find themself hurtling down a highway in the middle of nowhere. happy reading.
. YOUR SEAT . find your local dentist and borrow one of the chairs (or something of similar material and set-up). there is no footrest and you may not, at any point, recline the chair past a 110 degree angle. as you read on, keep in mind that the material you are sitting on for the next hours, days, weeks is one that does not do well once your skin has decided to adhere to the surface.
. SEATBELT . any normal seatbelt will do though the position is that of an angle that threatens to cut of all circulation of bloodflow to your brain and during most days you have a red mark across your neck as it rubs you to the point that you wonder if you will finish the trip with no head. fortunately you still have enough oxygen in your brain for it to tell you to hold the seatbelt as far away from your body as you drive. this is your regular seating position - that of which can become more complicated should you desperately want to take a spontaneous picture of the next dead cow you see on the side of the road as you go whiping past at 130km/hr.
. CLOTHING . next to nothing, but try to limit yourself from any thong-related bottoms. it doesn't do well when your butt cheeks have to be peeled from the seat. sunglasses are a must. to get the full effect, ensure that they are scratched on the lenses - this makes driving more interesting as you try to see through the marks in front of your eyes. a hairband is also useful to avoid all your hair being in your eyes - one can only drive with so many distractions.
. SWEAT . one part oil, one part salt, one part water. should you need something to do as a passenger - occassionally wipe off your sweat and count the seconds down to when you are completely soaked again. as well, it would be a good idea to lather yourself with vaseline and warm water in your nether regions as you will get the full effect of the ride. when doing this try to keep in mind that you are only putting enough on to trick yourself into thing you are in a constant state of wondering if you just wet yourself.
. EXFOLIATE . this is something to do as a passenger when bored. simply rub your skin in any area you wish - the sweat mixture makes for a cheap exfoliation product. simply continue to rub until residue resembling eraser remains form on your skin. NOTE: do not confuse this as being an actual cleansing process.
. AIRFLOW . position a hair drying approximately 3 inches from your face and turn on at the hottest and highest settings. NOTE: do not try to move away from the hot air blowing in your face. the airflow is inescapable. should you stop the "vehicle," proceed by trading in your hair drying for a prime seat in a sauna room.
. WATER SUPPLY . boil water (as much as you think you should need for the day) and fill some in your water bottle. wait 5 min and then guzzle it down - you WANT this water as it elimitates the fact that you have had a roll of paper towel stuffed in your mouth up untill this point and the hot water tastes better than the paper-dry feeling of your tongue.
. MUSIC . any type you choose. an ipod works well - but make sure only one of your speakers works and that all musical sound exists only after the speaker has been buried in a mudhole 2ft deep. none of your songs should come out clear - that would take all the fun out of it.
. SCENERY . find the most deserted road. sit on it for 8hrs/day, 3 days straight. on then can you change positions to maybe a slightly different road. repeat. in order to REALLY mix it up - find a dead animal or two and randomly scatter them both on the sides and middle of the road.
..... and that's about it. oh yeah - don't forget your camera. this is about the only form of entertainment one can have. hense all the pictures of dirt roads i keep posting for everyone to view. ENJOY!!
shoo fly, don't bother me
well - we have "arrived alive" (signs posted along the highway reguarly remind us that this is our goal) in darwin. i can hardly believe that we have made it here. mostly because many people didn't think we would even get to alice springs in the time we had to do our journey - let alone our soon-to-be arrival destination of broome. but we are here. palm trees. white sand. jagged rocky shoreline. torquoise waters. crocodiles, sharks and jellyfish. a multitude of racial backgrounds. a city routed with natural disaster and WWII history that any person could be fascinated for ages by it. and we have made it.
if i were to take one thing away from our journey through australia's outback - it would be that australia is not a land of "inbetweens." it is an "all or nothing" type of country. it doesn't have medium temperatures. it is either super hot or super cold. it does not understand what moderate humidity levels are. it is either all wet or all dry. it either pours rain or has droughts. a person insures their house for bush fires or flooding. there are big waves, huge sharks and the sun is nothing to laugh at - give it enough time and it will burn you alive like some fancy magic trick shown on the stages of a cruel and unusual las vegas location. the land is either lush with vegetation or there is nothing but dirt as far as the eye can see. and even then - sometimes i wonder if it is dirt at all. there is not one kangaroo - there are so many that i have lost track mere kilometres north of adelaide as to how many we have spotted as road meat on the pavement. and then there are the flies.
no one told us about the flies. no one. not one person thought to mention that hey - there might be a couple buzzing black insects annoying you on your journey through the outback. not even a quip in our treasured (and now dog-eared) lonely planet australia books to indicate that we may want to be a little prepared for the black monsters.
and let me just clarify - there are not just a "few" flies in australia's outback. it is like something out of what i would imagine biblical times to be with the plagues and all that legendary stuff. and yet all the locals strut around, doing their daily buisness as though they haven't a care in the world. apparently one can get used to them. we didn't. instead we developed our anti-fly defense routine - refusing to cave and purchase one of those outback fly hats we had previously laughed at when spotting them early in our journey at a tourist shop. once we entered flinders range (slightly north of adelaide) we understood why. the flies are everywhere. and by everywhere - i do not mean that they fly in a respectable area outside of a person's zone of living/breathing/eating. i mean that they are EVERYWHERE. on our backs. our feet. in our clothes. ears. mouth. nose and yes, even our eyes. they want our food. they want to camp out in our nostrils. they want to let us hear them "sing" in our ears. they are everywhere.
now - this can make things a little more interesting, even for the most boring of journey's one might be on. and i'm not just talking about the concept of how each day anika and i fought with the flies while making our meals - think of how interesting things can be when there are no toilets in the outback and one has to go. squatting in the bush has never been more uncomfortable - and not just because there was rarely a bush to squat behind and when there was it was all prickly and hard and such - but because those flies haven't heard of a concept of "personal space." they pretty much just wanted to be part of my person. i don't think i have ever peed in the bush so fast in my life. even the whole concept of backsplash onto one's feet one would normally worry about became a thing of the past.
with the flies all around - snakes were not even our worry. running over kangaroos was also put to a minor distraction while on the road. mosquitoes could do no wrong. flat tires? - who cares? went the wrong way? - we'll get there eventually. low on gas? - we'll just push the van. but the flies.... that was our concern. so - like i said, we developed our defence plan.
firstly - windows and doors remained shut while we were in the vehicle when at a standstill. if we started the van to go somewhere, we would sit sweating in the vehicle (we opted out of using the AC as it drains our gas) untill we would reach a speed of which the flies could not get into the vehicle.
secondly - food eating would be done in the vehicle. this proved to be truely interesting during supper in which our food was generally hotter than a PB & J sandwhich. we would cook the food, clean up the dishes and, on one particular night it was me standing 20 ft away from the van with the food in my hand as i spun around in circles (eyes closed as much as possible to limit the flies landing on my eyeballs) to avoid the flies becoming part of our meals as anika opened the doors to the van. it was then - and only then - that we would bolt as fast as possible to the opened van doors, bowls of food in hand, and jump in the van and shut the doors in one fluid motion... our bodies in a full sweat. we got so good that we would only have about 3 flies in the van at one time or another. that and eating there wasn't too bad as we would then be sweating out all the fats of our food as quickly as we could shovel the grub into our mouths as it was so hot and humid in our metal box. once finished our meals we would open the doors and stumble out gasping for some fresh and, ironically enough, "cool" air to breathe. this was our nightly ritual.
thirdly - become as skilled as possible in the art of fly-killing. every night as we got ready for bed. after spraying the inside of the van with raid (killing all the bugs already on the inside) and dousing ourselves with bugspray (which is supposed to limit the black fly attraction to us) we would hop into our cosey home and settle down to read our books. inbetween chapters we would focus our attention on killing the remaining flies within our tiny environment. i feel we have become so good at killing them with our hands that i am debating if i should put this under my "other skills" section of my resume.
so there was the flies - they took up a lot of our time, energy and focus while out in the outback. but then there was the other stuff too. there was the vaste landscapes of what would appear to be a whole lot of nothing, but anika and i learned to see the beauty in it. even just the amazing array of colors in the dirt throughout the desert put us in a state of awe. then there was the many different plants - looking so soft and inviting, but were mostly quite hard and rough once up close. we climbed mountains, viewed dried out trees, watched kangaroos hop along the road, avoided cows roaming the highway and successfully drove 4WD down the most isolated dirt roads in the outback. we saw some of the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets, spotted the most unusual birdlife and even got to see some really cool rocks.
and by rocks - i refer to the most famous ayers rock of the outback. it is a sacred rock of which the aboriginal people of australia hold a lot of spiritual meaning to it. anika and i drove to the gate of the national park, the rock set in the background of the landscape, and - when we realized we would have to pay $25 each to get in to see it - we turned around and opted to stay 80km away at a free campsite of which we could view mt. conner in the distance. aside from the random emu who came to eat some of our onion and would not leave when i tried to shoo it away with a spatula (apparently a small plastic stick is no match for a bird who's head comes up to my shoulder) the campsite was pretty awesome. plus mt. conner we thought was nicer to look at anyway.
we also saw the devil's marbles (and i have yet to figure out how these rocks got to be like this), hiked a part of the larapinta trail (west macdonnell range near alice springs) and swam in a swimming hole under the shade of the mountain gorges. we went to see a lake that was more like a big mud puddle and faught for our lives on a trail inhabited by spiders that looked as though they could take our heads off. we even managed to shower off our grimy bodies once in a while.
and we have made it. all the way to darwin. it almost seems like a dream - as though i could pinch myself and wake up somewhere entirely different. but we are here - the last major stop before we get to broome... a mere 2200km away. we're so close i can almost taste it. and it tastes like salty water.
if i were to take one thing away from our journey through australia's outback - it would be that australia is not a land of "inbetweens." it is an "all or nothing" type of country. it doesn't have medium temperatures. it is either super hot or super cold. it does not understand what moderate humidity levels are. it is either all wet or all dry. it either pours rain or has droughts. a person insures their house for bush fires or flooding. there are big waves, huge sharks and the sun is nothing to laugh at - give it enough time and it will burn you alive like some fancy magic trick shown on the stages of a cruel and unusual las vegas location. the land is either lush with vegetation or there is nothing but dirt as far as the eye can see. and even then - sometimes i wonder if it is dirt at all. there is not one kangaroo - there are so many that i have lost track mere kilometres north of adelaide as to how many we have spotted as road meat on the pavement. and then there are the flies.
no one told us about the flies. no one. not one person thought to mention that hey - there might be a couple buzzing black insects annoying you on your journey through the outback. not even a quip in our treasured (and now dog-eared) lonely planet australia books to indicate that we may want to be a little prepared for the black monsters.
and let me just clarify - there are not just a "few" flies in australia's outback. it is like something out of what i would imagine biblical times to be with the plagues and all that legendary stuff. and yet all the locals strut around, doing their daily buisness as though they haven't a care in the world. apparently one can get used to them. we didn't. instead we developed our anti-fly defense routine - refusing to cave and purchase one of those outback fly hats we had previously laughed at when spotting them early in our journey at a tourist shop. once we entered flinders range (slightly north of adelaide) we understood why. the flies are everywhere. and by everywhere - i do not mean that they fly in a respectable area outside of a person's zone of living/breathing/eating. i mean that they are EVERYWHERE. on our backs. our feet. in our clothes. ears. mouth. nose and yes, even our eyes. they want our food. they want to camp out in our nostrils. they want to let us hear them "sing" in our ears. they are everywhere.
now - this can make things a little more interesting, even for the most boring of journey's one might be on. and i'm not just talking about the concept of how each day anika and i fought with the flies while making our meals - think of how interesting things can be when there are no toilets in the outback and one has to go. squatting in the bush has never been more uncomfortable - and not just because there was rarely a bush to squat behind and when there was it was all prickly and hard and such - but because those flies haven't heard of a concept of "personal space." they pretty much just wanted to be part of my person. i don't think i have ever peed in the bush so fast in my life. even the whole concept of backsplash onto one's feet one would normally worry about became a thing of the past.
with the flies all around - snakes were not even our worry. running over kangaroos was also put to a minor distraction while on the road. mosquitoes could do no wrong. flat tires? - who cares? went the wrong way? - we'll get there eventually. low on gas? - we'll just push the van. but the flies.... that was our concern. so - like i said, we developed our defence plan.
firstly - windows and doors remained shut while we were in the vehicle when at a standstill. if we started the van to go somewhere, we would sit sweating in the vehicle (we opted out of using the AC as it drains our gas) untill we would reach a speed of which the flies could not get into the vehicle.
secondly - food eating would be done in the vehicle. this proved to be truely interesting during supper in which our food was generally hotter than a PB & J sandwhich. we would cook the food, clean up the dishes and, on one particular night it was me standing 20 ft away from the van with the food in my hand as i spun around in circles (eyes closed as much as possible to limit the flies landing on my eyeballs) to avoid the flies becoming part of our meals as anika opened the doors to the van. it was then - and only then - that we would bolt as fast as possible to the opened van doors, bowls of food in hand, and jump in the van and shut the doors in one fluid motion... our bodies in a full sweat. we got so good that we would only have about 3 flies in the van at one time or another. that and eating there wasn't too bad as we would then be sweating out all the fats of our food as quickly as we could shovel the grub into our mouths as it was so hot and humid in our metal box. once finished our meals we would open the doors and stumble out gasping for some fresh and, ironically enough, "cool" air to breathe. this was our nightly ritual.
thirdly - become as skilled as possible in the art of fly-killing. every night as we got ready for bed. after spraying the inside of the van with raid (killing all the bugs already on the inside) and dousing ourselves with bugspray (which is supposed to limit the black fly attraction to us) we would hop into our cosey home and settle down to read our books. inbetween chapters we would focus our attention on killing the remaining flies within our tiny environment. i feel we have become so good at killing them with our hands that i am debating if i should put this under my "other skills" section of my resume.
so there was the flies - they took up a lot of our time, energy and focus while out in the outback. but then there was the other stuff too. there was the vaste landscapes of what would appear to be a whole lot of nothing, but anika and i learned to see the beauty in it. even just the amazing array of colors in the dirt throughout the desert put us in a state of awe. then there was the many different plants - looking so soft and inviting, but were mostly quite hard and rough once up close. we climbed mountains, viewed dried out trees, watched kangaroos hop along the road, avoided cows roaming the highway and successfully drove 4WD down the most isolated dirt roads in the outback. we saw some of the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets, spotted the most unusual birdlife and even got to see some really cool rocks.
and by rocks - i refer to the most famous ayers rock of the outback. it is a sacred rock of which the aboriginal people of australia hold a lot of spiritual meaning to it. anika and i drove to the gate of the national park, the rock set in the background of the landscape, and - when we realized we would have to pay $25 each to get in to see it - we turned around and opted to stay 80km away at a free campsite of which we could view mt. conner in the distance. aside from the random emu who came to eat some of our onion and would not leave when i tried to shoo it away with a spatula (apparently a small plastic stick is no match for a bird who's head comes up to my shoulder) the campsite was pretty awesome. plus mt. conner we thought was nicer to look at anyway.
we also saw the devil's marbles (and i have yet to figure out how these rocks got to be like this), hiked a part of the larapinta trail (west macdonnell range near alice springs) and swam in a swimming hole under the shade of the mountain gorges. we went to see a lake that was more like a big mud puddle and faught for our lives on a trail inhabited by spiders that looked as though they could take our heads off. we even managed to shower off our grimy bodies once in a while.
and we have made it. all the way to darwin. it almost seems like a dream - as though i could pinch myself and wake up somewhere entirely different. but we are here - the last major stop before we get to broome... a mere 2200km away. we're so close i can almost taste it. and it tastes like salty water.
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