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From Carnarvon, we continue to travel down the west coast to Perth.

On the road to Kalbarri, we come across an echidna – the first we’ve seen in the wild.

He waddles into his burrow to escape Maria’s photographic harassment.

Kalbarri looks wonderful, but there is no place to be had in any caravan park. It turns out to be a school holiday of some kind. We carry on to the next town, Port Gregory, with its strikingly pink lake.

As we get further south, we see broad fields of wheat. This is a welcome surprise, after seeing little but rocks, dry scrubby bush, and spinifex grasses for a few thousand kilometers.

We wonder how they keep the kangaroos out.

Geraldton is a pleasant small city. It has a port from which a lot of the surrounding grain gets exported.

Geraldton has a moving monument to the men of the HMAS Sydney II, a warship lost with all hands in 1941.

Geraldton is also the home of the Museum of Geraldton. Like most of the museums we visit here, it is nearly new and excellent. Among the exhibits is a 3D film about the discovery of the Sydney II on the ocean floor in 2008, as well as the German ship HSK Kormoran; both ships sank in the engagement. The wrecks lie in 2,500 metres of water, 20km apart, about 200km west of Shark Bay.

The soundtrack is Arvo Pärt’s Für Alina, which is so achingly apt for the film it almost hurts.

We stay on Sunset Beach.

It’s nice.

We walk around town, but the streets are nearly deserted. The National Rugby League Grand Finals are on, and a large part of the Australian population is glued to a TV screen. This phenomenon always puts me in mind of Lynn Miles’s ‘Hockey Night in Canada‘. If you don’t share the mania for the national sport, prepare to feel a little alienated.

We head down the scenic ocean route to Perth.

Near the town of Lancelin are enormous white sand dunes that look like snow.

Or sugar.

We arrive in the bright lights of Perth. Similar to our trip to Sydney, it takes some adjusting to be back in urban Australia again.

We make a day trip to nearby Rottnest Island.

Rottnest is the home of thousands of quokkas, which are as cute as all get-out.

It’s also the home of large King’s skinks.

Here, a skink and a quokka meet face to face.

Quokkas are endearingly unafraid of people. They browse contentedly on the grass and tend to ignore humans.

We rent bicycles and tour the island.

There are signs that say ‘Don’t touch or feed the wildlife’. However, I can’t resist a quick illicit petting.

Another day, we visit nearby Fremantle.

Our main destination is the wonderful Western Australia Maritime Museum.

A star attraction of the museum is its submarine tour.

Our guide, Keith, is a retired submariner. He served on this very boat (a sub is always a ‘boat’, and not a ‘ship’ apparently), HMAS Ovens, for 11 months, during his career.

There’s a world of difference between listening to a barely-motivated guide and one that has actually served in submarines for 20 years. Especially one with an Australian sense of humour and typical Aussie casualness to authority.

We learn that everyone on board is familiar with all the sub’s systems. To the point where many tasks can be done in complete darkness.

We also visit the Art Gallery of Western Australia. In another manifestation of serendipity, there is an exhibit of Sydney Nolan’s Ned Kelly series.

I recently finish Peter Carey’s ‘True History of the Kelly Gang‘, so coming across this is timely.

I react to one painting in particular much as I did to the Elioth Gruner work in Sydney.

It’s ‘The Butterfly’, by Freda Robertshaw.

There’s just something about this one that grabs me.

Sight or  Insight of the Day  – West coast to Perth

A few days ago was October 3. It’s our one-year anniversary of leaving Ottawa.

In one of those odd coincidences, the day we realized it was the third of October, I was wearing exactly the same clothes as in this photo.

Who knows what adventures lie ahead?

We continue our northwestern journey from Exmouth to Carnarvon.

We like Exmouth and the surrounding area a lot. From atop Vlamingh Head, we watch whales spouting offshore.

Exmouth’s most famous feature is its array of antennae,  originally built to communicate with submarines and ships in the Indian Ocean.

Apparently this is done by satellites now, but this array is still in use by the Australian navy.

At the entrance to the Harold E. Holt base is the prow of a submarine with the hump on the front where the sonar equipment resides.

Virtually nothing existed here before the sixties. The United States built the town from scratch to support the base.

Exmouth is also famous for its whale sharks.

In the season – March to August – you can swim with them, if you’re so inclined. It’s gonna cost you, though.

Instead of defense folks, Exmouth is now a popular place for retired Aussies to move to.

In front of the impressive Ningaloo Visitors Centre are these interesting planters. In its military heyday, armour-piercing rounds are fired at centimeters-thick steel plate in nearby training grounds. These are now recycled into civic furniture.

Nearby are the stunning Ningaloo Coast and Cape Range National Park.

This is the kind of snorkeling we like: step off the beach into the bay and you are immediately surrounded by coral and thousands of insanely colourful fish.

There are shipwrecks galore along this coast.

You don’t have to go far to get away from it all.

We go to the end of Cape Range National Park and hike the Yardie Creek gorge.

It’s OK, but too crowded for us.

Driving down to Carnarvon, we come across a mamma emu and her young one crossing the highway.

We stop for lunch at the Overlander roadhouse.

Maria likes these flowers against the dusty red dirt.

Our first stop in Carnarvon is the Space and Technology Museum.

Carnarvon is a long-time space tracking station.

Sight ot Insight of the Day – Exmouth to Carnarvon

At the Yardie Creek gorge parking lot, we see this cool world-traveling van from Switzerland.

If we didn’t have Matilda, it would be the perfect size vehicle for us.

As they often are, an itinerary is displayed. These people take a very interesting route to get here.

There are a lot of places with heart-attack-inducing driving conditions on this map. Our hats go off to the travelers.

After the fleshpots of Sydney, we are happy to be back in the outback again.

The northwest of Australia is known for its picturesque bottle trees. Essentially  baobabs, like in Africa.

The endless vistas and empty roads suit us down to the ground.

After returning from Sydney, we spend a last evening with Lauretta at Darwin’s  Deck Chair Cinema. While lounging on beanbags at the front, one of the DCC’s famous possums casually strolls over Lauretta’s pillow and finishes off her dish of Middle Eastern salad – mere centimetres away – with the aplomb and casualness of a house cat.

We stop at Victoria River, NT overnight before arriving in the state of Western Australia the next day. One of the first roadhouses we come to has a chute for disposing of live cane toads, a real pest here.

We flee Hall’s Creek early in the morning of my birthday after – barely – escaping the predations of larcenous locals around the caravan park. We stop for breakfast at a roadside halt that is covered with corella parrots.

We never tire of seeing parrots everywhere here; we’re such tourists. There’s something uplifting about parrots.

We arrive in Broome, WA, a relaxed sort of town.

After learning about local history at the Broome Museum – the pearl industry, dinosaur footprints, and aircraft relics from WWII Japanese air raids – we head to Cable Beach.

The next day, we spend an unexpected night at the Roebuck Plains roadhouse caravan park when the road south to Port Hedland is closed because of a bushfire.

Eventually, we carry on to Eighty Mile Beach.

Like the beaches of Broome, the waters of Eighty Mile Beach are a lovely turquoise.

I recall stopping at this pub my previous time in Australia. I got a multi-day lift with someone named Risto (a Finnish name). He worked at the Goldsworthy iron ore mine. He drove a green VW 1600 fastback. It never ceases to amaze how the brain retains such trivia when sometimes I can’t remember which day of the week it is.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Back in the Outback

We see a shark. Close up.

Just when we are finally reveling in the the tropical heat of Darwin, it’s time for an 11-day Sydney interlude. We reluctantly leave Matilda in the long-term parking at Darwin airport and fly across the country to the still-wintry urban frenzy of Sydney. Our niece, Julia, is visiting from Canada.

We look forward to seeing Julia again. After she spends a few days in Hong Kong and Macao, we arrange to meet in Sydney. Julia is always good at scouting out excellent Airbnb properties. This time is no exception – we move into a quaint renovated old home in the gentrified neighbourhood of Pyrmount.

Maria and Julia go out on the town.

The Sydney Fish Market is a few minutes walk from our place.

Julia really, really wants to interact with some koalas. We attend a ‘breakfast with the koalas’ event at Wild Life Sydney Zoo.

There are lots of koalas. They’re all predictably adorable. You just want to squish them. But no touching allowed.

I can cross ‘pet a wombat’ off my bucket list.

Julia and I clown around at the wombat enclosure.

Fun fact: wombat dung is cube-shaped.

Julia and a wallaby share highlighting secrets.

We rent a car and drive to the viniferous Hunter Valley. We visit half a dozen wineries by bike.

Back in Sydney, we decide to eat in one evening for a change. Maria prepares some kangaroo steaks.

One night, we go to the Sydney Opera House to see…an opera! Rossini’s The Turk in Italy, with the setting delightfully transposed to 1950’s Italy.

Everyone has a good time. This production is very colourful.

On another day, we rent a car and go for an overnight trip to the Blue Mountains.

Julia finds us a four-bedroom house in Katoomba on Airbnb. It’s a bargain at 94 AUD per night.

Next day, we walk the misty Jamison Valley at the foot of the Three Sisters.

Back in Sydney the next day just in time to see a pop-up Globe production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Unlike the real reconstructed Globe in London – which we have had the good fortune to attend – this one is not permanent. Hence, pop-up.

It’s a New Zealand troupe performing. Shakespeare’s ‘rude mechanicals’ are dressed as tradies (Australian for ‘tradespersons’). The fairies are Maori warriors, delivering most of their lines in Maori.

It is hilarious. Just like 400 years ago.

Maria and Julia spend an afternoon at Bondi Beach while I stay home and binge on Netflix movies.

That evening, we meet at a Malaysian restaurant and walk home.

Maria and Julia surprise me one night with a slightly early birthday celebration.

We visit the Museum of Contemporary Arts. We see a retrospective of works  by John Mawurndjul.

All are on bark.

All have unbelievably fine cross-hatching work that we learn is known as ‘rarrk‘. Try using that in your next game of Scrabble.

Alas, the day arrives when Julia flies home. We really enjoy spending time with her.

The next day – our last in Sydney for now – is sunny and warm, the first Spring-like day so far here.

It’s been fun, Sydney, but we’ll be happy to get back to the wide open spaces again.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Sydney interlude

We mention several times that one thing we enjoy about traveling is discovering new things. This happens again when we re-visit the Museum of Sydney. There is a wonderful temporary exhibit: Bohemian Harbour; Artists of Lavender Bay‘.

Chief among these is Brett Whiteley, well-known in Australia but a new name for us.

We spend our last morning visiting his studio in the neighbourhood of Surry Hills.

The lower level contains one of his masterworks, the multi-panel piece ‘Alchemy‘.

The upper level is much as he left it. A nice touch is the music playing throughout the studio, selections from Whiteley’s collection. Most of it is familiar from my own music-listening era.

I flip through his CDs and LPs. One album makes me look twice – the Dire Straits live album ‘Alchemy’.

Sure enough, the cover art is the work ‘Alchemy’ that we just examined downstairs.

Heroin was Whiteley’s eventual downfall. This work of his sums up nicely what heroin can do to your sense of perception.

In the afternoon, we visit Lavender Bay itself.

It’s definitely not cheap any more. Sydney suffers from the same pathologically overinflated real estate prices as Toronto and Vancouver, for much the same reasons.

Whiteley’s ex-wife Wendy still lives at 1 Walker Street. She has spent a quarter century building a beautiful garden – open to all – below her house.

Now, where did we leave off? Oh yes, in Kakadu National Park, on our way to Darwin.

We see more rock art and stunning formations at Ubirr.

It’s a short drive up to Darwin.

Darwin, like other places I remember, is much less of a frontier town than it used to be.

We visit the Flying Doctor museum.

These days, the majority of its fleet of aircraft are Pilatus, of Swiss manufacture.

Stoke’s Hill Wharf is a popular place to hang out.

I look forward to reaching Darwin to reconnect with an old friend, Lauretta. I first met Lauretta on a kibbutz in Israel. She was influential in my decision to visit Australia many years ago. A few years later, she convinced me to go to Africa for the first time, where she worked as a teacher in Selebe Phikwe, Botswana.

Lauretta – originally from Sydney –  is now a long-time resident of Darwin. She owns and manages a very successful shop selling aboriginal art and used books.

One reason for its success, I’m sure, is that Lauretta is very simpatico with aboriginal people. (She’s always had this gift, which is probably why she’s been comfortable living in remote places for much of her life.)

We go for dinner and watch the sundown on Stoke’s Hill Wharf.

At Mindil Beach, there’s a popular sundown market twice a week.

Lauretta has a regular stall here as well. We stand amazed at how busy Lauretta’s stall is. At one point, the transactions are non-stop. Still, she makes time to socialize.

Hundreds gather to watch the sun go down.

When in Rome…

The prize exhibit is a B-52 bomber, one of the few on display outside of the United States.

‘I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons…’
– Leonard Cohen

It takes up most of the interior. It is gigantic.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Darwin

Lauretta mentions that she has a friend nearby with a wallaby joey in her care. This we have to see.

Lauretta’s friend brings him out nestled in a cloth pouch, where he spends most of his time.

His mother was struck and killed by a car. Someone checked the mother’s pouch and Freddy was still alive inside.

Lauretta’s friend is a certified wildlife carer, not an eccentric amateur animal rescuer. Still, she admits it’ll be hard to pass him on to the next phase of rehabilitation back to the wild.

He is unbelievably cute. We spend ten or fifteen minutes fussing over him, which he clearly likes.

We make a dash from the NT into South Australia to visit Coober Pedy. Then it’s back up the Stuart Highway from Coober Pedy to Kakadu.

(A few months ago, we posted a list of things we’ll miss about Southeast Asia. Little did we know that one item would be universal WiFi available free from virtually everywhere. Even in retrograde laggards like Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia.

WiFi is hard to come by in Australia, at least in the remote regions we find ourselves in lately. One result is these long, unwieldy blog entries at infrequent intervals. Our apologies.)

As we leave King’s Canyon, we spot these camels on the side of the road.

At one time, camels – imported from India – were the only form of transport. When roads and trains appeared, the camels were released into the wild.

In a few hours, we’re in South Australia.

Coober Pedy is famous for its opal mines. The methodology seems to be: dig a hole, check for opals, move over a few metres, repeat.

Coober Pedy has a distinctly other-worldly look.

We visit the Old Timer Mine. This mine was sealed, forgotten, then rediscovered in recent times.

This is a leftover prop spacecraft from the cheesy Vin Diesel sci-fi flick Pitch Black. The area is a popular movie location. Did we mention it’s already ‘other-worldly’?

Coober Pedy is also known for its underground dwellings.

This is to escape the intense heat.

Here’s a seam of opal in the Umoona Mine.

The main reason we hot-foot it to Coober pedy is to book two seats on the Mail Run. Basically, this is a man with a contract to deliver mail to remote cattle stations twice a week. He takes passengers.

This is the Dingo Fence. North of the fence is cattle country, south of the fence is sheep country.

We’re happy that the vehicle used is no longer a bus. These days, Peter limits his passengers to four in a comfy 4WD, with a trailer for the mail.

He is an inexhaustible supply of yarns, local knowledge, and bush folksiness.

We journey 600 kilometres from Coober Pedy to Williams Creek, up the Oodnadatta Track to Oodnadata, then back to CP.

Anna Creek Station is supposed to be the world’s largest.

This is a wall enclosing an old well on the property, the year ‘1877’ engraved in a stone.

There used to be a rail line that follows the Oodnadatta Track. It was abandoned and replaced by another route when diesel locomotives came into use.

As elsewhere in Australia, we pass though several ghost towns that were once lively boom-towns.

We reach Oodnadatta in time for dinner.

The next day, we head back north up the Stuart Highway. Stopping for a coffee at the Marla Roadhouse, we spy a road train full of camels.

(Road trains, in case you don’t know, are enormous trucks pulling three or four trailers. A common sight in outback Australia.)

Not a sight you see every day.

A rally of vintage vehicles takes place along our route. This is a vintage MG at the Erldunda Roadhouse.

We mentioned that we plan to stay overnight at the Henbury meteor craters.  This we do, for one of the most unforgettable nights of our trip.

We are the only people for a hundred kilometres around. We scavenge enough wood to enjoy a bonfire under a gazillion stars.

We stop at the Ti Tree Roadhouse and make a lunch.

We wonder if this is an example of the wry Australian sense of humour.

Nope, it’s really a freezer full of frozen kangaroo tails.

We overnight in Tennant Creek and make it as far as Daly Waters the next day. At the outskirts of Daly Waters is an airfield. This was swarming with bombers and other aircraft during WWII.

There are a surprising amount of WWII sites up here. This area was largely vacant at the time – still is – but to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, the threat of encroaching Japan overrunning one’s country concentrates the mind wonderfully.

This is also the land of ‘We of the Never Never‘. This is an Australian classic describing life in the outback at the turn of the last century on remote Elsey Station.

We visit the Katherine Gorge.

In Kakadu National Park, we see more water and greenery than we’ve seen in a month.

In Kakadu is Nourlangie Rock. Besides being a stunning formation in itself, it’s home to much Aboriginal paintings.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Coober Pedy to Kakadu

We wonder if the name ‘Kakadu’ is cognate with ‘Cockatoo’.

Apparently the answer is ‘no’. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but we’ve never seen so many cockatoos anywhere else. Of all kinds: sulphur-crested, red-tail and white-tail blacks, corellas.

I always consider how much cockatoos sell for in North American pet shops. As a squawky flock flies over head, I think ‘there goes $100,000-worth of cockatoos.’

It really is red.

Oh, wait a minute – that’s a photo of the surface of Mars. This is a photo of the Australian landscape as viewed from our maiden voyage in a helicopter.

We drive down the Stuart Highway to Alice Springs.

Alice Springs isn’t the most picturesque of towns. It’s the  closest thing to urban that we see in a while, so we spend a few days here. We visit a few museums, such as the excellent Central Australia Museum.

The Central Australian Aviation Museum tells the story of flying in the outback. It has lots of nifty aircraft, too.

These are both in the Araluen Cultural District, conveniently just across the street from our caravan park.

Megafauna Central is another impressive museum just opened in town. It features the story of big animals that used to exist until the arrival of humans in Australia, then became extinct shortly thereafter. Just like North America, where megafauna roamed the continent until the arrival of humans. Coincidence? I think not.

The grounds of our caravan park are home to birdlife galore. A flock of galahs do a Galah Quadrille on the front lawn.

(You may notice that we really like galahs.)

We want to visit the secret CIA base at Pine Gap, but can’t even find a road sign to it. No big surprise.

On the way out of town, we pass a memorial to John Flynn. John Flynn is the man who started the Flying Doctor Service in 1923, as related in another entry.

We do a loop near the West MacDonnell Range.

Along the way, we stop at these places:

We spend the night at Glen Helen.

This is the house of artist Albert Namatjira. We first hear of him at the Queensland Art Gallery. We rave about the QAG in an earlier post.

Hermannsburg itself is an interesting place.

A mission founded by hardy – or optimistic – Germans in the 1870’s.

Also home of the Hermannsburg Potters, whom we also first hear about at the Queensland Art Gallery. We consider purchasing one of their pieces but don’t find anything that matches our living-room curtains. Just kidding.

People in Hermannsburg let their stock wander free around town.

Returning to Alice Springs on our way south, we visit the Desert Park. This is a good place to see elusive denizens of the outback up close.

Like these thorny devils.

Or these beautiful red-tailed black cockatoos.

And this banded lapwing, fussing over her eggs.

Even some dingoes.

More about dingoes to come.

Heading south, we detour to visit the Henbury meteor craters.

This is a place of splendid isolation. Fifteen kilometres down a dirt track deters casual visitors.

Turns out you can camp here. We plan to do so on our way back north. No amenities but an outhouse (delightfully known here as a ‘dunny’).

On the Lasseter Highway. People sometimes mistake their first glimpse of Mount Connor for Ayer’s Rock.

We spend a few days around Ayer’s Rock (or Uluru).

A quote from the Lonely Planet Australia guide:

‘There are some world-famous sights touted as unmissable that
end up being a let-down when you actually see them. And then
there’s Uluru: nothing can really prepare you for the immensity, grandeur, changing colour and stillness of ‘the Rock’. It really is a sight that will sear itself onto your mind.‘

Different sections of the rock have their own characteristics.

We also go to the Olgas (Kata Tjuta) a couple of times.

We do some hiking in the area.

Eventually we pack up and drive a few hundred KMs to King’s Canyon.

These are wave ripples in what used to be the bottom of a sea.

An exciting development – we are offered a heavily discounted helicopter ride. Neither of us have been in a helicopter before.

And off we go.

We spot Matilda in the caravan park. Of course, she’s parked sideways when everyone else parks straight in.

Aboriginal hamlet of Lilla. Population 15.

Nothing like a ride in a helicopter to drive home the vastness and the emptiness of this part of the world.

A Tale of Two Dingoes – Red Centre

At the King’s Canyon caravan park, we notice several signs about dingoes.

There are more signs around the park.

They even have anti-dingo gates in the ablutions blocks.

We think this is slight overkill. We haven’t seen any dingoes in the wild so far.

Imagine our surprise when we leave the car park at King’s Canyon to find a dingo casually loping along beside the road.

The same evening, we see another in our caravan park. It strolls across our path at a distance of three metres – twice – and pays us no attention at all.

This is interesting, because we just downloaded and watched A Cry in the Dark the previous evening.

We leave Queensland for the Northern Territory. First point of interest we come across are the Devil’s Marbles.

While still in Cloncurry, Queensland, we visit John Flynn Place. John Flynn is the man who started the Flying Doctor Service here in 1923.

An interesting sign on the door of the restrooms in the garden.

Also in the garden – noisy flocks of corellas.

Cloncurry is a bustling place – a new zinc mine opened nearby in 2017. The caravan park we stay at is home to scores – maybe hundreds – of workers. There’s an air of dynamism and full employment and money sloshing around.

Bravo, Australia. I get the feeling that if anyone proposes a mine – or any other extractive activity – in Canada these days, people start squealing like their hair’s on fire. Don’t know where they think the money that comes out of the money taps comes from.

Speaking of mines: our next stop down the slab is Mt. Isa.

Mt. Isa’s raison d’être also lies in mining.

We take an underground mine tour. Also underground is this hospital.

After the Japanese bombed Darwin in WWII, people feared metals-rich Mt. Isa could be next. So the hospital built an annex underground, with the help of the local miners.

Both tours are led by local retired miners. Interesting characters, to be sure.

We cross into the Northern Territory and overnight in Barkly Homestead.

Maria wants a photo of a ‘Watch for kangaroos’ sign.

Ever since driving inland, this is the routine: every few hundred kilometres is a roadhouse, with a hotel/shop/caravan park/fuel etc.

In between is a lot of nothing. It’s a good thing we both love empty landscapes. The emptier the better.

This is the telegraph station at Barrow Creek. This is one of a series, some of which are still around.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Northern Territory

An axiom of mine is, ‘Don’t say that you’ll never be in a particular location again that you’ve been to before, however unlikely.’

We come to Three Ways, where the Stuart Highway that goes north-south and joins Adelaide to Darwin meets the highway that stretches east to the coast of Queensland.

This intersection has changed surprisingly little since I spent the better part of a day here 38 years ago while hitch-hiking around Australia.

I spent seven hours here waiting for a lift. I would sit on my rucksack, reading a book. When a vehicle came along – every half-hour or so – I would stand up and try to look non-threatening. I eventually landed a ride all the way to Townsville, if I remember correctly.

How times have changed. ‘…even children get older, and I’m getting older, too.’

We move further into the Queensland outback.

We tour the Cobbold Gorge.

As at the Undara lava tubes, the original owners/lessors  of the property struck a deal with the government to develop natural attractions in return for giving over large parts of their property to become parkland. Tourism is probably a safer bet than cattle raising out here.

We overnight in the tiny hamlet of Georgetown. Evening brings a flock of galahs in  the wires overhead.

On the road east next day. In some places, the highway narrows to a single lane. Approaching vehicles both move half onto the gravel.

Maria is really tickled by these signs in particular.

We stop for lunch in Croydon, another former mining centre.

Our orders of fish and chips contain enormous hunks of barramundi.

We continue to Normanton. From there to Karumba Point, on the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The road between Normanton and Point Karumba is flat as a pancake.

We see many Brolga cranes, but as soon as we stop to take a photo, they take off.

Behind the caravan park are mobs of wallabies. Some of them like coming up to the fence to study the humans inside.

Karumba Point has a wonderful, end-of-the-world feel to it.

It’s a popular thing here to gather at the shore and watch the sun go down.

We head south down the Matilda Highway to Cloncurry.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Queensland outback

In the nearly four decades since I was last here, colloquial Australian English has evolved into a broad-vowelled dialect that can be hard for outsiders to decipher. I’m reminded of an episode in one of Paul Theroux’s books in which he shares a compartment on an Indian train with a group of young locals. It takes ten minutes for him to realize that the group is actually conversing in English.

For example, we go on a mine tour in Mt. Isa. At the end, Maria asks me ‘What’s a ‘fayday’? She tells me the guide has repeatedly instructed participants not to forget our ‘faydays’ before we leave.

Eventually we learn that the word is ‘photos‘: everyone gets a photo of themselves taken at the mine entrance.

From Cairns, we make plans to head for the Queensland interior. We drive north to Port Douglas.

Port Douglas is too crowded for us. This must be peak season for visitors.  We decide to travel a bit further north to Mossman.

Before we leave PD, we sample some meat pies for lunch. One is crocodile pie and one is kangaroo pie. The crust is stamped accordingly.

Mossman is much less frenzied. We visit the Mossman Gorge.

Back at the interpretation centre, we spot this enormous spider. I ask Maria to put her hand near it for comparison. She obliges.

On the other side of a mountain range, the land changes from rain forest to fertile farmland. We pass though patches of forest with signs to look out for Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroos. We don’t see any, though.

It doesn’t take long for the terrain to become Outback-y. This is the track we take to the Kalkani Crater.

We climb to the crater’s rim

There are wallabies around the trail.

We camp in Undara Lodge. We awake to two galahs squawking overhead.

The hawk flying by at the same moment was a happy accident.

Undara is known for its lava tubes.

We carry on to the remote hamlet of Einasleigh. Lots of red dirt, like Prince Edward Island.

We have lunch and a beer at Einasleigh’s sole hotel.

Surprisingly, the young woman behind the bar is from Boston. The many people in Australia with work visas are encouraged to work at least three months in remote locations.

The draw here is the Copperfield Gorge.

Sight or Insight of the Day – Queensland interior

A guide tells us that the thousands of pensioners – ‘grey nomads’ – traveling around Australia these days are improving the economy of the outback. They actually pay money for things like guided tours and stay in nicer resorts. This in turn creates jobs for locals so everybody doesn’t pack their tents and move to Sydney or Melbourne. Nice to know that the boomer generation is good for something.