Our Trip to the
Middle of Australia
by Dan & Bri
The flight to Adelaide was pretty uneventful, just like
Adelaide itself*.
Once arrived, we picked up a Toyota Kluger - a big 7-seater
that we'd decided to rent because you can fold the seats down and sleep in it.
After a quick stop at the shops to stock up on water and food we were off.
First stop was the Arid Lands nature park a few hours north,
where we learned about desert flora and fauna and observed some excellent
specimens, including an enthusiastic tree.
Next
was Lake Hart, an eerily beautiful dried up lake. The layer of salt made a
lovely crunching beneath our feet that reminded Brianna of snow. "It's
like snow", she said.
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| Lake Hart, SA |
As
we continued our journey, we received a lesson in supply and demand. The low
supply and high demand for fuel in the outback regions of Australia meant that
those who had the fuel could demand
that we supply lots of our money so we could get the fuel (see map below, NB prices are per litre, 1 litre is approximately 1/4 of a gallon).
About half-way between Adelaide and our target is a town named Coober Pedy, which means something like "white
man's holes" in one of the indigenous languages. The ground is rich in opals, and over the years the residents have dug thousands of holes to
look for them. Because it
gets so hot here many of the residents have burrowed underground, like large
moles. Little ventilation pipes can be seen poking up above the surface of many
of the dirt hills around town, suggesting more civilization than is apparent at
first glance.
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| Coober Pedy, SA |
After a few days of
driving, we finally arrived at the red centre, the spiritual heart of this
great land, where we walked on canyon rims,
hiked through gorges and awe-inspiring rock formations, swam in a billabong, and circumnavigated what until moments ago was thought by us to be the largest rock
in the world (it's actually the second
largest). We spotted wild kangaroos, rock wallabies, a family of emus, lots of eagles, lizards,
a snake, hundreds of tiny birds, and heard dingoes howling at night. We ate
peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, canned baked beans, trail mix, one
delicious buffet that featured cold emu meat, and tried kangaroo steak at an
award-winning restaurant (not sure what award it won but it deserved it).
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| Uluru, NT |
Then we drove down to Adelaide again and flew back to normal
life.
*jk Adelaide is actually a very interesting place and we really like it
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| Windmill at Glendambo, SA |
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| Vin Diesel's spaceship from the movie "Pitch Black" |
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| Sign in Coober Pedy |
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| The hat tree at the start of the Red Centre way |
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| Extremely artistic photo of a branch at King's Canyon (Watarrka), NT |
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| View over the desert plains from the top of King's Canyon |
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| Brianna cooking cans on an outback BBQ |
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| View of Uluru from the Kata Tjuta (Olgas) viewing area |
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| Fortunately we saw this sign before we jumped in |
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| Macdonnell ranges, NT |
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| Lizard |
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| Glen Helen Gorge, NT |
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| Glen Helen Gorge, NT |
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| Radeka's underground backpackers in Coober Pedy, SA |
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| State Library in Adelaide, SA |
