A dingo took your sandal?
Listening to old tapes (beach boys, eagles) or a rigged up ipod, drinking iced coffe out of a carton, eating cold soup out of a can opened with pliers, in a beater '91 Ford Falcon station wagon, always looking forward to the next sunset and the always clear night sky that follows, sleeping outside in just a sleeping bag, searching for Ayers rock, searching for the Breakaways and a little town called Pimba where you can spin and see a dead flat horizen for 360 degrees, passing road train Semi trucks with 3 to 4 trailers on a 2 lane highway on a road with no speed limit, cooking my own meat on the barbie, foiled by the dingo that took Forrest's sandals; not to much to fill your head except open space, earth colors, and animal crossing signs, and when taking a shower is therapeudic you know you've traveled 3500 km through the Outback of Australia.
Relative to other circumstances, we're not roughing it too bad, but it has been marvelous to spend a few days when you just look forward to sunrises/sets, stars at night, and driving through peace- the boonies of the red center.
Ayer's Rock. You may have seen pictures of this before, maybe not, but it is a gigantic rock in the middle of approximately nowhere. We got to it and took about two hours to walk around it the first day. The local Aboriginals actually call it "Uluru". We figured when the white men settled the area and found it some guy said, "That's a big arse rock!" in Aussie drawl and the guy writing stuff down on the map figured he said, "big ayer's rock". The Aboriginals don't really want you to climb this rock but the next morning when Forrest said we was gonna climb it, I couldn't let my mate (aussie for buddy or friend) go alone.
We followed a chain rail fence up the first part and then I followed Forrest up the part with no gaurdrail, or net or anything that would catch you falling. It was pretty smooth until we crested a part mid-way up with sustained winds howling through so hard that you could lean forward it the windforce would hold you up. I most certainly was about to panzy out when Forrest smiled and said it would be alright and kept going. Somehow we made it safely to the top of this rock and it was truly amazing. Many thanks to Forrest or I wouldn't have done it.
For tracking purposes we've been: Darwin-Tenant Creek-Devil's Marbles-Alice Springs-Ayer's Rock-Coober Peady-Pimba-Adelaide and today we drove through the Great Ocean Highway which is a road that runs along the bottom of Austraila's coast to Melbourne. Beautiful beaches and waves off cliffed shorelines that separate the ocean from farmland. Postcard material and reminded me of NZ.
We'll be in Melbourne for the next 3 or 4 days. Currently we are investigating the Australian people to determine why they are so friendly. It's truly amazing- from gas station workers to DMV clerks to students to business people young and old - they all will drop whatever they are doing just to inquire how they can help you out. More on that later. We also bought classic Aussie hats- Forrest has an "Akubra" and I bought one that is "Jackaroo" brand. Most excellent those hats are.
Relative to other circumstances, we're not roughing it too bad, but it has been marvelous to spend a few days when you just look forward to sunrises/sets, stars at night, and driving through peace- the boonies of the red center.
Ayer's Rock. You may have seen pictures of this before, maybe not, but it is a gigantic rock in the middle of approximately nowhere. We got to it and took about two hours to walk around it the first day. The local Aboriginals actually call it "Uluru". We figured when the white men settled the area and found it some guy said, "That's a big arse rock!" in Aussie drawl and the guy writing stuff down on the map figured he said, "big ayer's rock". The Aboriginals don't really want you to climb this rock but the next morning when Forrest said we was gonna climb it, I couldn't let my mate (aussie for buddy or friend) go alone.
We followed a chain rail fence up the first part and then I followed Forrest up the part with no gaurdrail, or net or anything that would catch you falling. It was pretty smooth until we crested a part mid-way up with sustained winds howling through so hard that you could lean forward it the windforce would hold you up. I most certainly was about to panzy out when Forrest smiled and said it would be alright and kept going. Somehow we made it safely to the top of this rock and it was truly amazing. Many thanks to Forrest or I wouldn't have done it.
For tracking purposes we've been: Darwin-Tenant Creek-Devil's Marbles-Alice Springs-Ayer's Rock-Coober Peady-Pimba-Adelaide and today we drove through the Great Ocean Highway which is a road that runs along the bottom of Austraila's coast to Melbourne. Beautiful beaches and waves off cliffed shorelines that separate the ocean from farmland. Postcard material and reminded me of NZ.
We'll be in Melbourne for the next 3 or 4 days. Currently we are investigating the Australian people to determine why they are so friendly. It's truly amazing- from gas station workers to DMV clerks to students to business people young and old - they all will drop whatever they are doing just to inquire how they can help you out. More on that later. We also bought classic Aussie hats- Forrest has an "Akubra" and I bought one that is "Jackaroo" brand. Most excellent those hats are.
posted by Michael Dix at 8:10 AM
2 Comments:
Hey, MD! Just got your blog address...glad to hear it's going well and that you guys are having an awesome time! take lots of pictures, and i look forward to hearing all about it (over a meal of Texas de Brazil?). You the man!
Looks like you got a pretty solid taste of China- especially that part about following that dude through the dark alleys and stuff- that brought back some memories...
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