Kakadu
We turn right off the Stuart Highway and set out for Kakadu National Park, a place that is heaving with wildlife, important cultural sites and a place where the year is measured in six seasons. We set out to explore it on foot, on the water and from a vehicle.
We join other camera-carrying tourists on a cruise of Yellow Water to see lazy saltwater crocs smiling at us from the murky water, marvel at the wing span of the white bellied sea eagle and spot azure kingfishers in the pandanus lining the waters. We peer from a hide at honking magpie geese, Jabirus with beaks that can pierce the hide of a croc, and big footed water birds.
We walk up into rocky outcrops and look up at ochre kangaroos being chased by spear-carrying hunters, barramundi, crocs and rainbow serpent.
We have a scarey exchange with a local at the Jabiru petrol station - an error of judgement on our part that results in our ‘friend’ threatening to call police and teach us some manners in colourful threatening language.
We jump into a truck and cross over into Arnhem Land where we spend the morning on Oenpelli Rock with local guide Simon who tells us about lightning man and the creation mother and the rainbow serpent and shows us bones that have been treated with ochre to ensure they lie undisturbed by animals. After lunch we bump and bounce into the stone country to climb into the rocky escarpment and look out over the pale blues and greens of a billabong buzzing with bird life.
We return to Arnhem Land again to attend a cultural open day and see dancers and aussie rules football matches and basket weaving. Families with prams mix with politicians and locals drift by followed by their skanky skinny dogs. On the way home there are crocs milling around at the crossing, which has disappeared under a high tide. We sit and watch 4WDs run the gauntlet until we are convinced that the Corolla will make it with her nose above water.
West McDonnell Ranges
I pick up The Lion of Flanders from Alice Airport and head to the West McDonnell Ranges.
The Lion is a veteran of a walk around Mt Blanc, a summit of Kilimanjaro and has walked 100kms in a day on more than one occasion. I on the other hand have represented Frankston District Tennis Association against Traralgon District Tennis Association in the 12 & Under Boys Singles. I won a rain effected match 6/3. Despite my hefty sporting credentials I was a little unsure if I would be able to keep up with the Lion in the bush-walking stakes.
We arrive at Ormiston Gorge and the tent is up and beers are in hand by mid-afternoon. We’re in Namatjira country and almost all of what we are exploring Albert would have painted at some stage.
We take in breath-taking views of Ormiston Gorge and Pound. The next day we cycle the 50km round trip to Redbank Gorge. The last 5kms being particularly bumpy and dusty. Redbank Gorge is well worth the ride but most opt for a 4WD. On the way back I struggle into a head-wind. Melissa’s bike is nice but its far too small for me and its hard to get comfy.* I keep my complaining to a bare minimum and let Jan do most of the work and stay on his wheel. Just like I do when riding with Richard… Not that he rides anymore. 
After a couple more days and a few more walks the beer supply runs dry and we head back to Alice. Aboriginal artworks are admired and purchased as are pizzas and packets of chips. Before we know it we are back where it all started, at Alice Airport where the Lion has a plane waiting to return him to his Lioness in Melbourne.
*It was clearly the bike’s fault. Not my lack of fitness.
The life of Bernie
Bernie sets up camp round 1pm. He’s traveling by himself because his wife died 10 years ago, this makes him unique among the gaggles of grey nomad couples currently in the caravan park.
Later in the day Bernie and I have time to burn so I armed with a foldy chair and a couple of beers I walk over for a chat. Bernie’s retired now. He retired a few months after his wife was suddenly taken from him. It’s something he is never going to come to terms with and who can blame him?
He shows me pictures, tells me stories and I listen. It’s great.
We get hungry so I hunt for fish ‘n’ chips while Bernie gathers the fresh bread for us to assemble some chip buddies. He tells me he loves fresh bread because when he was a child living through WW2 his family could only afford one loaf a week.
Morning comes and Bernie is off early, he’s not one to sit around. I hear him getting ready to leave so I drag myself out of the tent to say goodbye. We shake hands and wish each other a safe trip and that we hope to see each other on the road again. I hope we do.
Heading to the warmer north
I return to Alice via Brisbane (and the hospitality of lovely Michelle and Rob) accompanied my brother Tim. I am to swap places with Jan, who boards the plane to return to Melbourne and Helen, and resume my place in the co-pilot seat of the Corolla. And Tim will accompany us to Darwin. All three of us are excited at the idea of warmer temperatures and unknown sites and scenery.
We have heard that Tennant Creek has less than a lot to offer visitors and so aim for Whycliffe Well on our first leg - a strange place that has a pub and is described in the book as ‘quirky’. The grounds of the petrol station/caravan park/pub/Chinese restaurant are dotted with large green men - papier mache aliens, a couple of hulks, a masked Phantom (who the sculptor had elected to endow generously) and even a youthful Elvis (both not green) stand sentry beside cages of birds and rabbits and a run containing emu mothers and a stripey sprinty chick.
Our next stop is the curious Devils Marbles - an extensive scattering of large, orange spherical rocks that balance on top of one another and occasionally teeter and fall and crack into perfect hemispheres.
Mataranka is famous for its thermal springs and is the site of the story recorded in Jeanie Gunn’s early 20th century book We of the Never Never. The homestead and huts were reconstructed on site in the eighties for the film starring Angela Punch-McGregor. It is also the first place we might see a croc. We know we are north of the Tropic of Capricorn as the rivers, though dry, are lined with palms and there are signs at each waterhole outlining the croc management strategy for keeping saltwater nasties at bay and letting only their ‘harmless’ freshwater cousins into the drink. I am accustomed to turquoise council pools and at home at the beach, but very wary of any waterway with a silty bottom that the swimmer cannot see and so stay out of the ‘at your own risk’ swimming spots.
Next stop Katherine - a large centre of 11,000 people located on the gorgeous Katherine River and 29 kilometres from the deep green waters of the Katherine Gorge. We spend two idyllic days paddling heavy canoes along the gorges, fighting off the cheeky scavenging wallabies and watching the sky become hazy with the smoke of nearby bushfires. The walking tracks are closed so we are forced to read in the shade and lounge by the pool.
Adventure side trip
Our adventure is interrupted briefly with me taking a side trip to the chilly high country of New England, New South Wales, and Ben welcoming the arrival in Alice of a guest from Melbourne.
I climb onto a plane (tearfully) in Alice, waving goodbye to my fellow adventurer, to travel to Brisbane over the ochre colours and strange remnants of waterways of the centre of the continent that gradually gives way to the purple/black soil of Queensland. Disembark in Brissy and then board a Greyhound bus for an 8-hour sit to Armidale. I am going home to the land of minus eight and heavy frosts to celebrate my father’s 70th birthday. Pale and thinner, Phil makes a magnificent speech to 40-plus friends and relatives at a 10-hour lunch-into-evening party.
Ben is joined by Jan, who has flown to Alice to bike and walk through the gorge country west of the city in the MacDonnell Ranges. They set out for their adventure in the Corolla and report mountain bike rides in deep bull dust, see ochre pits (from which colour was derived to create art on the walls of caves around Uluru) and eat many many beans.
Alice Springs
Alice seems to elicit as many positive recommendations as negative anecdotes from those who have been there before us. We move in for 8 whole days of finding out for ourselves.
There’s a grassy campsite (pro) and a bike path into town (pro). There’s a big indigenous population who don’t seem to have enough to do (con), as they hang around the banks of the very dry Todd River and sit on the green lawns outside the council buildings. Todd Mall is lined with art galleries selling local indigenous art to tourists, and on the edge of town we find arts centres that provide artists with the materials to create beautiful things and sell those creations, ensuring that most of the price of that artwork to go to the artist (pro, pro).
Alice Springs is intersected by the MacDonnell Ranges - high pale orange rocky east-west formations on the edge of town. We cycle west through arid exposed country to Simpsons Gap to dig for water stuff under the dry sandy riverbed. Haul ourselves up Anzac Hill on knobbly tyres to overlook the town and watch the Ghan depart for Darwin. Walk into Standley Chasm at midday to see it glowing orange.
There are probably more galleries in Alice than in Melbourne (a town that prides itself on its artistic output). We wander through the original and clever creations on show at the annual Alice Springs Beanie Festival. We buy artworks at arts centres where a chat is thrown in for free. I choose works by a blind basket weaver and a elderly painter. Ben selects a friendly gecko sculpture made by the Tjampi weavers and a slender panel of precise dots and a story of EMU??? Dreaming.
We sip schooners of NT Draught, watch the locals and listen to their selections on the juke box at the Town and Country. Try to chat to a local cowboy who launches a ’shock the city folk’ campaign. Go to the movies. And check out the old Telegraph Station - a lifeline in the early days of the settlement that connected the country to the services and supplies of the city. There’s more and it all convinced us that Alice was a great place.
Outback facts
- When camping the difference between 2 and -2 degrees is astounding
- There are an estimated 12,000,000 feral cats in the Australian outback. As a result many of our native furry friends are extinct or seriously threatened.
- The Anaugu say that in dreamtime a giant dog ran across the face of Uluru. Its footprints are still there today.
- Uluru is red because it is rusting. It is a mixture of sandstone and iron
- Wedge-Tailed Eagles and Thorny Devils are Australia’s coolest animals. Fact!
- Many World Youth Day pilgrims climbed Uluru
- When a drunk Stock Musterer, sporting a cowboy hat asks you what job you think he does its best you don’t say Tax Accountant.
- Its against the law to take pornography to Uluru. Not that I have any or anything.
- Bull dust gets into everything. Tip - Store your camera and other electronic valuables in a zip lock plastic bag.
- Spinifex grass looks cool but its ends are sharper than you think and can give you splinters
- According to a local the air in the Australian outback is as dry as a “dead dingo’s donga”.
- You need a full tank of petrol to go “just up the road”.
- Once we paid $2.23 a litre for unleaded petrol.
- If you drive past a Wedge-Tailed Eagle who is enjoying a kanga carcass it will stare you down as if to say, “If you want a piece of this you have to get by me first.”
- Being able to watch the Tour de France when you’re in the Australian outback is a strong benefit of globalisation
commas for Connex
Can anyone spare a comma for Connex?
Always avoid ambiguity (and alliteration).