A new day had arisen. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and I was firmly tucked under the covers of my bed. Realizing that it was 8:30am and the importance of the day, I whipped myself out of bed, frantically packing my belongings. I checked out of the YHA hostel and walked towards Wicked Campervans, meeting Gal along the way.
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| Our new ride and new travel mates! |
Eli and the two German girls were waiting for us as we
arrived. Their names were Anne
(pronounced An-nee) and Alex, and they had just got back from Litchfield NP
this morning. So all five of us descended
upon the guy at the front desk, hoping to receive the go ahead to rent a
van. With a nod of his head and several
of our autographs, we succeeded in renting a van for our trip! It would span ten days and cover more than
three-thousand kilometres, stretching from Darwin to Adelaide. He led us out to our van, an Iconix Madison
with quite the crazy art design. We were
sold. Maddy (the affectionate name given
to our ride) would be our home and transport for our epic journey.
We filled up the fuel tank, picked up our backpacks, and bid
a final farewell to some awesome people.
Kate and Andy were waiting for us as we pulled into the YHA. It had been a great two weeks with them and I
was sad to have to leave. We promised to
keep in touch and hoped to meet up again along our journeys.
And then we hit the road!
Unfortunately, the road we took was wrong and we ended up at the Darwin
docks! So after a slight course
correction, we hit the Stuart Highway or “the Track” as the locals call it, and
made our way towards Katherine, stopping at a rest stop for the night. Since this was our first night camping together,
we had to sort some things out.
Just like our trip to Kakadu, Gal and I had our own tents to
stay in so we got busy setting them up.
However, instead of a rooftop tent for the girls, this time they would
be sleeping in the van. So we chucked
out our entire luggage and set up the back of the van. There were two hanging stretchers that acted
as hammocks which would sleep two of the girls, while the third would sleep
underneath the hammocks, all kept comfortable by mattress-pillows. Anne and Alex took the hammocks which left
Eli with the bottom. After sorting the
sleeping situation out and tossing the luggage in the front of the van, we
started on the dinner.
Half an hour later, we were breaking bread and slurping up
pasta. It was a good first meal, nice
and easy, and provided the perfect background for our first night of
bonding. It turns out Anne and Alex had
only arrived in Australia about a week before and had been fast at work,
traveling to both Litchfield and Kakadu national parks. And now they were on this journey with
us! They both had boyfriends back home whom
they were anxious to keep in contact with over the course of the trip. We called it an early night, eager to begin
the next day.
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| Katherine Gorge River! |
We drove into Katherine the next morning and went straight
for the visitor centre. All of our
personal devices were low on battery so we hoped to charge them all. No such luck.
The plug-in could only handle one device at a time and we were forced to
look elsewhere for our power. We finally
charged what we had, with Anne and Alex using the free wifi to contact back
home and Eli using it to send off her most recent newspaper article. Along with being a fantastic photographer,
Eli was also writing her journey up for a weekly entry in a newspaper back home
in Austria. With a wink, she teased that
we might find our way into the paper at some point.
And then we were off to Katherine Gorge! It wasn’t too far out of town and made for a
good starting expedition. We took a
quick hike up to the lookout and enjoyed the view, fooling around with our
cameras and funny angles.
We drove on into the evening, stopping for the night at the
nearest rest stop with toilet facilities.
I jumped out of the van and took a look around. It was the same rest stop that I stayed the
night at with Camila and Mela! [In case
you don’t remember or didn’t read my precious entry, this was the rest stop
where were played beer pong and were approached by a drunk aboriginal named
Allan]
We set up shop beside a crowd of Aussie travelers, complete
with their Winnebago’s and other campervans, and cooked up our famous Great
Depression Meal! We pulled up some
chairs and sat with the Australians, feasting on our meal and enjoying a beer
or two. They had generously invited us
to their fire, even sharing some marshmallows with us. It was a great night of socializing. The atmosphere around the fire was fantastic
as we were sharing travel stories with the Aussies and getting to know our
travel mates more. This was all new to
Alex and Anne. They confided that it was
not normal in Germany for people to invite strangers to their fire and to interact
like this. It was a late 10pm when we
turned in for the night, but it was worth the experience.
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| Devil's Marbles NBD |
The next day saw us drive a fair distance to Tennant Creek,
a small town that had been featured in the famous (and terrifying) movie, Wolf
Creek. After a quick zip around the
town, and a trip to the museum where a desk clerk excitingly showed me his
mineral collection, we drove on to the Devils Marbles.
These granite boulders (known to the Aboriginals as Karlu
Karlu) formed through chemical weathering of granite blocks after the sandstone
that surrounded them eroded away, leaving them cracked and vulnerable to
weathering through interaction with water.
So we weaved through the boulders, scaling and climbing some
of the larger ones. Eli and Gal took off
on a photo shoot of sorts, and began a mock documentary that would span the
remainder of the trip. Together, we
advanced up a hill that overlooked the entire field of boulders. It was dusk, and the light of the sun gave the
rocks an orange glow. It was a
spectacular sight, and made it incredibly easy to see why the Australians
called this area the Devil’s Marbles. I
stared out into the field, imagining a large red devil indifferently sitting on
a mound, marbles turning in his hand, planning his next assault on
humanity.
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| Awwwww yeaaaaahhh! |
After an early morning wakeup to see the marbles juxtaposed
with the sunrise, we continued along our way to Alice Springs! This is the town where most of the tours run
out of for the three famous attractions in Australia’s centre: King’s Canyon,
Uluru and Kata Tjuta. Alice is also the
gateway to the Macdonnell Ranges, which span east and west of the town. However, we did not have a 4WD nor the time
for these ranges so after a few hours in Alice we were on our way again.
A note about Alice Springs and the aboriginals there. Everything I have heard has painted a bad
picture of Alice. Supposedly multiple
break ins occur to cars there, and travelers are often heckled and even
assaulted if they try to camp around the town.
So if you go to Alice, do not camp here.
Stay at a hostel or other safe location.
I have heard a story (second-hand account) about some female travelers
that were raped at gunpoint by aboriginals who broke into their van. This should make all of us very uncomfortable
and angry. So any future travelers going
through Alice, heed my advice.
I do not lambast aboriginals without cause either, as
evidenced by what happened on our route past Alice. Gal was in the driver’s seat as we came upon
a van pulled over on the left hand side of the road with four male aboriginals
on top of it yelling with their fists pumping the air. Another aboriginal was in the middle of the
road, violently shaking his fists, trying to get us to stop. Luckily Gal was driving. As a member of the Israeli army, he had been
trained for occasions like this and slowed down enough to make them think we
were stopping and then swerved right on past them.
Now, it is perfectly possible that these aboriginals had experienced
a break down and were angry about people not stopping to help them. However, it is equally (if not more) likely
that they meant harm to whomever they stopped.
My gut was in a knot the rest of the day, wondering if anyone (imagine a
family) had been stopped by these men.
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| Eli demonstrating how cold it is! |
As the sun began to set, we quickly found a campsite and
cooked up some pasta before calling it an early night. However, we had crossed a climatological
barrier and the nights were getting colder.
We had just passed the Tropic of Capricorn and we found that we needed
extra clothes and blankets while we slept.
The next morning we awoke to our van unable to start. That was worrying. However after a quick push down the road, the
engine grumbled to life and we were off again.
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| King's Canyon! |
We left the highway and traveled West to King’s Canyon. Also known as Watarrka, this canyon featured
sandstone walls over one hundred metres high.
The walk around the gorge took us about four hours and we were quite
tried by the end of it, especially after climbing “Heart Attack Hill”! But the experience was definitely worth it as
we were treated to spectacular views of the gorge and the surrounding
area. As we made our way into the gorge
we got to visit the Garden of Eden, a waterhole featuring lush plant life that
looks like it came out of the age of the dinosaurs!
The next morning, the two Quebecois generously offered me
some real maple syrup from Canada. This
was quite the gesture as good maple syrup is hard to find here in
Australia. I gladly accepted their
offering. In return I gave them some
Froot Loops, not the most amazing of gifts but since this cereal is actually
expensive here relative to other cereals, it was accepted as a luxury.
We waved farewell to them, agreeing to meet up again in
Adelaide. And then we tried to start our
car. Nothing! The engine just would not work. So we again gave it a shove and got it
moving. But not for very long, as a few
kilometres down the road, the van came to a puttering end.
Something was up, but our fuel was fine, the engine
temperature gauge showed no signs of overheating, and I had been checking the
oil and coolant levels the last couple of days.
We scramble out of the van, quickly flagging the next vehicle to come
along. This happened to be a fleet of
jeeps traveling in a convoy. A couple of
the guys jumped out to take a look, perplexed at our situation. So they linked up their jumper cables to our
battery and gave us a charge. And just
like that the engine roared to life. We
gave them a cheerful thanks and sped off.
Again, not for very long. I was
driving and I felt the engine start to give.
I looked at the dials, seeing the fuel indicator dropping to empty and
feeling the engine puttering again. I
pulled over and felt the van die. And I
mean die, as it gave one last sigh and just caved.
The same people who had helped us with the jumpstart drove
by again and pulled over. They checked
out the van, noting that a casket had popped and that our backup coolant
reservoir had burnt out. They took one
look at our old van and confided in us that it was pretty normal to see Wicked
campervans turn out this way. Some of
their models were just too old and too used to be on the road, and it seemed
like Maddy had served her time.
It seems we had been fortunate to flag the right people
down. They were on their way to Uluru
(Ayer’s Rock) and agreed to tow us to a roadhouse on the way there. So we file back into our van and coast along
the highway, pulled by their jeep. It
takes over half an hour, but we make it to the nearest roadhouse: Curtin
Springs.
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| Sup Curtin Springs! |
We thanked them for their help and waved them off as they
kept driving on to Uluru. I then found
the nearest payphone (as our cellphone providers did not work out here) and
called up the Wicked roadside assistance.
It took about thirty minutes to finally get a hold of the person that
can help us. By a stroke of luck, the
representative I talked to was the head guy for vehicle help and he was going
to be having dinner with a flatbed operator who would be able to bring down a
new van for us. I told Gal this and he
aptly responded that we were more lucky than unlucky. Looking back at the help we had received, I
was inclined to agree.
I exited the phone booth and took a look around. Curtin Springs was a decent sized roadhouse,
with a restaurant, bar, outdoor cooking facilities, and a free camping
ground. It also acted as an aviary of
sorts, featuring many different types of birds.
We took advantage of the campground and pushed our van over there. During this move, we met an Australian named
Tom who actually turned out to be a geologist.
He had graduated the year prior and was working out in this area, staying
at the roadhouse in one of the adjoining rooms. We discussed the dismal state
of our industry and traded stories of our past employment.
After a nice warm shower, our group came together and
chilled around the roadhouse. We were
all disappointed that the van had packed up on us, but we were comforted by the
fact that we had each other and that we were at this roadhouse. The owners of the roadhouse did not share the
same feelings. While sympathetic to our
plight, they did not appreciate us hanging around as they were used to visitors
(especially backpackers) just staying less than an hour. It didn’t help that we
barely spent any money there, as their bar was expensive and we had not need
for fuel. We also had our own food so we
used the cooking facilities to cook up some vegetables and fried eggs.
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| Movie night with Green Eyes! |
Tom joined us as we finished our dinner and we figured that
we should have a movie night! So all six
of us squished into our van and using my laptop, watched Eurotrip. It was a great movie choice and we laughed
away the night to the sights and sounds of the awkward teen sex flick.
We thought we deserved a lie in the next morning and did
exactly that. It was nice not to have to
wake up right away and get on the road.
Although the situation was stressful, it was turning out to be a nice
break from the trip and gave us all an unprecedented chance to bond. I called up the roadside assistance to check
on the time that the new van would arrive.
I was told it would be here around six, and that we would have a two day
extension of our rental. So with this in
mind, we spent the day relaxing at the roadhouse. Closer to the time of arrival of the new van,
we pushed our old one out to the parking lot and took out all of our stuff,
piling it beside the van and along the fence (much to the dismay of the
roadhouse owners).
The truck took a little longer than anticipated to get to
us, but we were overjoyed when it arrived.
We greeted the driver with cheers and applause and looked approvingly at
our new ride. This van was a newer model
and had a large mural of The Big Lebowski painted on it. It was also an automatic which would
definitely make it easier to drive compared to our previous manual.
We drove it into the camping ground and got busy pitching
our tents and setting up the van to sleep the girls. We also built a fire where we spent the
remainder of our night, joined again by Tom and a co-worker of his. And that was just the beginning. As the night continued, we joined by other
drillers working around the complex. I
think they were just happy to have different people to talk to, and a few girls
to look at. An older Australian man,
definitely drunk, came over and joined us as well, regaling anyone who would
listen with stories of his time in the outback.
This man was a true Aussie.
We sat around our campfire into the wee hours of the night,
finally bidding everyone farewell as we crept into our tents eager for the
comfort of sleep and the promise of a new day.
Check out Australia Adventure: Phase I!
Australia Adventure: Phase II!
Australia Adventure: Phase III!
Australia Adventure: West Coast Story Pt 1
Australia Adventure: West Coast Story Pt 2
Australia Adventure: To the Top End!
Australia Adventure: Darwin and Kakadu National Park
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