Monday, October 30, 2006
Less than a month
Mat: We've got less than a month left in Aussie now, and there's so much to do! We've got to get our visas, vaccinations, cycling gear and plan our route through SE Asia in more detail. We've got to pack up and send back the possessions we want and sell the rest, tidy up the house and cancel the utilities. Then there's planning a leaving party, and finally there's work.Still, we can't complain - we get a three month holiday at the end of it!
Monday, October 23, 2006
Back to Melbourne
Today: 12km (7.5 miles)Total: 2956km (1847.5 miles)
Kat: All too soon our outback adventure is over - we dropped off the hire car, flew out of Ayers Rock airport at midday and were home by 4pm. Our house guests Asia and Brad clearly weren't expecting us back for another couple of days! They're Kiwi friends of Mark and Claire who have just moved to Melbourne and needed somewhere to stay while they looked for their own place.
Our neighbour Gordon has been visiting Pellegrini's for 50 years and usually eats there once or twice a week. We went there with him last night and understood why this tiny cafe is such an institution: the pasta was generous and tasty, the granitas and gelati were delicious and the Italian owners were friendly but quite eccentric.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Uluru and Kata Tjuta
Total: 2944km (1840 miles)
Kat: We didn't make sunrise - we would have had to leave Yulara at 5.30am and, as we justified it to ourselves, it's only sunset in reverse. We got to the park by 8am anyway in order to walk around the base before the sun got too hot. The cultural centre was bemusing, both in layout and content. Our impression is that aboriginal people (who make up 25% of the NT population) and non-aboriginal people lead entirely separate lives, barely connecting with each other. While the white folk go to school and work 9-to-5 jobs, the aboriginal people, from babies to grandparents, hung out together in the street in towns or under trees in the middle of nowhere. Information boards at spiritually significant sites could be more mystifying than educational: photographs were forbidden but we weren't allowed to know why. Even amongst aboriginal people, some places and knowledge are reserved for men and some for women.
The 10km base walk took 3 hours at an ambling pace. From a distance Uluru (Ayers Rock) is impressive but you don't appreciate how massive it is until you are up close. There seems to be much debate about whether or not it's a monolith, but it's certainly not the largest in the world: Mount Augustus in WA is 2.5 times the size. There are loads of interesting shapes - we named the Whale, the Brain, the Lips and several Noses - as well as two waterholes and several examples of rock art.
After lunch we waited out the heat of the day by the pool, then headed over to Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) with Steve and Sherri - the bus would have cost them $55 each! We walked up to Walpa Gorge then to the first lookout in the Valley of the Winds. On the way back to Yulara we stopped at both sunset viewing spots. In return for the ride, Steve and Sherri bought us a BBQ supper at the Outback Pioneer (you collect the meat - or veggie burgers - and cook it yourself). Thanks guys! Steve is a grill expert so he cooked his and Mat's T-bone steaks and Sherri's kangaroo skewers. Another couple had arrived in our room but luckily they weren't heavy snorers.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Yulara and The Rock
Total: 2788km (1742 miles)
Mat: Dropped the camper van off early this morning (they admitted that the plates aren't microwave-proof) and left Alice at high speed in the shiny new car. Before this trip I've never been on roads with no speed limit, but I hadn't had an opportunity to really test it with the big van. I took advantage of the perfectly straight roads, no traffic and a brand new car to get a respectable 180km/h before stopped at a Camel farm at Stuart's Well for a look at the beasties and a nice cup of tea.
Arrived in a cloud of dust at Uluru about 3pm, and met a really friendly american couple, Steve & Sherri, who are on a 10-week grand tour of the world for their honeymoon. We got on really well and spent most of our time at Yulara (the resort attached to Ayer's Rock) with them, eating, playing cards and being amazed by their incredibly complicated story of how they got together.
We all piled in the car and drove to The Rock to see the sunset. It was pretty amazing, but we still didn't get a sense of how big it was, because the sunset viewing car park (they've got one for sunrise too) is about 10km away from it!
Friday, October 20, 2006
Alice Springs
Total: 2280km (1425 miles)
Kat: We're muppets: after the hassle of finding accommodation in Alice for tonight we realised the campervan isn't due to be returned till tomorrow, so we cancelled the expensive apartment and booked another night at the campsite. Amazingly, it rained all night and the cool weather in the morning was a relief. When we arrived at the Reptile Centre the power was out because the power line had begun sparking overnight. The snakes and lizards were cool, especially the thorny devils. We held some bearded dragons (very cute, especially the way they gobbled up cockroaches then licked their lips) and I had a black headed python draped over my shoulders.
After some confusion about our booking dates, we picked up a white Toyota Corolla (the same as all the other hire cars between Alice and Yulara as it turned out) with only 1600km on the clock. We drove in convoy to the supermarket to pick up some lunch, Mat in the car and me in the campervan. I had one of those heart-sinking moments as I pulled into a parking space and heard the campervan connect with the awning. It was only one day to go till we got back the $5000 frozen on our credit card for the insurance excess! Luckily there wasn't any visible damage and the condition report hadn't included the roof. In the afternoon we drove to the West MacDonnell ranges and Mat took advantage of the lack of speed limits in NT to put the car through its paces. At Standley Chasm the ranger pointed out a python curled up under the steps into the kiosk and at Simpsons Gap we saw rock wallabies emerging in the evening sun.
Mat used the campsite BBQ to fry a steak while I caused further damage by cracking a plate while cooking a potato. What's the point of providing a campervan with a microwave and plates which aren't microwave-proof? The woman at the campsite shop joked that Castlemaine XXXX is so-called because Queenslanders can't spell beer.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Fossicking
Total: 2171km (1356 miles)
Mat: The main reason for staying at Gemtree was to go fossicking for gems. We met Aaron, our guide, at 7:45am and loaded up the camper with the equipment we needed - pick, shovel, sieves, water and a big white board. He told us that we'd be hunting for zircons today, which are harder to find but more valuable than garnets, the other gems they have in the area. Aaron showed us what do and what to look for, then we got on with it.
Over three hours we sieved maybe 150kg of soil and found a dozen or so pieces of zircon, which ranged in colour from clear to a deep orange. They were very hard to find amongst the gravel, and could be spotted mainly by looking at their shadow on the white board, which showed some sunlight coming through the rocks. After we were caked in red dirt, sweating and tired we gave up, and Aaron examined our finds. It turns out that we had five gem-quality stones, ranging in size from 3mm to 4mm when cut. We decided not to get any cut, and so we now have a small bag full of bits of funny-looking rocks - maybe when we can think of something to do with them we'll have them cut.
After lunch we arrived in Alice Springs, which was once a remote outpost for the telegraph line from Darwin to Adelaide, but is now a thriving town of about 30,000 people with 300,000 tourists visiting each year, most of whom come to see how remote it isn't any more. All of the accommodation was booked out for the Masters Games, but we managed to get a spot in a camp site next to the MacDonnell ranges to the south of the town.
This part of the country is famous for never getting rain, but guess what happened while we were there? The locals seemed very excited - apparently it hasn't rained here in 5 months!
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Gemtree
Total: 1986km (1241 miles)
Kat: On the map, the best place to spend tonight seemed to be Barrow Creek, but after yesterday's warning we thought we might skip it. However that meant a much longer or shorter (and therefore longer then next day) drive than we would have liked; we could sleep and eat in our van so all we needed was a space to park - how bad could it be?
We drove straight through to Tennant Creek which has a fascinating mock-up of a gold mine at Battery Hill. Gold was discovered in the 1930s and the last mine closed in 1985. We arrived mid-morning and the next tour wasn't due to run until 2.30pm, but since we were driving onwards that day the guide very kindly showed Mat and me around as soon as his morning tour had finished. He demonstrated the modern equipment that's used (apart from the gelignite that is) and it brought home how noisy and dangerous mine work is. On the way out we mentioned that we were thinking of stopping at Barrow Creek and he said "Why on earth would you want to stay there?" There was a pattern emerging, so by now we were really interested to stop there.
After lunch at Mary Ann lake we larked around at Devils Marbles in the way you usually do with large rocks. We refuelled at Barrow Creek, which was as grotty as everyone said it would be: a dingy bar, fly-infested toilets and a wild donkey stubbornly standing next to one of the two petrol pumps and snarling at anyone who walked past. The really creepy part was that when we reached Gemtree, the owner Carmel told us that Barrow Creek was the last place that Peter Falconio had been seen alive. When we told people in Melbourne that we would be driving down Stuart Highway their reaction was usually "Watch out for the serial killers! Have you seen Wolf Creek?" We were exhausted from the drive, but glad to be sitting by a campfire in Gemtree's beautiful bush campsite instead of peering fearfully out the window in crummy Barrow Creek.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Renner Springs
Total: 1277km (798 miles)
Mat: We were actually cold in the night! It was strange after a few days of sweating constantly. On the way out of Mataranka this morning we stopped at Rainbow Springs, another swimming hole - this one wasn't so sulphurous and was surrounded by palm trees filled with Red Flying Foxes and loads of huge scary-looking spiders.
The morning drive took us to Daly Waters, a famous pub in the middle of nowhere, which claims to have the most remote traffic light in Aussie. We enjoyed a drink in the shade of the pub, then ran away from a busload of German tourists who seem to be following us. Continued down the Stuart highway past Newcastle Waters (nothing to see) and Elliot (even less), then ended the day at Renner Springs. Today we've gone from lush forest to pretty much desert - only a few shrubs, hot, dry and deep red soil. At Renner Springs we met a really nice Kiwi couple who gave us great tips about where to stay in the next few days, and emphatically told us not to stay at Barrow Creek, which was our intended stop the next day.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Bitter Springs, Mataranka
Total: 828km (517 miles)
Kat: After a brief visit to the Warradjan aboriginal centre we headed for Pine Creek to rejoin the Stuart Highway, the road linking Darwin and Alice Springs then continuing to Port Augusta in SA 2800km (1770 miles) later. We took a break at the Mary River roadhouse where Mat was dragged away from his pie and cup of tea by the Mancunian couple behind the counter to try and fix hotmail on their computer. At Edith Falls we had lunch then I took a dip in the water (Mat didn't want to take his chances with the crocs). Next stop was Katherine, the third largest town in NT. The most notable thing here is the gorge, which is supposed to spectacular. Unfortunately it's only viewable after some serious hiking or canoeing which we weren't prepared for, so we had an ice-cream instead then drove to Mataranka.
On the way Mat overtook a road train, which is a cab pulling several trailers, usually three or four. Overtaking them can be hairy as they travel quite fast and you need a lot of empty road to get past. We were lucky enough to see two dingo cubs snacking on a wild pig carcass at the road side, as well as several goannas sunning themselves. We pulled into Bitter Springs and parked right next to the river for the bargain price of $16. The springs in Mataranka are thermally heated at a great depth; as the sun went down we swam in a crystal clear pool which ended abruptly in swamp. As we walked back to the campsite we saw turtles and wallabies, then later geckos, flying foxes and fireflies.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Yellow water, Kakadu
Total: 353km (221 miles)
Mat: Sleeping in a two-berth campervan is definitely more comfortable than the car we had in NZ. Our meals this week will be mainly eggy bread (French toast) for breakfast, salad and cheese sandwiches for lunch, pasta and sauce/tortillas for supper, and maybe a beer if we're staying somewhere that has a bar.
Wandering about the camp site this morning we spied wallabies, lizards and hundreds of crows (which tore our rubbish bag apart when we went to do the washing up). First stop of the day was Mamukala, a billabong where Magpie Geese come to nest every year in their thousands. Next stop was Jebiru, the largest community in Kakadu (all of 1500 people), where we filled up with petrol and bought some lime cordial to take away the foul taste of the water at Aurora. After lunch we visited Nourlangie Rocks, a really impressive rock art site where some pieces are thought to be 20,000 years old and has a walk with great views of the national park.
Stopped the night at Yellow Water camp site, famous for its crocodile cruises. We took a boat trip driven by a strange Aborigine woman called Audrey, who kept driving into the river bank and at one point ran over a crocodile! We saw maybe two dozen crocs, including their favourite called Pluto who is 4m (13ft) long. Kakadu really is bursting at the seams with wildlife - Audrey also pointed out sea eagles, egrets, darters, an azure kingfisher, night herons, pelicans, a yellow-bellied tree snake, jacanas, ducks and buffalo. She even managed to avoid driving the boat into some of them...
Saturday, October 14, 2006
NT - the outback state
Kat: With our visas rapidly expiring we decided it was high time we left Victoria, so at 2am on Saturday morning we found ourselves in Darwin airport, in 24C heat and what felt like 100% humidity. Four hours of flying and we were still in the same country! We were even in a new timezone, albeit only by half an hour. Mat had seen a massive bush fire from the air. The airport shuttle dropped us at Gecko Lodge and we snatched a few hours sleep before the other guests started waking up. Our reward was a free pancake breakfast in the hostel garden.
We wandered down to Mindil beach and realised that we were totally out of practice of dealing with hot weather - even at 10am the sun was powerful and we weren't wearing sun-cream. We caught a taxi back to the airport and collected our cosy campervan, stocked up on provisions and headed towards Kakadu national park. The countryside is green but the trees are relatively small; we saw a bush fire at the side of the road being put out as we left town. There were thousands of termite mounds and we stopped at some particularly impressive ones to take pictures.
We pitched up at Aurora campsite and revived ourselves in their salt-water swimming pool serenaded by noisy cockatoos - it felt like paradise. There were wallabies and even a dingo wandering around the site, and the same cockatoos woke us up in the morning.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Jon's nipper
Mat: On 5th October the world welcomed Jon's first child, Emilie Castaneda, into the world after a whopping 51 hours of labour. She's pretty cute (for a baby), if you want to see some pics of her she's got a brand-spanking new website at emiliecastaneda.com.Massive congratulations to Jon and Juli :)
Monday, October 09, 2006
Daniel & Alison's wedding
Mat: On Saturday we went to the wedding of our squash coach, Daniel, to his fiancee Alison. The registrar began the ceremony by saying "Daniel and Alison have known each other for a long time, they first met in 1966" at which point Daniel whispered in her ear and she blushed before apologising that she meant 1996! This was the start of a really funny, great day. Alison's family are Chinese, so the ceremony was translated into Cantonese by a member of the family. They had written vows to each other: Alison's were heartfelt and brought a tear to her eye, while Daniel's started "I love you because you attend to my needs" and ended "I love your cooking."The reception was traditional Chinese, held at the Shark Fin Inn in the CBD. The food was great, the wine was flowing and the atmosphere was fantastic. The funniest part were some games that Alison had to play: first she had to put an egg up one of Daniel's trouser-legs, then move it up and down the other leg while blindfolded. The second game had four people standing on chairs, and Alison (still blindfolded) had to guess which was her husband by licking their legs! In the third game they had to both transfer a dozen pieces of seaweed from one plate to another using only their mouths... I don't know if these are traditional games to play at a Chinese wedding, but they should certainly include them in British weddings!
We're moving matnkat.com to a new server in the next week, so I've put the pics on the new site instead.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Mat goes pro
Mat: Up until now I've only played social squash - very informal, not too much emphasis on the rules or who actually wins. Yesterday afternoon Daniel, the squash pro at my club, rang me to ask if I wanted to fill in on the D grade team - they were a player short and had asked if I was available! How could I say no, so last night was my first pennant match.It was a totally new game, so much more intense, and I was pretty nervous in the first game - even with Kat and my team-mates shouting encouragement every time I got a point. I lost the match, of course, but not too badly: 1-9, 3-9, 5-9, so after another three games I could have beaten him :) Over pizza after the match I admitted to my opponent John that it was my first pennant game; I don't think he'd guessed, which is a good sign.
My whole body's sore this morning, something I haven't felt in ages, which shows how much more effort I had to put into the game. It was a lot of fun and gave me loads more confidence - and made me realise that I could play D grade regularly and not lose too horribly!
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Melbourne Show
The highlight for many children were the showbags, a uniquely Aussie experience. There was an enormous pavilion crammed with stalls all selling carrier bags full of stuff - mostly chocolate but there were dozens of stalls selling fancy dress showbags, toys and one selling PS2s. My work-mates recommended the Bertie Beetle showbag, which was definitely at the cheaper end at $6 and contained mostly chocolate with a few toys and stickers.
The highlight for Kat & I were the animals. There was a dog show; a giant shed full of cows; racing and diving pigs; goats; a deafening poultry shed; and a children's petting area with a pen full of the cutest border collie pups in the world (I want one).
All in all it was a real experience - we arrived at 10am and had to leave at 6pm because we were too tired to see the rest of it.