Category: The ‘why’ of FI. (Page 3 of 25)

It’s funny how when you plan a holiday, it’s always swimming tantalisingly in the future. When you finally take it, it’s over in the blink of an eye.

So it is with this one. This is our last full day.

We stopped for morning tea at a roadhouse, where we saw some interesting number plates.

We also saw some pig hunters stocking up.

I loved the dogs! Zoom in on the cage on the truck. They were so excited to be off.

Quite. few of the roadhouses have pet crocodiles. Apparently, it’s a Territorian’s right to own a crocodile. You need a permit, so for $90 you can buy a crocodile and keep it as a pet. If you live in a city, you can only keep it until it reaches 1 metre in length, but out in the countryside you can keep it forever.

When we were back on the bus, I thought I’d check that app I was experimenting with. Polarsteps. It tracks everywhere you go.

Look at this trip! I’ve certainly covered some ground.

Look! Another fire.

And as we drove past, I just managed to catch the Whistling Kites hunting for mice.

We passed by a lot of mango farms. Each mango is picked by hand. The people who do it are a mix of backpackers looking to extend their visas by doing farm work, and men from the Pacific Islands.

We drove into Litchfield National Park. The waterfalls never stop flowing here. They’re all spring-fed, unlike the ones at Kakadu.

After lunch, we headed for Wangi Falls, where we could swim if we wanted to. When someone asked about crocodiles, Pascal said that the rangers come out after the Wet season and only open the waterfalls after 21 straight days of ‘no crocodile’ sightings. Then they check them weekly.

Ah, it should be alright! What’s the worst that could happen, right?

So beautiful.

It was absolutely lovely. There were lots of people there but it didn’t sound like it at all. Everyone was so relaxed and happy. People were swimming or walking on the boardwalk.

The last time I wore my bathers was when I did the Polar Plunge in Antarctica. I read the itinerary before I left so I knew there was a possible swim on offer. I packed my bathers, so this was the time to use them.

Dammit. When am I ever going to be here again? I was going to do it!

It was MAGNIFICENT. The water was 29C. It was a natural hot spring.

I stayed in there for ages. At first, I thought I couldn’t touch the bottom, but halfway along towards the cliffs there was a sandbank. Normal-sized people could stand there comfortably. By balancing on my toes like a ballerina, I was able to stay there and have a lovely chat with a couple who are travelling around Australia in a caravan for a year.

This is an experience I’ll remember. The surroundings were so beautiful, the water was the perfect temperature and I revelled in it.

We watched a guy climb high up the cliffs, then when he looked down he seemed to have cold feet. He stayed looking at the water below for ages.

“The thing is,” said my new friend the caravanner, “I was talking to a paramedic here. People get injured at these sites and they don’t stop to consider how long they’re going to have to lie there and wait for pain relief.”

“Oh my god!” I said. “I’ve never thought of that.”

“Yeah, it’s not like there’s a doctor’s surgery and a chemist just up the road, is it?” he said. “They sometimes have to wait for hours for an ambulance or helicopter to make it in.”

As we were talking, the guy gathered his courage and jumped. No paramedics were needed.

One thing we were warned about was the monitor lizard that lives in the park.

“Don’t leave food in your bag or he’ll rip it apart looking for it,” Pascal said.

When I finished my swim, people from the bus had moved my bag away from him, but I got back in time to see his head in one of my boots.

Our next stop was Florence Falls, which was very pretty.

Our next stop was the termite mounds.

These are called magnetic termites, as they angle their mounds to true north.

The other type is the Cathedral termites. One-third of the mound is above ground.

Termites carry their eggs on their heads, like cockroaches. Soldiers defend the mound from predators like birds, goannas and even other termites.

Queens live for around 50 – 70 years. As long as she’s alive, the mound lives. When the queen dies, the other termites die off and then the mound is up for grabs.

And suddenly we were driving into Darwin and the Kakadu tour was over. Sadly, I left my broad-brimmed hat on the bus, which annoyed me no end when I realised. Dinner wasn’t included, so after 2 weeks of gourmet meals, I wandered down to Coles and bought a salad and some wine.

Back to reality!

Tomorrow I have a free day in Darwin before our sunset Darwin Harbour cruise.

Dad Joke of the Day:

I stood exactly where Crocodile Dundee was! The view was spectacular.

Have a look at the clip to get a feel for the place. It’s only a minute long.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Zoom in on the information board and you can see the walk that we did to see the art. Some people elected to go back to the bus before we did the big climb to the top, but we all did the first circle.

Pascal led the way. It was quite a walk to get to the first paintings, but it was pretty much all on flat, easy ground like this.

I found this fascinating. Except for Dreamtime paintings which can never be touched, the people used rock art to spread information. They painted over paintings when the information needed updating.

Look at the man’s swollen joints. Uranium is mined from here. The art is basically telling anyone who follows not to stay here for too long because they’ll get sick. They wouldn’t have known what caused it, but they certainly knew that it kept on happening.

Here is another warning.

Pascal told us many stories associated with the paintings, but I feel that they’re not my stories to tell. You’ll have to come here to hear them for yourselves!

This was a very old painting – one of the Rainbow Serpent, which is an extremely important Dreamtime creation character. Nothing has ever been painted over it, but you can see how thousands of years of water running down the rocks has washed away some of the colour.

Zoom in to read the story.

Pascal says that because of this story, you rarely see Indigenous kids left to cry. Someone around them always comforts them.

Walking along with Pascal and he pointed out the cockies sitting quietly above us in the tree. Would I have noticed them on my own? Not a chance. I have many excellent qualities, but being observant isn’t one of them.

This is the sort of country we were walking through. I love snowgums.

Now I’m sorry, but this derpy one is so my level of drawing!

Now this is wonderful. Zoom into the orange level underneath the overhang, which has protected it. It’s called ‘The Menu.”

Fish, fish and more fish!

Way up high is a drawing in yellow of a Mimmi spirit, under a large overhang which has protected it from the weather.

Remember? The ones who are shape-shifters and are unpredictable. They can be either good or bad. But how did the Mimmi spirit get up there to draw this in the first place? Trust me, it was very high.

The explanation is that when the Mimmi spirits want to leave a selfie, they pull down the cliff overhang, draw their picture and then put the cliff back again. Simple!

OMG.

The poor Tasmanian Tiger never stood a chance. They roamed all over Australia until the dingoes came around 4,000 years ago and wiped them out from the mainland. The poor little buggers survived in Tassie until the Europeans came and exterminated all of them because they were worried they were going to kill their sheep.

But look at this. At the top of Australia, here’s a drawing of one. It’s proof that they once lived here.

This is a closeup. Now look at where it is:

It’s up high, in between the two yellowy stripes on the left. Unsurprisingly, I needed a couple of people to point it out to me. I tried, but I couldn’t see it on my own.

Then it was time to decide whether to go back to the car park or climb to the top of the hill to see more paintings and the view. Naturally, I chose to climb. The car park people peeled off, and off we went.

Truly, things like this make me determined to keep travelling while I’m (comparatively) young and nimble. The view we were climbing to see was wonderful. I’m sure everyone who went down to the car park would have appreciated it, but they were either too old or too unfit to do it.

I have to travel while I can still see and do everything!

It was a scrambly sort of climb, and this was the view from what I thought was the top. As I said, not too observant.

Nice, hey? It was a little bit windy.

Here comes the rest of the group. I like to be in front when I travel.

But then I looked around…

And THIS was the top! Off I went again.

The view was amazing.

So was the wind! I don’t normally wear my hair in a mohawk.

It didn’t look as windy when Crocodile Dundee was here … just saying.

Those who clicked on the link about Jeffrey Lee will recognise some of the places I’ve been showing you. This is one of them.

The colours in this country are incredible. I expected the reds and oranges. What I didn’t expect were the blues and greens.

On the way down, we saw some more rock art:

Wallabies.

Just after taking this I was on my way down the slope and suddenly there was the noise of someone slipping right behind me. I knew it was a large man wearing thongs on his feet instead of boots. (For the American readers – he was wearing flip-flops, not scanty women’s undies.) I braced myself, thinking that if he loses control, he’ll slide right onto me.

Fortunately, this didn’t happen. But it makes you aware of how things can turn pear-shaped very quickly.

After this, we went to Nourlangie, after swinging by the hotel. Some people elected to stay at the hotel and swim in the pool. It was around 40C so I get it, but my thinking is that I’m probably never going to come here again, so I have to see EVERYTHING.

Off we went for more rock art.

Before we started on the walk, Pascal told us about the traditional owner of this land. All of Australia is split up into traditional lands and the head of a family group is like the top elder. He manages the land and though he has a council of elders, the buck stops with him. It’s all run on traditional family lines.

Jeffrey Lee is the traditional owner of the land that we’ve been touring today.

Next door is a French mining lease that is mining uranium. Jeffrey is the last of his line. When he dies, the land will pass to another family. When the French company found this out, they thought they had a wonderful opportunity to swoop in and grab more land for their mine.

They offered Jeffrey 100 million dollars. He refused. They kept calling him, upping the number each time. He kept refusing.

He bought a new phone with a different number to avoid getting their calls. This didn’t work. They kept calling and calling.

Fed up, in the end he booked a flight, went to France and told them NO to their faces.

They countered with an offer of 450 million dollars with royalties on top.

He still said no, but he was tired of it. So he sought help from Peter Garrett, who was minister for aboriginal affairs at the time.

He wanted to give his land UNESCO World Heritage status. It was made a part of the National Park a year later. All he wants is for the land, the art, and the creatures in it to be appreciated and seen by people worldwide.

This cockie kept chiming in on Pascal’s explanations of the art.

The only souvenir I bought on this leg of the trip was a magnet from the hotel gift shop after I saw these paintings.

See?

Here are some women in ceremonial paperbark skirts.

This is funny. When Leichardt was exploring around here in the 1840s and mapping out the countryside, he described a colourful cricket with brilliant shades of blue and orange. No European person saw these crickets for 100 years. Everyone thought he was just making it up and wondered what he was smoking.

Turns out that they exist. They’re named after him as a sort of posthumous apology.

After we finished here, Pascal took us to a billabong for a walk. He dropped us off and drove the bus up along the track for a way.

“Just stay 5 metres from the water and you’ll be fine!” he said as he drove off. Bloody hell…

It was stunning. Look at all the birds!

There was a soft breeze blowing, which was very welcome considering the heat of the day.

I overtook the people who were ambling along and talking. I was in front.

Suddenly I thought of the snakes that must be around here. I was in front and didn’t know if anyone else had been walking here today. Just to be safe, I began stomping my feet on the path as a warning to them to get out of the way.

It was so beautiful and peaceful. I passed a man who was sitting on a stool, painting. His campervan was parked behind him on the road. He had a hammock slung between two trees.

We nodded as I passed.

All too soon, I saw Pascal sitting on a picnic table, waiting for us. People asked about different types of birds that we could see. Apart from us, all we could hear was the distant sound of the birds talking to each other.

On the way home we saw a massive plume of smoke right in front of us.

“Look out for the Whispering Kites,” said Pascal. “You’ll see them just outside the smoke, waiting for the mice and reptiles escaping from the fire.”

It’s true. I saw them swooping in the air. I don’t think my phone caught them.

As I walked back to my room to get ready for dinner, I saw these cockies enjoying the sprinklers. The noise they were making!

Tomorrow we head back towards Darwin.

Dad joke of the Day:

So far in this trip, crocodiles were thin on the ground and (apparently) thick in the water. Pascal kept assuring us that we’d soon see so many crocodiles that we’d get sick of the sight of them. I had my doubts – the water everywhere was the right temperature for the crocs to feel comfortable, so why would they pose for us?

But you should trust your tour guide. We arrived at the East Alligator River for an indigenous boat ride with Guluyambi cruises.

It was wonderful.

Before we got there, Pascal told us about Indigenous etiquette.

“Eye contact is a sign of aggression, so the guide will divert his gaze or wear sunglasses. He’ll probably look at the ground while talking to you, so don’t think that he’s being rude or evasive. Also a soft hold of the hand instead of a firm handshake.

“Men and women’s business is still being practised here. He’ll answer any questions he can, but if it’s about women’s business he won’t answer, or if it’s a thing that only initiated men know, he’ll dodge that answer too.”

As we hopped into the boat, we could see crocodiles sunning themselves along the banks. There were hundreds of them!

It looks like such a pretty, welcoming spot, doesn’t it?

Remember what Pascal was talking about in this post about how dangerous the Salties are? Believe me, NO ONE was tempted to hang bits of themselves out of the boat.

Especially when we began to see things like this floating in the water!

This croc wouldn’t move. Our boat had to steer around him.

Here’s another one.

“Rangers don’t manage the country,” said our guide. “Crocodile manage country. They eat anything that gets too numerous, they eat them. Including themselves…”

“Mating season, they give each other horrific injuries. They can stop the blood flow in that area until they recover.”

We saw a very brief spat between a large and small crocodile.

It was low tide, so people can cross the river here. During the day, people fish from here. But at night?

The guide never stays after 5 PM here. It’s too dangerous.

“Always take a light source at night, or best not to go out at all. 70% of animals do their activities at night. Crocodiles and snakes are all out hunting. Trust me, you do NOT want to step on one of these in the dark! Nah, by 5:30 I’m sitting in my chair, having a beer and watching the telly. I’m not going out and messing with these boys.”

You’re never alone in this place.

Egret, anyone?

I can imagine an animal pushing their way through the scrub towards the water, feeling protected by the foliage… then wham!

A little further on, the guide suddenly swung the boat around and showed us a bird. “You people are very lucky,” he said. “It’s not often you get to see a Great Billed Heron.”

I’m sorry. I tried to get a photo but it flew off into the trees.

There were some spears and a woomera stored above us in the boat.

“We’ve always made our spears light and flexible. When you throw it, the whipping motion pushes the spear into the body.

“We make the tip out of ironwood. It’s toxic. If you get that into you, you have to get it out straight away or you’ll be in trouble. If you’re hunting an animal, when it’s speared the ironwood makes them disoriented and foggy. Then it’s easier for the men to catch them.”

I thought that was amazing.

If you throw with a woomera attached at the end, it’s like the tennis ball throwing things that people take to the beach for their dogs. The woomera gives the spear 3.5 times more power.

As we were going along the river, the wind blew the hat off my head. Thank goodness I’ve got a cord under my neck or it would’ve been gone. 

Little splashes of water flew on the wind.

Beautiful!

“Geese, ducks, waterfowl eat the water chestnuts that are revealed when the waters go down. By September, they’ve eaten too much and this is when the people hunt them. They’re fat and lazy.”

Paperbark is used for many things.

” We use it every day.” Then he listed off  the following things, while I was trying my hardest to keep up with him in my notes:

“Raft made from bark from one side of 5 trees. Only take the bark from one side, don’t ringbark the tree, so the tree can recover. The bark is water-repellent. We make these when we want to cross the river so the crocs don’t get us.

Roofing.

For a sleeping mattress, we use the inner bark which is salmon coloured. We also use this for nappies and blankets. You wrap baby in blankets, it’s durable.

Bottom string wrapped on our spears.

Dilly bag, baby carried in it with the handle on her forehead and the baby on her back. The woman carries a digging stick, if she sees a lizard, she clubs it, wraps it in paperbark and puts it next to the baby. The baby doesn’t mind and she has dinner ready.

Wrap food in bark.

Use the leaves for herbs and spices.

Bush toilet paper. Inner is best.

Hats. 

Shoes for spiky country.

Canoe for sea journey from the trunk.”

“You can even get water from Paperbark,” he said. “See that bubble in the trunk? If you’re walking along and the river has dried up, you can put a hole in the bubble and get water. Of course, you only take what you need and you use the paperbark to plug the hole so the next person who comes along can use it.”

“What happens if someone doesn’t plug the hole?” asked somebody.

He laughed. “Ooohhhh, you wouldn’t want to be that person! From a small child, we are taught to only take what we need. Nothing more. You leave resources for the next person. That’s engrained in our culture.”

That’s true. Many of the stories that we’ve been told, both here and especially at Uluru, have been about the consequences when someone is selfish and goes against the code. They usually end up as a rock or reptile forever.

He pointed out a bird sitting in a tree above us. “Whistling Kite can see a mouse 2.5 km away. They keep an eye on things and clean up after hunters.”

We also saw Sea Eagles flying above us.

“Sea eagles live as long as us,” he said.”They bring whole animals back to their nests. They see everything. The sea eagles escort people back to country. if they die away from it.”

“This outcrop here is where our people used to come for a holiday. It’s a good activity place, steep and rocky so you can see the crocodiles coming. There’s also some rock art on the walls.”

I zoomed in on the cave behind the tree on the right:

“This is a good spot to hide from the kids!” he said. “The cave also has air conditioning. The wind blows right through it.”

Two-faced rock.

“The kids say it’s Homer Simpson taking a nap.”

This is a good place to avoid crocodiles. They don’t like rocks and hard surfaces on their soft bellies, so this outcrop is where we’ll be setting foot on Arnhem Land.

When he said that we’d be “setting foot on Arnhem Land”, I felt a tingle. I’ve seen the words ‘Arnhem Land’ on maps my whole life. It was so far away! But now, here I am.

Some people stayed in the boat because they were worried about crocodiles. Not me! I was up and out of there!

It wasn’t a huge climb, but the views when we got there were very pretty.

Well, here’s me, ruining the serenity! But here I am, on Arnhem Land.

Here’s the view from the other direction.

But hang on… wait a minute…

Yep! Crocodile in the water.

Imagine living here 60,000 years ago and coping with all of this? I was feeling much more admiration for the culture and people who lived here.

When I turned from the river, this was behind us.

I couldn’t help but see a face.

Here’s one with a person in it for scale.

We turned back towards the bus, saying a last goodbye to the outcrop upon which we stood. .

We slowed down as we came past this sandy beach.

“How’s this place?” asked our guide. “Does it look like a nice place for a picnic? A swim?”

When we all nodded, he said, “This beach is the best ambush place for crocodiles. They pull animals in as they come to drink. This place might look nice now, but at night it’s carnage. You can see tracks all over the sand and some don’t go back.”

Such a beautiful place, but so deadly too.

We headed back to our crocodile-shaped hotel for lunch, but it was a quick turnaround because we were going to look at Rock Art in the afternoon.

It was amazing! But that’s for another post…

Dad Joke of the Day:

I took a lot of photos on this day, so I’ve decided to split them up into three posts. This one is the sunrise plane trip. The colours and the space we saw were just incredible. There are greens and blues here that you’d never associate with the Top End, but here we are!

This is the one full day we have in Kakadu, so it started early, with a “sunrise” plane flight over Kakadu. I put the word “sunrise” in quotes because it was past sunrise when we hopped onto the bus at 6:30 AM, but I suppose it isn’t safe to drive just before sunrise in these parts. There are too many animals running across the roads.

The planes were tiny.

The first thing we saw when we took off was the abandoned Ranger uranium mine. It’s like an open sore on the landscape. Pascal said that Rio Tinto originally promised to fill up the hole and that was all they were going to do, but after many protests, they agreed to leave the land looking as if it was untouched.

“Now, I don’t know,” said Pascal, “but I’ve driven past 5 years ago, 1 year ago and today and it all looks exactly the same as it did back then…”

Soon, we were past it and headed over to the first of the three types of land we’d be seeing. This is the savanna woodlands. Next would be the Stone Country and then the wetlands.

This is a view of us looking towards the Stone Country. There are 20,000 square kilometres of it.

The trees around the cliffs that look a little like broccoli store water in blisters on their roots. These were highly prized by the indigenous people who travelled through here. They are very slow-growing. They also produce an antiseptic, so whenever both the rangers and the indigenous people start a burn, they make sure to burn around these trees.

This is the East Alligator River, so named because the first European guy who mapped it didn’t realise that he was actually running away from crocodiles. He should have stayed a little longer and examined their snouts! It last rained here 5 months ago. You can see that the river is already starting to dry up.

For enquiring minds, an alligator (on the left) has a nasty, unintelligent-looking rounded face, whereas our crocodiles have a beautiful, evil, dachshund-shaped snout, just like a velociraptor.

Beautiful, isn’t it? I was so glad that I jumped into the plane first and got a window seat. But then again, everyone has a window seat.

A stone axe head found in an archaeological dig was 65,000 years old. These people have been here for a very long time.

They are the oldest bakers in the world. This is something that is never talked about, but it’s true. They’ve been grinding seeds to make their own version of flatbreads before anyone else thought of it.

Little waterholes dotted along the river, all probably full of crocs.

It seems to go on forever.

I swear erosion plays games! If I was in the UK or Europe, I swear I’d think this was a ruined castle.

The wetlands. It’s receding now. Back in June, this whole area would have been underwater.

I love the starkness of the road cutting through the landscape.

This is one of the very few roads in Kakadu. The wetlands are so precious and vulnerable that they’ve stopped anyone but rangers and the traditional owners of the land from walking in here. The waterways were getting choked by plants that were seeded by people bringing them in on their feet from other areas.

Now, we can only see it from the sky.

Migratory birds come here from China and Siberia.

1/3 of the park is burned every year.

The pilot said that sometimes when he’s flying, he can’t see more than 2kms either way for the smoke. Fires need to go through the scrub. It’s how the indigenous people used to control the undergrowth for thousands of years, and our trees and plants have evolved, with some seeds only able to open after there’s been a fire.

The trouble with the introduced species that the Europeans brought in with them is that they burn at a far higher temperature than our native grasses. This means that if an area is infested with non-native grasses and a fire comes through, it burns the seeds and kills them, along with the trees. This is why they’re trying so hard to keep these wetlands pristine. (Unlike what’s happened at Alice Springs/Uluru. Introduced grasses are everywhere and are hard to eradicate.)

There are no tracks in the park… the rangers use helicopters to drop the fire in grids, as you can see.

We swooped a bit lower so we could see that the fire still left the trees more or less untouched – it was all the undergrowth that had been cleared away.

How is this green even possible? I’m getting Ireland vibes!

I love the trunks of the ghost gums against the grass.

Just as we were making our way down to the airfield, we passed over an Aboriginal settlement. This is a small one.

Then we were back on the ground and ready for our next adventure. It was only 8 AM!

It’s funny. If this was an optional activity, I probably wouldn’t have done it. But I’m so glad I did. It was a wonderful feeling to see the landscape stretching away beneath me and to get a feel for the immensity of this place.

Next… the boat trip down crocodile-infested waters in Arnhem Land.

Dad Joke of the Day:

We were picked up bright and early for our tour into Kakadu. This shot is taken from the bus. The red strip beside the road is a WWII airstrip. There was no point in having a proper airport when the Japanese were bombing us all the time.

My grandfather, George Stephens, was a mechanic on the planes in WWII. I feel like I’m retracing his footsteps.

Our guide, Pascal, retailed us with all sorts of information on our way into Kakadu.

Darwin has the longest airstrip in the southern hemisphere. Any emergency NASA space stuff that happens in this part of the world comes here. The airport doubles as the RAF base.

The military presence in Darwin is quite high. Understandable, as it’s the biggest city at the top of the country.

Darwin Harbour is twice the size of Sydney Harbour. China has leased it on a 99 year lease. I have no comment.

Palmerston popped up after Cyclone Tracey as a secondary city while Darwin was being rebuilt. Now it’s the second largest city in the NT, with 75,000 people.

As we drive, I’m looking at the size of the road trains, gauging how fast I’ll have to drive to overtake them in November. Eve, from the Alice Springs rip, told me that when they indicate to tell you it’s safe, you just put your foot down and GO.

To go into an Aboriginal community, you need permission. Our tour doesn’t have that.

We passed through a little town called Coolalinga, which is a mash-up from a caravan park slogan. They installed an above-ground pool and their slogan was: “You can cool off and linger here longer.” The next stop for food, fuel etc is Katherine … which is 5 hour’s drive away. You’d want to be sure you have everything you need before you leave here!

The bus is almost full, with 12 couples and me as the only single. Much as I liked travelling with Megan in Canada/Alaska and Eve, I have to say that I like having both seats to myself on the bus. After all, with the single supplement, I’ve paid for around half that seat anyway!

Less than an hour’s drive from the centre of Darwin, Pascal told us to keep an eye open for crocodiles beside the road in pools of water.

That’s very close!

Our first little stop was the boxing crocodile at Humpty-Doo.

Here’s me being mystified. It’s 30 metres tall and is made of fibreglass to withstand our crazy weather up here. The roadhouse owner, a mad yachting fan, put it up after Australia won the America’s Cup.

Yes, I don’t know why, either.

A Darwin stubbie is 2 litres. People tend to get thirsty up here, I guess.

Humpty Doo is where in 1954 Bob Hawke, our former Prime Minister, sculled a yard glass (two and a half pints) of beer in just eleven seconds – an achievement that earned him a spot in the Guinness Book of Records.

Our first real stop for the day was a boat cruise on the Corroboree Billabong. Normally at this time of the year, you’d expect to see crocodiles everywhere, sunning themselves on the banks before the water grew warm enough for them. Due to an unseasonable blast of warmer weather over the last few days, the water’s temperature is around 29C, which is warm enough for them to feel more comfortable in the water than out, so we were warned that pickings might be slim.

However, there was still plenty to see.

The cattle station we’re driving on is double the size of Singapore. In the wet season, it has 10 people working on it, basically just caretaking. That changes to around 100 people in the Dry. There are around 90,000 head of cattle.

An area DOUBLE the size of Singapore with only 100 people on it. This land is VAST.

The first thing we heard about was how different this place looks in the Wet.

See all of this ground that we’re walking on? In June, all of this ground was under 3.5 metres of water. THE WHOLE THING. This means the river has dropped 3.5m since winter. It’s definitely feast or famine in this country.

The billabong is a freshwater wetland, and we set out on a flat-bottomed boat for bird and animal spotting. We were warned about putting any body parts outside the boat, and were also told that if we were stupid unfortunate enough to fall in, “We’ll pull you in… or what’s left of you.”

The crocodiles were all around us. Just because we couldn’t see them, doesn’t mean that they weren’t there. This area has the highest concentration of Salties in the world. This one in the photo above is around 4 metres. Salties can grow up to 6 metres.

As we were driving there, Pascal said:
“You’ll see some Salties as you can find them in salt water, but folks, crocodiles actually prefer to be in fresh water because they get to eat the animals that come to drink fresh water. So it will be your buffalo, your cattle, all the real tasty stuff, so we do have to be very vigilant and aware of any body of water. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small or a large body of water – you just assume there’s a crocodile as we drive along the highway. Keep an eye on those drying-up puddles as we drive through. There is a big 4 1/2 meter croc under the next bridge, living in a pond smaller than my cabin.

“They’re an apex predator. They can be under 5 cm of water and you wouldn’t know they’re there. They can hold their breath so they take you. You’re not holding your breath. You’re not a crocodile, so you need to stay around 5 metres or so from the water’s edge. The crocodiles move so fast that it takes 5 metres for your brain to recognise that a crocodile is trying to attack you, so that’s enough time for your brain to move your legs and run.

“If you’re like me and you just freeze and wet your pants and you can’t move because you’re so scared, do like I do and stand further away from the water’s edge.

“They say 3 1/2 metres and above is a Maneater. Small crocodiles like to death roll so you can possibly get out of it while they’re trying to death roll you and rip pieces of flesh off. It’s the big ones that you really gotta watch out for. They’ll grab you and sink to the bottom and drown you. They’ll bring you back because they don’t have a hinge on their jaws. Can’t chew like us. They crunch your body with teeth crunch, crunch, crunch from the toes all the way to the head, back down tenderising and then they do something called the Head Snap.

“They snap their neck and rip you in half. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve heard the noise and that does not leave you. It’s something that will always stay in your brain. So terrifying.

“These crocodiles do jump as well folks, they can jump about 3/4s of their body out of the water, so your arms outside of the boat is a big no-no. This river is said to have the highest concentration of Saltwater crocodiles in the world, which is one every 10 m². If you can’t see them, it doesn’t mean they’re not there, so please don’t put ANY body part outside of the boat. Might not come back if you do…”

We only saw 2 crocodiles on this tour. But we saw plenty of birds to make up for it.

Brolgas! I’ve never seen them before.

They mate for life and are famous for their courtship dance. The male grabs a stick, jumps around with it and if she likes it, they’re together! These two were so still at the water’s edge, just checking us out. I have far too many photos of them.

We saw a few of these little guys on the lotus patches. They have big long clawed feet, so they have excellent weight distribution so they can walk on the lotus leaves and not fall in. I can’t remember their real name, but their nickname is the Jesus bird, because they walk on water.

We saw a couple of baby ones, too scared to walk on the lotus leaves, watching their parent demonstrating how to hunt.

There were massive dragonflies zipping about the water, dipping down maybe to take a drink and then up again. It was impossible to take a photo because they’re just so quick, but I loved watching them.

As we were going along the river, the guide was watching out for wildlife on either side. Suddenly, he angled the boat towards what appeared to me to be an empty bit of shore.

“Can any of you see which animal I’m looking at?” he asked.

I was looking down for crocodiles, up for birds, around for wallabies – I couldn’t see a thing. But then the guy next to me nudged me and said, “Look straight ahead, through the trees.

Bloody hell! It was a massive water buffalo! How could I not have seen it?

These animals are feral pests up here. Anyone in the NT who has a gun can shoot these and wild pigs at any time. They’re mainly gathered up and sold for dog meat by the cattle ranchers who are trying to get rid of them as they ruin the land.

He was eying us malevolently, and the guide hastily ran back to the end of the boat to manoeuvre us away. “Yeah, he’d be 350 – 400 KG, that one.”

This was when I realised that I was damned lucky not to have been born a settler’s wife. I’d last about 5 minutes out here on my own.

Look at my life. Two years ago I was here.

Now I’m up at the top of Australia, in 39C heat. I love my life at the moment. Fingers crossed I get all my travel done that I’ve planned for the next year.

This is an egret. They’re everywhere. They owe their success to the fact that there’s absolutely nothing on the frames but feathers and bones, so even the crocodiles don’t want to eat them.

What was incredible to me was how much the animals and birds blend into the landscape.

I was excited to see this: a cormorant holding out its wings to dry.

I saw this in Antarctica and Alaska. Now I’ve seen it here. How lucky am I?

I apologise for all of the “birds in flight” shots, but I’m so pleased that I upgraded my iPhone after I was getting very disappointed with my photos from Alaska. Megan was getting far more detailed photos on her Samsung, so she knows exactly what I’m talking about.

I suffered from buyer’s remorse on the day I bought my shiny new bloody expensive phone. I’m sure my eye was twitching in shock as I left the Apple store.

Now, I’m getting some great shots and it’s made my holiday so much better. I really want to be able to show you exactly what I’m seeing. I love my phone now!

We slowly entered one of the many lotus fields along the banks of the river.

“Feet in mud, but creating beauty”, said our guide. The indigenous people use every single part of the plant.

The leaf is water repellent. When the leaf gets rid of the water, it’s completely dry. This makes it very appealing to people who use the fibre for “silk.” Shirts made from lotus silk are a bit of a status symbol in places like Thailand, apparently.

Wallabies! There are no kangaroos up in the Top End – it’s too hot for them.

Then our guide got really excited. This is a White-Bellied Sea Eagle, or Manly Sea Eagle, the second-biggest eagle in Australia, after the Wedgie. (Wedge-tailed eagle, to those overseas people who don’t shorten names.)

He sat there for ages, loftily unconcerned about us.

Then we all got a little excited. Down a side stream, we saw a Jabiru.

These ones also mate for life. He obligingly stood for quite a while, posing for us, before he stalked off into the reeds. You can get a hint of the iridescent feathers on his head.

I don’t know… he looked slightly goofy to me.

Then it was back to the bus to drive to The Bark Hut for lunch.

Just some Outback toilets…

Lunch here was really good. I have to say, both The Ghan and Outback Spirit, (the tour company that runs the Uluru and Kakadu tours I’m on), feed their clients remarkably well. And all drinks are included. This makes me a happy person, as I like a G & T when it gets hot. And here – it’s HOT.

After the Bark Hut was when I got annoyed. Remember how I said I had an emty seat next to me? As I was settling myself for the next part of the drive, one of the elderly men approached me and asked if I he could sit next to me, as he was in the sun on the last drive.

“I was eyeing off that empty seat beside you for the whole morning,” he said.

I sighed to myself, but said to him that it was okay. The next thing I knew, he was grabbing my backpack to put it up in the shelf over the seats, where I couldn’t reach it. For those who don’t know, I have a chronic cough and I need to be able to grab my chewing gum/throat lozenges/water to stop it. All of that stuff is in my backpack, at my feet.

“No, no,” I said. “I want the bag down with me, thanks.”

“Oh no,” he said, continuing to shove it on the shelf. “It’ll be much better up here.”

I was pissed off. This was my bag, and he was telling me what he considered was right for me, while muscling into my space. Geeze, it’s not as if I was married to the guy!

“Excuse me!” I said. “I want my bag down here, where I can reach it. I have things for my cough in it. “

“I don’t mind if you cough” he said.

I hardened my tone just a little. “Will you please stop putting my bag where I don’t want it, and hand it to me please?”

Then I raised me voice and spoke to the hole bus.

“If you want protection from the sun, there are blinds that you can pull down. They’re on each window.” I knew this becase the bus was the same as we had in Uluru.

People started pulling them down and he sat down beside me. I’m afrad I didn’t make him seem very welcome, as I kept my attention on my iPad wheile I was making notes for this blog post.

When the bus began to slow down, he grunted, “I needn’t have moved. I’ve been sitting in sunshine this whole drive.” He was, too. Someone on the other side hadn’t moved their blind and he was bathed in the stuff.

He didn’t try to sit with me again.

Woo hoo! We’ve made it! We’re now in Kakadu.

We went to see the Visitor’s Centre, which wasn’t much chop, to be honest. The walk to the wetlands was much better.

It was a very hot day. I was so thankful that Outback Spirit had given me my broad-brimmed hat. I was slapping on the sunscreen before we left the bus.

I’m experimenting with wearing the merino tops that I bought to wear in Antarctica. Merino is supposed to be good for both hot and cold climates, so I thought I’d give them a go, particularly as I was only taking carry-on luggage. So far, it’s been really good. I haven’t needed to duck into a hotel gift shop and buy “I LOVE THE NT!” teeshirts because I’m too hot with the merino. It don’t allow sunburn under it, which is what I’m primarily concerned about, with my lily-white skin.

So far, I’d say merino is fine to wear down in the Alice Springs area, though maybe it might be getting a bit too warm for up here. Oh well. I only have a few days to go!

Of course, I was the first one to set off down the track. I like to be first.

But then… is it wise to be the first one?

Why yes. Yes it is.

I was walking quietly, when I saw a small family of wallabies under the trees to the right. I was focussing my camera when the noise of talking humans frightened most of them off. I was saying, “SHHHH!” to my fellow travellers while I took this photo.

They were saying loudly, “WHAT?”

Surprisingly, I was the only one to see them.

We were going to a bird hide, overlooking the wetlands. All of these birds were beside the hide as we came up the boardwalk.

Using the skills I learned in Canada two months ago, this is a panorama of the scene in front of us.

According to Pascal, these geese are “good eating.”

The fires would have been started by rangers, locals or the Whistling Kites. They are known to pick up burning embers and drop them somewhere else, to flush out the small rodents they eat. Smart birds.

We are staying for a couple of nights at the Crocodile Hotel in Jabiru.

It was funny when we got there… they’d had no power for a few minutes just as we arrived, then as soon as I was in my room, there were huge sirens and “EVACUATE!

It was just like when I was all packed, ready to leave my hotel in London to go to Corinna’s place. This time I was arriving, but all my things were still packed.

I like an evacuation when you can simply take all your gear with you.

Jabiru was originally a mining town. The movie ‘Crocodile Dundee’ changed all that. Tourists started pouring in! There used to be 50 coaches coming into Kakadu every day.

So the Crocodile Hotel was built and it morphed into a tourist and mining town.

Then the Fukushima nuclear accident happened. It was using uranium mined from this area. The traditional owners said, “ I told you so. When you take things away from the land,  bad things happen.”

Japan and other countries turned away from nuclear power and are now using natural gas from the Timor Sea. In 2019 the Ranger nuclear mine shut down. Rio Tinto was originally going to bulldoze their buildings in Jabiru, but after consultation with the locals and the Northern Territory government, they left the town as it was.

Jabiru had to find a new source of electricity and they now use solar. It’s now pretty much a tourist centre.

Tomorrow is going to be a big day. We’re seeing a lot of different things in Kakadu. It’s still almost surreal that I’m actually here at the top of the country.

Dad joke of the day:

I forgot to show you this photo yesterday! This is the sad sight that greeted me when we emerged from the dining car on The Ghan after dinner. It was 9:15. Not a soul to be seen.

This is what you get when you go for a train ride with old people. They go to bed at a sensible hour…

This night’s sleep was a lot better than my first on the Ghan. The next morning, the consensus was the same. We were breakfasted and dressed early, because at 9 AM, the train stopped at the famous Katherine Gorge.
There were around 5 activities on offer, and I had chosen the boat ride and rock art tour.

I didn’t realise how much rock art I was going to see in Kakadu. I should probably have chosen a slightly different tour. But a boat trip down the gorge is practically mandatory for first time visitors here, so I was happy.

There are actually 13 gorges, one right after the other. They were formed when, during the massive tectonic collision that was going on in Central Australia a few million years ago “ on a Wednesday afternoon at 4o’clock”, a split formed.

Katherine Gorge is that split.

Over the aeons, water collected in the sandstone and then voila! Here we are.

We’ve entered into crocodile country.
Absolutely no swimming in the river. No putting hands, feet ( or any other appendages, presumably) over the boat’s edge into the water.
Freshwater crocodiles are dangerous.
Saltwater crocs make the freshies look cute and cuddly. Everywhere I went on the rest of this trip, the Salties were spoken of with the greatest respect. No one wants to mess with them.

This little red float is a tool the rangers use to check for Salties in the area. Saltwater crocodiles are much bigger than the Freshies and are also very curious. Red and yellow are also their favourite colours. They’ll swim along, see this and bite it.
when the rangers see the bite marks, they know there’s a Saltie in the system. This is s freshwater system and the Salties bugger things up for the Freshies, so the rangers will put traps out for the Saltie, and relocate it once it’s caught.

Here’s the gap of the gorge. Our boat only travelled through the first gorge, because it was here that we jumped off to see the rock art.

This silvery leafed tree is used for many things out here.

Paperbark bedding, using the bark to wrap food in, to cook meat with the leaves because the oils in the leaves make the meat taste better. The leaves are also antiseptic, like Vics Vapour Rub. Making a smoky fire with the leaves also discourages mozzies.

Also, there’s some rock art on the wall behind it.

o

Just to prove that I’m actually here.

By the way, remember that care package the tour company sent? I haven’t used the towel yet, but the hat and drink bottle? I’m using them every day.

This red painting is around 10,000 years old.
It shows a Mimi spirit. Colin told us about them at Uluru. They are shape shifters and can shrink to the size of a person, or get as big as a mountain. They are unpredictable, and can be either good or bad.

Our guide said, “We know it’s a Mimi spirit because it has 7 fingers and toes and his ears pointing down.”

The paintings in an area are usually there to show other people what resources are in the area for them to eat. So there’s a Rock Wallaby Joey, and an extinct animal.

The two stick figures right at the top are a man and a woman. The fainter one is a woman carrying a dilly bag. The brighter one is the man, carrying a Woomera ( spear thrower.)

The oldest rock paintings are red. Later another 3 colours came in, as people learned their craft.

This is the same painting, but this time, look at the yellow down to the bottom right. This is of a European man.

Next, we moved across to a cave. It has quite a bit of art on the rocks outside. The horizontal lines painting is a dugout canoe. Clearly, there are trees in the area which are good for this.

Unless a painting is of a creation spirit – which are left untouched out of respect – it was perfectly ok to draw over previous paintings. I suppose it makes sense to keep the information about an area current, especially if it’s about survival.

“Our styles have the pre-period which is 6000 to 20,000+ years old, said our guide. “You find a lot of paintings of large spirit and large animals. Back down there, the big Mimi spirit and big rock Wallaroo is 10,000 years old. Next period is 6000 to 2000 years old. This is where the x-ray style comes in, so if you go up in the Kakadu National Park, there’s a lot of paintings of like fish and stuff, and they have all the skeleton of it, all the guts and stuff. The x-ray style first came in around 6,000 to 2,000 years ago.”

“Obviously, the contact period which is 300 to 50 years old. We have paintings of ships, horses, guns, men, smoking cigars and wearing wide brim hats, things like that. After this, the people learned to paint on paper.”

“You also get a lot of paintings of handprints. Around here there are handprints all over the shop. The earliest handprints style as you would make the paint, put your hand in the paint and then place it on the rock, “ our guide said. “That was the first style. The second style was that you would get the paint, put your hand on the rock and then blow the paint out around it. Here in the National Park you’ll find a lot of handprints like that.”

Underneath the cave lip, there’s a streak of Orange. Do you see it?

It’s a Rainbow Snake. This is a creation spirit and has never been painted over.

The Rainbow Serpent is the protector of the land, its people, and the source of all life. However, the Rainbow Serpent can also be a destructive force if it is not properly respected. In times of anger or rage it causes storms and floods to act as punishment against those who disobey the laws.

As the story of the Rainbow Snake was being told, I looked back across where we’d come.
It was so beautiful.

You can see the layers of sediment where the ground was pushed up. They say that initially, these mountains were as tall as the Himalayas. But millions of years of erosion have worn them right down.

This is a crocodile trap. Crocodiles are most active at night, so before dusk, the rangers will put a feral pig or buffalo here. By morning, hopefully the Saltie has taken the bait and can be rehomed.

The Leichhardt tree has larger leaves than most and so is easy to spot. They have great timber for dugout canoes.

The Pandanas trees are very useful. The indigenous people strip the leaves for their tough fibres that can be made into string. They are fairly shallow-rooted, so whenever you see one, you know that water is around.Dig a metre or two straight down and you’ll find it.

I left with a profound respect for how people were able to make their lives for over 60,000 years in such a tough environment. I’ve only scratched the surface of what our guide told us about the art and how they are able to use the plants and animals around them for so many different things.

Then it was back to The Ghan for the final leg of my journey. This is the view from the window once we pulled out of Katherine.

I may have had a couple of gin and tonics with lunch. I got back to my room and the bed had been put back in the wall and the seats and table were back.

So I grabbed a pillow, curled myself into an ‘L’ shape with my feet up on the wall, and slept for a couple of hours.

Once we arrived in Darwin, I checked in, then had dinner here at the Irish pub. Love the name!

Tomorrow is the Kakadu and Arnhem Land leg of the trip.

(Send Jeffrey good vibes. I’m a few days ahead of this post. Last night I got back into internet range and found that Jeff isn’t doing very well.)

Dad Joke of the day:

I asked my Mexican neighbor why he pushed his wife in front of a train

He said “Tequila”. 

lt turns out that we had almost a whole day free in Alice before we had to hop back on the Ghan. When I was at the School of the Air, they told me to get to the Desert Park if I possibly could. David Attenborough has it on his top 5 parks of its type in the world and has been there twice:

The “of its type “ worried me slightly, but I took their advice, got there at 7;30 as soon as it opened and for an hour, at least, I had the park to myself.

I ended up staying for over 5 hours. It was fantastic.

There were 2 dingoes on display, a brother and sister pair. The park doesn’t want any more in the pack, because each pack has an alpha male and female that the pack get very defensive of, so more animals would mean much more danger for the keepers.

The park has just taken possession of another pair of dingo pups. They won’t run the two groups together, but will alternate between the pairs.

Every zoo I go to, I see one of these hanging around. My grandparents used to have a semi-tame one at Inverlock. He’d visit them every day.

The park isn’t just for animals. All of the plant life is from the local desert.

This is Stuart’s Desert Pea, the state symbol for South Australia. Funnily enough, I’ve never seen it in SA, only here in the Northern Territory.

Pretty, isn’t it?

A typical pathway.
.

I decided to fill in time before the dingo talk with a visit to the big aviary. OH MY LORD! It was the best aviary I’ve ever been in.

As soon as I walked through the door, this cheeky little man flew over and perched on my head.

A view of the whole aviary.

Tons of Zebra Finches.

This guy was eyeing me suspiciously.

There were two black cockatoos and they were hard to miss. They were flying from one side of the aviary to the other.

It’s the same colour orange as the sand dune near the salt lake!

l tried so hard to get a picture of the budgies, but the light was never correct.
budgies are curious little folk. They stayed well out of reach, but they were chattering away between themselves the whole time I was there.

o

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At the dingo lecture, she showed us a photo of the Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger.

The dingoes drove them out of mainland Australia, and then the European settlers drove them to extinction in Tasmania.

I’ve probably taken this from the wrong angle, but the cliffs above are supposed to be a Thylacine, with the long muzzle, and the stripes along the back. One day, the Thylacine will rise up and start walking around. Until then, it’s lying there, keeping an eye open.

THIS thing! This aviary was one of those glass-fronted ones. When I walked in, the weirdest noise came out of this bird.

It’s called a Bustard.

Never heard of them before.

At around 10 o’clock, I could feel the heat starting to rise. I walked along the paths, hearing the sound of the gravel under my feet and the finches peeping around me. Occasionally, I’d look up and see a hawk floating silently above.

A small lizard skittered out of the bushes to my right and ran across the path, almost under my feet, to the other side, scared the living daylight out of me! I tried to look for it, but it was either too well camouflaged, or it was long gone.

This little guy is a Thorny Devil.

I wandered around the reptile house.

I raced off to see the Bird Show, and got there before the huge queue formed behind me.
it was good, but I’ve seen the ones at Healesville and Tooronga zoos and this was very similar.

It’s always spectacular to see hawks swoop in and fly right above your head, though.

Here he is, coming in for a landing.

This next bird was a little different to the usual hawks and owls that are the usual stars of these shows.

This is a Bush Stone Curlew, also known as the Murder Bird,. They got this name because of they sound like someone screaming. These poor things are ground dwellers and stand stock-still when in danger. This is effective with native predators, but of course it’s disastrous with feral cats, dogs and foxes.

And all the while, there was a tawny frogmouth perched high above us!

Then it was a gentle wander over to where the kangaroo talk was.

I learned that the quickest way to get a fire started is to use dry kangaroo dung, because it’s 75% grass.

Good to know.

When I felt I’d had enough, I bought a Christmas tree decoration on my way out, grabbed lunch and took a taxi back to the hotel to wait for my Ghan pick up.

While I was there, I wandered into a shop in the hotel foyer and they had some quilting fabric. At some stage in the future, I’ll be making myself a Central Australia quilt.

once back on the train, I was lucky enough to find another good group of people. The dining staff surprised me with a little birthday cake and the dining car sang “ Happy Birthday “. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that my birthday was DAYS ago.

Tomorrow is a quick visit to the famous Katherine Gorge and then Darwin,

Dad Joke of the day:

A book fell on me when I was working at my desk.

I only have my shelf to blame.

(Mount Connor, as it looks from the lookout by the naked eye.)

My bus-buddy Eve, along with Janet, Jill and a couple of others, left the bus this morning to fly home. We had a late(ish) departure time of 9 AM, and they all arrived at the front of the resort to wave us off. 

“I think they want to make sure we’re ready leaving,” said Tracey as we pulled away.

Today is pretty much a driving day back to Alice Springs. We stopped at a lookout for Mt Connor, which also had a view of a salt lake.

(Mt Connor, close-up.)

“It’s over the sand dune across the road,” said Tracey. “ I warn you… there’s been a bit of rain so it might be muddy. Your shoes will never be the same.”

Damn. My trusty travel boots. I said a last goodbye to the way they used to look, and then I launched my way upwards.

Look, Dingo tracks.

The view of the salt lake was stunning.

Remember when I harvested some salt from the Pink Lake on the way back from Kangaroo Island? It’s lovely how the more I travel, the more intertwined some memories become.

Anne is an artist and she’s set herself the task of painting a picture a day of this trip. I was lucky enough to see what she’s done so far, and they’re wonderful. She’s doing watercolours of the landscapes and flowers in a book, which is obviously going to be the most beautiful keepsake. (Almost as good as a blog! Haha!)

Here she is doing a preliminary sketch, getting the major features in place. I airdropped my photos, including this one, hoping they’d help with colours later on.

Back at the bus for morning tea,I noticed the (misspelled) graffiti on the shelter. Zoom in on the roof.
It’s referring to the cattle station we had lunch at yesterday.

There are two sides to every situation…

Oh! I took some photos of the public toilets for you. It occurred to me that some of you might not have experienced a “long drop” toilet before. As you can see, it looks like a normal toilet, but it’s missing a flush button.

You can’t believe how tightly I was holding my phone while taking this shot! 

The toilet is over a deep hole in the ground. It would be a terrible mistake to drop anything except human waste in there. Tracey said that there was a coach driver who left his keys in his pocket and they fell in. He had to do the dive to retrieve them with people holding onto his ankles.

We’re travelling along the Lassiter Highway, named after Harold Bell Lassiter, who in 1889 claimed to discover a massive reef of gold out in the desert. He marked the area with a marker, which in this case was a big post. He was worried that “ the blacks” would remove the marker because it was near a sacred site. He was insistent that the reef of gold was there, but there were many inconsistencies in his story. 

In 1930, during the depression, he raised the possibility of finding the reef again. He raised several thousand pounds to make an expedition. They even had an aeroplane, a prelude to the Tigermoth, as well as a couple of heavy trucks. 

On the second takeoff, the plane crashed. The trucks bogged. Lassiter soon showed that he was a very poor bushman, so the people on the expedition lost a lot of confidence in him. 

The crew broke away from Lassiter and went back to Melbourne, while Lassiter and a few camels wandered on. 

He reportedly died.

He wrote the coordinates of the reef in lemon juice on a piece of paper, which is basically invisible ink, but the coordinates meant nothing.

To this day, no one has ever found the fabulous reef of gold.

We stopped for lunch at the centre point of Australia! 

Erldunda!

They have emus here.

They also have very understanding customers, so it seems.

We passed by an airfield right beside the highway. These are dotted all over the countryside, both for mail delivery and for the Flying Doctors. This gives the doctors greater flexibility, as they can fly to the closest site to an emergency, the pastoralists will meet them at the airstrip and drive them to where they need to go.

The speed limit along this highway is 130 km/hour. It used to be unlimited, but then a movie was released in the early 1980s called The Cannonball Run, starring Burt Reynolds. The plot involved people racing from one side of America to the other, avoiding the police.

A few years later, the Northern Territory government decided to boost tourism by hosting its own Cannonball Run, right up the middle of the territory. Anyone in the world who owned a fast car was able to enter.

What could possibly go wrong?

On the second day, a Japanese guy in a Ferrari lost control of his car and drove headlong towards a check point. The marshals and the two people in the Ferrari were killed.

(The photo is of a memorial, written in both Japanese and English, taken from the bus as we went speeding by. Apologies for the excitingly blurred look.)

After this, there was an outcry about the unlimited speed limit. The government lowered it in line with the rest of the country to 100, but road fatalities increased. They worked out that it was driver fatigue that was causing this, so they upped the speed limit to 130. This decreased the amount of time drivers were on the road, and the faster speed keeps the drivers more alert.

By the middle of the afternoon we were pulling up outside the Alice Springs Hilton.

And so the first half of the trip is over. If you’re looking for a holiday, I can recommend this company. Colin and Tracey were fantastic and the bus was extremely comfortable. We saw a lot in a short space of time.

And if you want to have some down time, just do what Janet did. She’s staying back at Yulara for a couple of days of R & R.

Tonight, I’m here at the Hilton, listening to piano music as I dine.
Tomorrow afternoon I hop back on The Ghan to go up to Darwin.
The adventure continues!

Dad Joke of the Day:

I  went along to the local Kleptomaniacs Anonymous meeting but all the seats were taken.

Today was a huge day! 

The alarm went off at 4:30 AM. I was going to do some blogging before we had to leave for the sunrise, and this is when I discovered that my laptop was broken. The keys weren’t registering on the screen, so I couldn’t even get my password on to get in.

Devastated. Fortunately, I have my iPad, but I have to remember how to blog on it. It’s been a year since I was using it to blog when I was in the UK and Ireland. The laptop is SO much easier.

I moped my way out to the bus and we got to the viewing platform early, which gave us the advantage of securing our spots. we had just under an hour before sunrise.

The place filled up. I couldn’t help thinking about the school trips our school does here every year, with two or three coaches full of year 10 or 11 students. I thanked my lucky stars that we weren’t here during school holidays!

When the light started to appear, Uluru looked like this.

As the sunrise approached, it changed.

As you can see, we didn’t get the brilliant orange that sometimes happens, probably because there were some clouds in the sky that diffused the sun’s rays a bit, but we saw the Rock change colour regardless. 

I was getting a little bored with just standing there, so I zoomed in on some spots that looked like faces. This one has lost an eye.

This one is hanging upside down.

I snapped a few more on the way back to the bus.

Then we were back to the resort for breakfast. We had an hour’s turnaround before we were off to cover as much ground as possible in our one full day at Yulara.

First stop was The Olgas, or Kata Tjuṯa as they’re now called. The official name change happened in 1977, but Uluru has been adopted much more readily than Kata Tjuṯa, probably because it’s easier to say. The indigenous name means “many heads”, which makes sense as there are 36 identifiable domes.

To be honest, I have never given The Olgas much thought, but they were stunning.

We stopped for an hour to do a walk at Walpa Gorge.

The rock formations have their own microclimates, “so if it’s windy at Uluru, it’ll be blowing a gale there!” said Tracey. She wasn’t lying. There was a breeze blowing, but it helped to take the edge off the heat.

I enjoyed this walk. It was all across the natural rocks, with a few little bridges across difficult spots, but the rocks were very stable, so it was a far easier climb than the Rim Walk at King’s Canyon.

The rocks rose high above us on either side. It was a little awe-inspiring to see the evidence of how massive the forces of nature can be. These cliffs were pushed upwards far higher than they are now. Erosion is slowly working on them.

There were trees to my left, where I could hear a huge flock of finches “peeping” away at each other. A budgerigar flew past in a glint of iridescent green.

The waterhole at the end was a pleasant place to stop and have a rest before finishing the rest of the walk.

It looks like an extraterrestrial planet, doesn’t it?

This is a selfie, by the way.

The end point.

Like in the cathedrals of Europe, look up!

After the walk, we drove around to the other side to see The Olgas in their entirety. 

Sadly, my photos don’t show the details of how amazing they looked.

Though I did manage to snap this lovely one of the grasses as I made my way up the hill.

They certainly make you earn your way to the sights in this country! It seems like there’s always a hill to climb from the car park before you see what you came there to see.

Uluru was way over there, but that was our next stop. Lunch in the car park of the Cultural Centre! We had wraps, which are always a winner in my book.

While Colin and Tracey assembled lunch, we wandered through the Cultural Centre, learning about the stories and legends of the Arrernte people.

We weren’t allowed to take photos here.

Luckily for me, there was a gift shop, where I saw a painting that just had to come home with me. I wasn’t intending to buy another painting, but the movement in this one called to me. It turns out that the traditional paintings don’t really do much for me, but when the artist uses the elements in a different way, it grabs me.

This painting has depth. It moves.
Now, this second painting is rolled up in a huge tube, which is going to be a pain to drag around with me. I hope that this will deter me from buying any more art. I only have so many walls, and I’ve planned many more trips!

Next was the drive around Uluru, where we were able to get up close and personal with the Rock.

The lone tree up high, surrounded by rock, caught my eye.

Painting. “Only” around 500 years old.
This is in a cave where the men used to take the boys when it was time to learn Men’s Business. Unlike our culture, getting adult privileges isn’t a birthright. You had to prove that you were worthy to receive the knowledge.

At the bottom of the boys’ cave was this circular hole.
“I can imagine the boys peeping through this hole, watching the men going about their secret business,” said Colin.

The first stop was at a natural waterhole, where there was a rock cave with 5,000 year old paintings. Very unfortunately, a week ago an orange-robed man painted one of his religious mantras right across the paintings. Can you imagine? These paintings are still undergoing restoration a week later.

Imagine how delicate the work would have to be? To remove the graffiti without removing the ancient painting underneath. Some people deserve to be strung up and horse whipped.

Here’s the waterfall. Isn’t it beautiful?

The texture of the rock is so lovely, almost like bark on a tree trunk.

As we moved from place to place, Colin told the stories of Uluru. Some stories are not shared with anyone outside their community, but the stories Colin told, illustrated by the markings and features on the Rock, were fascinating.

See the rock in the foreground? It’s on a gentle incline and is Oh So Tempting for idiots to climb up to get their Instagram moment. There were heavy boughs laid across the bottom.

Colin said, “This is an indigenous signal that this cannot be passed. If you ever break down in the Outback and have to leave your car, lay a big branch across the bonnet and it won’t be touched. Some people desert their cars and so it gets stripped. But if this signal is there, you’re telling them you’re intending to come back. Your car won’t be touched.”

This cave was used for the women to cook and grind down seeds to make their version of flatbreads.

Here’s the stains from thousands of years of being used for this purpose.

The Elders who were killed by a spirit dingo in one of the legends Colin told can be seen on the cave walls.
Every now and then, there were signs asking for people not to take photos, as we were in front of a sacred men’s or women’s site. Of course, we respected this, even though some of the rock formations were fantastic. There were plenty of amazing photos to be taken everywhere else!

Cave paintings.

Look at us all bending down to see them.
Here’s some more:

Towards the end of the tour, the heavens opened and rain poured down. We were soaked! Colin said that this was very good luck. “We love rain, here,” he said.

I’ll take it as a good omen that the rest of the tour will be terrific.

There used to be little wallabies called Marla Wallabies that lived all around here. After Europeans arrived, they were hunted almost to extinction, mainly due to the feral cats and dogs that were introduced. When the remaining animals were gathered up m there were only 29 left. Now, after being placed in an enclosure where they’re protected from predators, there are now 400. The hope is that if they can get the feral animals under control, the Marla Wallabies can be released back into the wild.

Here is the place where tourists used to climb to the top of Uluru. Three of my kids have done this when they went there on the school camps I talked about earlier.

They’ve taken away the metal fences and chains, and filled up the holes that were left with small pieces of Uluru that were posted back by people who stole them, then experienced bad luck after they got home. They send back the rocks they stole in an effort to escape all the bad things that are happening to them.

The holes are filled, though there’s still a white mark left that the locals call “The  Scar.”

I can’t believe the kids climbed so high!

I’m sorry it’s not the clearest shot, but I was running for the bus to avoid getting too wet.

As we drove away, this is what the people on the right side of the bus saw.

God, I love Airdrop!

A quick drive back to the resort, a 45 minute Power Nap and a fruitless phone call to Georgia to see if there was anything I could do to fix the laptop, then we were off to see the famous Field of Lights.

Don’t mind if I do!

We were on top of a sand dune, being fed canapés and drinks, looking out towards Uluru and waiting for the sun to set to see the Field of Lights come to life.

This is a light installation by the same artist who did the ridiculous synesthesia thing. This one sounded more in tune with the environment, being meant to represent the wildflowers coming to bloom after the rains fall. 

Appropriate, considering the rainfall we had today.

Can you see the white in front of Uluru? That’s not spinifex. That’s the solar lights that we came to see.

I love the light on the tree.

After a while, when it got really dark, we were invited to walk down the sand dune and wander among the lights.

Here’s what the individual lights look like.

Did I like it?

I mean, I guess it was pretty…

But ultimately it was boring. Eve, Janet and I decided to take the short way through the field, along with everyone else on the bus, and we were back for a late dinner at the resort before falling into bed.

Tomorrow we travel back to Alice Springs and this part of the holiday will be done and dusted.

I have plans for my free morning in Alice Springs, though.

Dad Joke of the Day:

I looked up opaque in the dictionary, but the meaning was unclear.

Here it is!
But I’m getting ahead of myself. This was later in the day.

We had to make an unexpected stop first thing in the morning. One of our guys, Lou, has an artificial foot and he’d developed a blister on his stump. Pretty painful stuff. We stopped in at the medical centre to borrow a pair of crutches for him. He was so relieved when he came back to the bus.

We set off again on our way to Kathleen Springs.

Ten minutes later an ambulance passed us and flashed its lights to make us stop. This photo is of the screen showing what’s going on in front of the bus. Because Lou hadn’t been examined by a nurse, they were taking the crutches back. Seriously, the man limps in with a prosthetic leg and the bureaucracy still isn’t satisfied. Poor Lou had to wait until Uluru to get his crutches.

Kathleen Springs is a short drive from Kings Canyon Resort. Like Alice Springs, it’s misnamed as they’re not springs at all, but rather natural puddles that form when the sandstone underneath is saturated with water and so the surplus water rises to the surface.

It’s an easy walk, thank goodness. When I first stepped boldly out, my right knee gave a twang, but after that I was ok.
I think I hurt something when I nearly rolled my ankle yesterday straight after the Rim Walk.

The water lies at the end of a canyon. Towering cliffs lay on either side as we walked.

On the way in, I walked with Janet and Toni, stopping to take the odd photo and then catching up with them again. The cliffs were so pretty and you can see where the layers of sediment have been pushed up from the ground millions of years ago “on a Friday afternoon at 4o’clock”, as Tracey would say.

The indigenous hunters would use this place to lie in wait. As the kangaroos, emus or whatever would go in to drink, they’d lie in wait for them to come out.

When the animals emerged, the hunters would let most of them go past unscathed, but then they’d kill the stragglers. This served two purposes: they only ever killed enough for their needs, plus if they’d killed the front runners, every animal in that herd would forever after associate that place with danger and would never go back again.

Clever.

The water is surrounded by cliffs at the back and sides and reeds growing at the front. It’s a lovely little spot.

Colin was telling us about the hunting and also about why the snow gums had hessian wrapped around their branches.
“Sometimes idiots come along and carve their initials into the tree. They don’t realise, or don’t care, that this damages the tree’s protective layer and can eventually kill it. The rangers wrap fresh bark over the wound and cover it with hessian, hoping that when it rains, the hessian will keep some moisture in for longer. Over time, the hope is that the tree will recover.”

I walked back by myself, happily looking around and enjoying the scenery. A magical moment happened.

Birds started singing. First, some whip birds, then finches. I kept walking, surrounded by birdsong. I was swept back in time to when I was walking through the streets of Pyongyang in North Korea during the marathon in 2018. It was quiet, and off in the distance I could hear the sound of the crowd cheering at a soccer match at the stadium. It was the same feeling.

Off to my left, I saw a small black and white bird on the ground. It flew up, then circled right around me and flew off.

What a beautiful birthday present!

Yes, this is why I’m away at the moment. Last year I made a vow to myself that I will always be away for my birthday. 

My 60th was spent in the middle of London with Scott and Corinna. This year, I’m going somewhere that’s the complete opposite. 

(Next year, I’ll be on a ship on the way to Greenland.)

We spent morning tea at a camel farm, which had a fabulous gift shop.

I bought a travel bag, subtly coloured as you can see, along with a fold up bag to keep in my handbag. 
Feral camels are a huge problem up here. Camels were brought in when they were building the overland telegraph back in the late 1800’s. When the work was completed,the cameleers were told to shoot their camels. Of course, after working with their camels for so long, the cameleers had become fond of them, so many of them simply let them go, probably assuming that they’d die off naturally and that would be that.

Who would have thought that a desert animal would thrive in a desert? Now we have millions of them and they do a lot of damage to the environment.

Out here, if you catch a camel, it’s yours. This farm has a one-way gate that leads to water. The camels wander in to grab a drink, then can’t get out of the yard. When they have enough camels, they load them into a truck and off they go.

Australian camels are in big demand overseas for racing, food and, strangely, for camel beauty contests. The prize money can reach ridiculously high, with contestants being disqualified for having Botox injections to make their lips droopy. 

We drove towards a cattle station called Curtin Springs. As we were driving, we saw this.

No, it’s not Uluru. It’s called Mt Connor. It’s almost as tall as Uluru, but it’s longer. It’s on Curtin Springs’ land. The owners used to allow people to visit it, until their Mum’s grave, at the base of Mt Connor, was desecrated by tourists. After that, they fenced it off, obviously deciding that enough is enough.

Now, thanks to those idiots, we can only view it from a distance.

The owners of Curtin Springs served us lunch and gave a talk about what it’s like to live and work on a farm like this. The short answer is – it’s hard. See the structure we’re under. This served as the house – with no walls – for 3 years while the current owner’s parents were working to establish the cattle station.
They’ve been able to survive by diversifying from just cattle and diving into tourism (accommodation, meals) and paper making.

I know that sounds weird, but they make beautiful paper from the native grasses. The gift shop has bookmarks, jewellery, magnets, notebooks… everything you can possibly think of. People were shopping up a storm. 

I really wanted to buy something to support them, but I’ve made a rule NOT to buy anything unless I fall in love with it. Nothing there leapt out and grabbed me.

The paper was beautiful, but I couldn’t see how I would use it. The lesson in how she makes the paper, as well as seeing how her daughter makes jewellery from it, was interesting though.

Shielas and Blokes.

What I particularly liked was that they were originally painted with apostrophes, but then someone has come along and discreetly painted over them. It was probably an English teacher on holidays. It’s a pity they didn’t spell Sheila correctly.

As we drove along, we saw The Olgas, otherwise known as Kata Tjuṯa. Look at the shape!
I’m suddenly very interested in seeing them tomorrow.

Soon after, we saw Uluru, as you saw at the top of this post. It was such a deep satisfaction to see the heart of Australia with my own eyes.

We had a couple of hours at the resort before we had to assemble to be taken to “The Sound of Silence” show, where we’d be watching the sun set at Uluru.

I raced into town to try and find some artwork. As I did in England last year, I found a framed picture and wrapped it up well so I could bring it back in my carryon. It looks a bit like a quilt, doesn’t it? I’ll probably hang it in my sewing room.

Happy birthday to me!

The Sounds of Silence was good. We were dropped off at a big sand dune, fed canapés and lots of alcohol while we watched the sunset.

Afterwards, we walked around to where there was a space where we had a gourmet 3 course dinner as night fell around us. A didgeridoo player welcomed us as we arrived. You know you’re in Australia when you hear a didgeridoo!

All in all, not a bad birthday. I’ve seen Uluru, which makes me feel like a REAL Australian.

Tomorrow we get to go close up and personal with Kata Tjuṯa and Uluru. It’s going to be a long day, starting at sunrise at the Rock.

The Moon and Venus. Just perfect.

Dad Joke of the Day:

Did you hear about the lumberjack who cut down too many trees ?

He saw too much.