The route: Of all the trips we've taken, we planned and re-planned this route dozens of times. Do we circle the entire continent, retracing some steps from a previous trip. But if we circle the continent, how will we get to the center? But if we fly to our start location, then what about Chunky?!?! After much deliberation it was decided that Chunk would have to stay behind ;( and we flew to Adelaide hired a car and drove up the entirety (over 3,000 kilometers) of the Stuart Highway to land in Darwin. We flew from Darwin to home and within 30 hours or so, we were on our flight back to the U.S. It was truly a farewell holiday.
Adelaide: I got Adelaide stuck in my mind a while back (again credit to Bill Bryson) even though everyone I spoke to about it described it frankly as "blah." I had created this fantasy that I could perhaps fall in love with a little quaint, wine country region called Adelaide and someday name our daughter after this precious little city. Also, one of the schools that Warren was accepted to was in Adelaide and I wanted to know what the other road would have looked like. Well, as it turns out Sydney was a miles better option. The Barossa Valley adjacent to Adelaide doesn't hold a candle to the Hunter Valley (a wine region a short 1-2 hours from Sydney). But hey, I'm fairly stubborn and it was good to see if for myself so this place could finally be demystified.
Coober Pedy: This place is it folks! Imagine every wonderfully crazy image of an outback town that you can conjure up, put inside it all the most interesting and far-out people you can find from all around the world, build houses for them under the ground and voila! you have createdCoober Pedy. This is an opal mining town, which I would be seriously depressed to live in - there is dirt covering everything, piles of scrap metal, & functional (as well as broken down) heavy machinery everywhere, but for a few days - this is just what we had come searching for. The opal mining in this town is just about as sophisticated as gold mining in the wild west - each man for himself, with no large corporations in site (it's too much of a crap shoot for big money to settle here). All that is required for you to start your mining operation is to buy/hire the appropriate equipment and old fashion explosives, then pop into the local property leasing agent and drop the$50 or so required to purchase a piece of property for a month to search for your fortune. As Warren and I's fortune should have it, there was an opal rush the day we arrived! We stopped into a little opal shop to purchase a piece of the magic and the owner told us that just a couple days ago, he struck it big. He put little plots of land under the names of all his children and closest friends (this is completely allowed), then he informed a few other friends, and by the time we arrived, the place was buzzing with the talk of the latest finds. This place can't be real. To add to the strangeness, for the two nights that we were there we camped undergound, in our tent (though that wasn't completely necessary). You see, it's freezing in the winter and hot as hell in the summer so the constant 70 degrees just below the ground's surface is where Coober Pedyresidents and tourists reside.
The Stuart Highway: This has got to be the longest, most straight road in the world, but it is far from boring. You can spend your time marveling at whatever strange animal you can find: a small pack of wild emus, two giant camel roadkills, kangaroos, dingos, etc. If you should find yourself a little board, then you can just look on the map for the next town. These "towns" are really only glorified gas stations, with about 10 residents that live on the property. Also provided are sketchy campsites, amusing restrooms, post cards that are at least 10 years old, iced coffee, and some crazy touristy thing which makes for a great picture. There will also likely be some interesting character which you can spend the next 30 minutes fantasizing about how they ended up in the middle of no where and what crime they must have committed that they are now hiding from.
Uluru: Written and verbal accounts of this giant rock mostly include "awe stuck" or some other equally divine experience. The aboriginal people revere this rock in a way that myself and most other non-natives will never fully understand. But after driving halfway through the most flat terrain for several days and then feasting my eyes on this unusually large monolith, I think that I do have a tiny grasp of the amazing-ness of this supreme red piece of rock. We arrived at Ayers Rock to see the sunset, which causes the reddish orange rock to turn various shades of "on fire" until it finally turns various shades of "darkness" and then it goes black. We sat on the roof of our rental with homemade burritos and cheap red wine to watch the show. We also made sure to catch the sunrise show, which was only slightly less impressive, but still worth writing home about. All of my greatest expectations were surpassed.
Kakadu: I feel as though there is really nothing that I could write which would provide even the slightest clue to the value of this goldmine. Kakadu National Park is a protected piece of Australian and world history, where you can see ancient cave paintings which give clues to how those more primitive peoples lived (and even what they ate for dinner). This park makes you feel like it is very much alive. There is a large portion of the park which is still inhabited by aboriginals living just like their ancestors did. There are managed (and often not so managed) forest fires during the dry season, which are inches away from your vehicle. There are abundant and surprisingly candid yet bone chilling accounts about how giant crocs eat tourists for a snack every few years (which we fortunately heard about just hours after swimming in such water holes). There are termite mounds over twice my height. And there is this one. special. lookout, which we returned to a few times just because of the way it made us feel inside.
I guess we made our peace with leaving Australia or gave ourselves more to miss.
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