5800km later

Well, we've certainly put a lot of distance behind us since our last post. We ended up having to rent a car in Adelaide for 12 days in order to see the outback. This option ended up costing us about the same amount as that damn car that blew up. Too bad we didn't look at renting in the first place.

This leg of our trip was the our first time getting far away from the coast and the populated areas of Australia. Let me tell you, the outback is definitely a lot of empty space. Our first destination for our drive in the outback was the Flinders Ranges, about a hundred km's outside Port Augusta (where our other car died). This was the first place where we got a feeling of just how red the "red centre" really is. As the sun set on the mountain ranges around us, the mountains faded to a wonderful rusty red colour. It was amazing.

We awoke the next morning and drove to a site where there was a walk with aboriginal paintings. The paintings were very faded but it was pretty incredible to see artwork that could have been 100's of years old, painted by people who would not have been aware of the rest of the world at that time. When we got back to our car after the walk we noticed that one of the tires on our car was not fully inflated. Just our luck. We drove about 70km to the nearest service station and reinflated the tire. It was another 100km before we reached a mechanic that was able to look at the tire. A woman checked it out and said everything was OK. So we continued on our way.

Now its time for a funny story. When we rented our car the very first thing written on the rental agreement is to NOT take any vehicle on unsealed roads. The clerk working the desk at the rental facility told us that we could make the entire drive through the outback on sealed roads. Well, that clerk must not have realised that we were planning on detouring to the Flinders Ranges. Because after we got about 200km's outside the park to the small town of Marree the sealed road abruptly ended. We had arrived at what is known as the Oodnadatta Track, an approximately 550km straight shot across the desert on rocky dirt roads. Now we had a decision to make, would we backtrack the 400+ km's to Port Augusta to get back on the sealed route through the outback (losing about a day's travel time) or would we put our Kia Rio to the test? The decision was to put the car to the test. With our windshield, tyre, and headlight insurance on our rental we ventured on to the Oodnadatta Track. This was an adventure out into nothingness, literally, nothing. The only place to stop was at the William Creek road house, about 300km's from anything in all directions. The feeling of isolation was liberating, and slightly terrifying. When we arrived at William Creek, we decided to stop for a drink and take in the locals. When we got out of the car we discovered that our tyre was again slightly deflated (Uh oh...). We had a local check out the tyre. He found a small leak from a nail that had punctured it. Luckily, he had the tools to patch it up for us. So $50 later we had a repaired tire and continued on our way.
It was nightfall by the time we reached Coober Pedy, the opal mining capital of the world. The Kia had been run through hell and come out clean on the other side!

Coober Pedy was a very interesting town. This was mainly because most of the people in the town live underground. You see, it's about 40 degrees in Coober Pedy on an average day so rather than wasting money on air conditioning, the people of this town dug their houses about 20 feet into the earth where the temperature is naturally cooler. It turns out there is a city of mole people after all. We spent a couple hours in town where we toured an underground house and poked about in some of the opal shops. After the Coober Pedy experience, we continued onward through the outback toward Uluru.

Before we drove to Uluru we took a small detour to King's Canyon. When we arrived at the King's Canyon carpark we had our first full on experience with the flies of the outback. About 2 seconds after getting out of the car we were encased within a living black cloud of tiny flies. Luckily we had bought a couple fly nets beforehand; they kept the little buggers out of our eyes, ears, and noses. Kings canyon had some spectacular sights. At the opening of the canyon there was a grotto where I jumped in the water pool to cool off. It was pretty cool to go swimming in the middle of one of the driest areas on earth. Next stop: Uluru.

The famous red rock of Australia. The subject of thousands of Aussie postcards. You can barely turn your head in Australia without seeing some tour offer that travels to this spot. Being such a famous area you have certain expectations of what your trip to Uluru will be like. After seeing so many pictures of the area, I was expecting the actual sight to be a little anticlimatic. Well, I can now attest to the fact that Uluru lives up to the hype. The sheer size of the rock is mind boggling from the first sight as you drive into the park. Up close, the rock is just as incredible. The formations formed by thousands of years of erosion invoke the power of the gods that make this rock so sacred to the Aboriginal Australians of the area. (Jenn's note: even more incredibly, Uluru is like an iceberg: it is estimated that 2/3rds or its full size are underground! And its aboveground 1/3 is massive, to begin with. Another note: there is actually a larger rock, found in Western Australia, which is 2.5 times the size of Uluru.)

After taking in Uluru we moved on to another, lesser known, rock formation called Kata Tjuta (or 'The Olgas'). This grouping of rocks was also very impressive. We walked through the "Valley of the Winds" where we had some stunning views of the area. When we left Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, I thought we had nothing left to do but drive through the flat immensity of the Outback to Cairns. But man was I wrong...

A couple hundred kilometres outside of Uluru we ended up in the Outback's largest city, Alice Springs. We did not spend much time in Alice, but I'm sure if we had the time the city would have had plenty to offer. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Alice is simply that a city of its size exists in the middle of the outback. (Jenn's note: How does a city with so much pretty greenery end up in the middle of a desert?)

Another couple hundred km's after Alice, we ended up at a seemingly unremarkable roadhouse known as Stuart's Well. It turned out that stopping here would be one of the highlights of our trip. When we walked into the bar area of the roadhouse, we noticed an old piano pushed up against one wall with several newspaper clippings around the piano. Upon closer inspection of the news clippings, we learned that we were at the home of Dinky, the famous singing dingo! It turns out the owner of the Stuart's Well roadhouse had a pet dingo with a rather special talent. We asked to see Dinky immediately, but we were told we would have to wait a while. We were on the edge of our seats with anticipation for about 30 minutes as Dinky prepared. As we waited patiently, we talked with the locals hanging out around the bar (more about them later). Before long, the time was upon us! Dinky had emerged! Dinky's handler gave us some information about the wild dog. It turns out Dinky was saved by the owner of the Stuart's Well roadhouse as a pup. Dingoes are generally considered a nuisance in outback Australia, and are shot or poisoned as a result. After the brief intro to Dinky it was time for the show! For the show a volunteer was needed from the audience to play the piano. Jenn had this once-in-a-lifetime honour! As Jenn sat at the piano and began to play, Dinky jumped up on the keys and began to play and sing (or howl) with Jenn. It was one of the most hilarious sights of my life, as Jenn pounded the keys along with Dinky. (Jenn could have made a nicer sound, but was instructed to pound the keys like a two-year old. So she did.)

After the show with Dinky, we hung around and had a few drinks with the locals. These were true outback Australians. Two of them were cameleers. They had travelled Australia's largest deserts on camelback in the past. These days they hunt wild camels, which they provide to the local Aboriginal tribes for food. We were also told stories of the nearby American Army base that isn't supposed to exist. The locals all have a good laugh when they meet an American in the area with a trademark army brushcut. When asked what they do they always answer that they are janitors. For a good laugh, the local Australians venture near the base and set off security alarms.

Anyways, this blog is getting long and the Internet is expensive. The remainder of our time after Stuart's Well was fairly unremarkable. We had to change the tyre on the rental car after it went flat again. But that's about it. We arrived in Cairns. Our outback adventure was complete! We have had many great advetures since arriving in Cairns. But those stories are for another post.

G'day!