Friday, July 27, 2007
Back in Perth
This will be our last edition of the travel blog. We have arrived in Perth and we are looking back at a wonderful trip with lots of adventures, beautiful places and we have met many friends on the way. Thank you for your comments and for taking an interest in our stories, we have heard from several who have read the blog regularly. Having lunch in the middle of the road was an illustration of how truly remote the center of Australia is. And we had another example of that when we visited Lake Bollard, some 60 Km NW of Menzies, a town of around 60 inhabitants, north of Kalgoorlie. In a salt lake which is normally dry we found 51 carbonised steel sculptures by Antony Gormley; true to our reputation, it had just rained for a few days, so we had to walk through the mud. It takes at least two hours to walk around the installation. "The "insider" reveals an attitude in a taut abstract shape formed by the passage of the person's life". Visiting this place is a very strange experience. The sculptures are cast in an alloy containing molybdenum, vanadium and titanium, all found in the Archean rock of Western Australia.
In Kalgoorlie we visited the Super Pit at the time of a planned blast; it is done with milli seconds spacings, so there is not just one big bang, it looks like rolling out a carpet. The pit is 1.5 km wide, 410 m deep and 3.2 km long and the planned maximum depth will be 600 m. If you enlarge the picture, you'll find a yellow trailer on the RH side; you can also see the blast hole pattern near where the first holes have exploded. The Kalgoorlie goldfields have produced already more than 50 million ounces of gold. There are lots of statistics but one impressive figure is the 225 ton of ore which goes into one haul pack truck and it takes only 4 scoops to load it! These monsters are usually driven by women (better drivers?)
The yellow bucket is the one that delivers 60 ton per scoop.
It was in 1893 that the first gold was found in this area. A major problem was the absence of water and in 1903 a pipeline was constructed from Perth to Kalgoorlie, a distance of 530 km, with 8 pumping stations along the way. When steel was scarce, they used wooden planks tied with wire on the outside, as in the picture.
We arrived back in Perth on the 4th of July and with a friend's help we got a house sitting job in Swanbourne until the 4th of September. Meanwhile we have found a new builder for the house near Mandurah and it looks like we may sign the papers next week. We plan to rent a house until our new house is finished. Just today we sold our wonderful camper trailer to a very nice couple in Perth; we are happy that it can continue giving others that marvelous feeling of space and freedom.
The last picture of the Landcruiser and the camper trailer, at Cunderdin, about 150 km east of Perth.
Trip distance: 25,144 km over 7 months (Dec.'06-July'07)
Weights (fully loaded): Landcruiser 2680 kg, trailer 1140 kg
Fuels used: 3231 liter diesel and 682 liter LPG
Price variations: diesel $1.13-$1.90 and LPG $0.47-$1.20 (if available)
Longest distance covered without refueling: 1000 km (only the two standard tanks, we did not use any fuel jerry cans)
Cruising speed on bitumen: 95-100 km/h
Average speed off-road: as low as 20 km/h
Hot nights: 2 (30+ degrees, all night)
Coldest night: -1 degree C (Alice Springs, the "hot" center of Australia)
Rainy days and nights: about 90 (on a similar trip around Australia in 1990 we had 2 in a whole year) Global warming or just bad luck?
Longest time spent in camper trailer due to non-stop rain: 30 hours
Hours played Rummikub: 130
Flat tyres: 0
Deepest creek crossed: 60 cm and no snorkel on the car.......
THE END
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Uluru, the Olgas and further west
Enlarge the photo to see the line of people climbing Uluru (350m)
There is 1200 km of remote dirt road in front of us, often badly corrugated before we reach the bitumen just north of Kalgoorlie. Although the weather looks good, we carry food and water for 3 weeks and also take into account that one shower of rain could leave us stranded for a week or longer. An added problem is then that fuel trucks are not allowed to drive on a wet gravel road and thus cannot supply the road houses along the track and we would run out of fuel after 1000 km. We have an UHF radio with 5 km range, a HF radio( with a range of several thousands of kms) programmed with 6 different frequencies (incl. the Flying Doctor) and when everything goes really bad, we have an EPIRB, emergency beacon. If that also fails, we will be in real trouble and short of getting help from local Aboriginals, we would have to walk to the nearest community which could be 300 km or more..... 
Len Beadell is often called the last outback explorer; he surveyed and graded most of the outback tracks in WA, SA and the NT. Len was out there with his family for many years after World War II and many of these tracks have the names of his family members. He wrote 7 books. The grader in the picture is the one he used and is now parked near the Giles weather station; it carries the name of the Gunbarrel Construction Co, referring to the Gunbarrel Highway which was the only east-west road link across Central Australia stretching for 1600 km. Len and his team opened up a 2.5 million square km area which includes the Great Sandy, Gibson and the Great Victoria deserts. Later the Great Central Road was improved and became the main connection between Perth and Alice Springs.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
ULURU, a bit of history
Map of our progress, going anti-clockwise around the continent.
We have less than 2 weeks left, lots of unsealed roads and a total of just under 2000 km. Arriving in Perth we will do some house sitting and we will try to find a buyer for the Landcruiser and the Kimberley camper trailer, either together or separately. Then we will also decide what to do with our block of land, to build or not to build, that is the question......
ULURU
No doubt, Uluru is one of the famous icons of Australia, together with the Harbour Bridge (coat hanger) and the Opera House in Sydney and the Great Barrier Reef. It is striking that in Kings Canyon and Uluru we now see so many overseas visitors (since we left Cairns). Imagine, in 1948 the first dirt track to Ayers Rock was constructed.
In 1985 the Uluru (Ayers Rock)-Kata Tjuta (Olgas) Land Trust was handed back to the local Aboriginals (Anangu) and they leased the land back to the Federal Government for 99 years.
In the beginning, there was a camping area just north of Uluru. As a National Park, all visitors are now located some 16 kilometers to the north of the rock in a newly constructed village, which has 5 hotels, a caravan park, backpackers facilities, shops, medical centre, etc.
This place (it is called Yulara) in the middle of the desert (443 km SW of Alice Springs and 265 km east of the WA border) now caters for a maximum of 5000 tourists, any day of the year!
When we watched the sun set over Uluru at one of the viewing areas last night, we were amongst more than 1000 others!
A new airport was constructed another 5 km to the north and every day busloads of tourists arrive. When entering the National Park $25 per person will get you a 3 day pass, including entry to the Cultural Centre on the south side of Uluru; this adds up to a total of A$8.2 million per year just for park entry fees and the Australian Federal Government adds another A$6.4 million funding. Almost all of this money is used to manage and upgrade the facilities.
Tanneke joined a dot painting course ($50), which was very interesting, sadly almost exclusively attended by overseas visitors. There are several guided walking tours or you can walk around the base of the rock (10 km). Already 35 rock climbing tourists have died over the years (heart attacks and falls) and the Aboriginals don't like anyone climbing their sacred site; their culture has a deep understanding of the earth and the creatures that live on it. The management now strictly controls the climbing conditions such as too early, too late, too wet, too cold, too hot, threatening rain or lightening, too windy, rescue activities or cultural events, in fact you could spend a whole week here and find the rock "closed" every day, much to the disappointment of some people who come from far at great expense to see and climb. I think there is somewhere a compromise here, realising that half the tourists would not bother going here if they could not climb the rock. However, the Olgas (40 km to the west and higher than Uluru) are out of bounds for climbers.
The Anangu have incredible inside knowledge of nature, plants and animals. Even these days, Aboriginal trackers will be employed when people get lost in the desert, their eyesight is truly amazing. We experienced this first hand when we visited Tim and Leah in Kalumburu in 2005 when an elderly lady in our boat spotted a sailing ship at the horizon before any of us could see anything at all.
We saw a video in the Cultural Centre which showed how they can survive in the desert using only plants and animals as food, they know where to find water, even if there has been no rain for a long period of time.
It is fascinating to spend a few days camping in the outback, still with creature comforts so close at hand. At night we hear the dingos howling, there is a local pack of about 40 near the rock and they behave similar to wolves. At night the sky is absolutely blazing with stars. In summer temperatures often exceed 40 degrees and the flies become unbearable but we find the nights very cold (near freezing) during winter time, such as now.
KINGS CANYON AND ULURU
THE WORKING TOGETHER PAINTING by Jennifer Taylor.For those interested in Aboriginal Art here is an explanation (click on the photo to enlarge):
The central circle represents Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. The twelve seated figures are the members of the Board of Management: four pairs of male and female Anangu (brown) and four non-Anangu (white). They have surrounded the park with yuu, a traditional windbreak. This is the protection that their decisions and policies provide both for the culture and the environment of the park, as well as for park visitors. Waiting and listening to the Boards's decisions are the Anangu and non-Anangu rangers. The Anangu rangers are barefoot, representing their close connection with the land and knowledge derived from thousands of years of looking after the land. The non-Arangu rangers wear shoes, representing their land management training and knowledge derived from European scientific traditions. Surrounding all are two more yuu (windbreaks) representing the protection and support of Tjukurpa (Anangu traditional law) and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which are working together to guide the management and protection of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Undulating sand dunes and rich bushland encircle the park. (taken from the visitor's guide; Uluru=Ayers Rock; Kata Tjuta=the Olgas).
Have a look at the corrugated road, at times it goes on for hours and it rattles the fillings out of your teeth. Lower the tyre pressures and hit about 80 km/h and it is half bearable.
At Uluru in the Cultural Centre Tanneke did a course in dot painting and here is a sample of images often found on Aboriginal paintings.
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Uluru just before sunset. On the right Tanneke's produce!
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Also pictures of Uluru at sunset and the view from the top.
The Standley Gorge is another impressive waterway cut through the Ranges.
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Dingoes roam the country; we hear them at night, howling like wolves.
Driving west of Alice Springs we first see the Simpson Gap where a river took millions of years to erode a gap through the West Macdonnell Ranges. Note the sign behind Tanneke! Many camping areas are supplied with dedicated fire places to avoid bush fires getting out of hand; this family was cooking their meal in a "Dutch Oven", surrounded by hot ashes.
Tanneke is looking at spinifex, a very hardy and thorny plant that grows in large patches through the centre of Australia; it loves puncturing tyres and is infamous for getting caught around hot exhaust pipes with vehicles often burning down completely. The picture is taken after our walk through Palm Valley when we returned on the top of the escarpment.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Tennant Creek and southwards
Tennant Creek, the last gold rush in Australia, mid 1930's, in the middle of the Great Depression. Here we see many Aboriginals, some active in art centres or working as road crews, but the majority living off the doll and sitting around. Recently there have been calls from some community leaders to change the social welfare system and link it to "good clean living" such as kids going to school, no abuse of alcohol, drugs, gambling, domestic violence and sexual abuse of in particular children. It is a very complex problem with no simple solutions. Moreover, the anti-discrimination acts will stop any laws relating to only Aboriginals. Having experienced apartheid in South Africa, we cannot understand why our government is still funding and creating so many separate services for Aboriginals, why can we not be all Australians, irrespective of race or cultural background?
AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL ART
-It is the longest continuing art tradition in the world, at least 40,000 years and probably longer.
-There are hundreds of different Aboriginal cultures in Australia, all with their own unique form of cultural expression and ancestral language.
-Most artists are located in urban rural and remote communities and are connected to local art galleries.
-Authentic Aboriginal art includes documentation of the name of the artist, the title of the work, when the work was made, the language group of the artist and some appropriate cultural information.
-Although most Aboriginal artists are women, in 1971 a group of men started painting in Papunya after having been encouraged by a school teacher. They established in 1972 Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd. and are now highly regarded internationally.
This is the camping ground in Alice Springs, one of the driest places in Australia......
It seems we cannot get away from locals commenting like: "this is very unusual weather, we have never experienced this before". So once again, we had hardly stopped to camp in Alice Springs, and the rain came down in buckets. This time it was cold as well, during the night down to a few degrees above freezing. Tanneke bought a fan heater, which we now use when we have a powered site. When traveling around Australia with our children in 1990, we had 2 days of rain during the whole year, now we can count the days of sunshine; we have had two days of hot weather so far! Even Darwin is having temperatures in the low 20's.
Trephina Gorge with the John Hayes Rockhole. We also visited the Ross River Homestead, built in 1890.
The Macdonnell Ranges stretch east to west for 400 kilometers, are around 340 million years old and were created around the same time as Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (the Olgas); originally more than 3000 meters high but now eroded to lower levels.
The Todd River Regatta in Alice Springs is a yearly boating competition; unusual is the fact that the Todd river is normally dry (on average it holds water once a year- however has held water 6 times already this year) and thus the regatta is held with bottomless boats .....true!. I have seen a picture once and it is absolutely hilarious, boats with running legs sticking out underneath!
The yearly Camel Races is another crowd pleaser. And then there is the yearly Beanie Festival, don your own handmade creation. Although not a large city, more a town, Alice Springs surprises with many shops and eating places, 7 caravan parks and lots of art galleries; it is clear that tourism is a major source of income here.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Cooktown and Gulf country
Rodeo was coming to Normanton, we missed out by a few days; the town's population tripled overnight.
Three Ways Roadhouse was just being refueled; the road train has 88 wheels.
Lawn Hill is a beautiful spot, far away from the bitumen. But most of the area had turned to dust due to lack of rain for a long time.
It is an oasis in an endless dry country. Please meet Krys: about 8 meters long and its head alone weighs over 200 kg. It is an exact replica of one o
f the largest crocodiles in the world, shot by a lady called Krystina in 1957. We see lots of BIG models of fantasy (Big Banana, Big Crayfish, etc.) but the scary thought here is that this monster actually moved around the Normanton area not so long ago. Tanneke is just checking if she would have fitted...... In Croydon we found the resurrected Gulflander, a 1930's train that now runs for tourists once a week between Normanton and Croydon.
The railway was built more than 120 years ago when gold was found near Croydon. It has no connection with any other line. This large area has had so many setbacks in the past but people keep trying to make a living. Floods, droughts, cyclones, epidemics and more. Tourism has now become an important part of the economy.
We checked this sign for the author but could not find one; interesting anyway.
On the way to Lawn Hill we found a prehistoric dig; 500 million years ago this area was an inland sea and huge birds roamed here. In the rock you can see part of a leg bone of this bird.
Someone nicked my crocs and walked away; when I wanted them back he hid behind his BIG Daddy and refused to return them......
How about a shoe lace tree?
Click on the photo for enlargement of shoe strings.The first part of the tour was conducted in a modified Landcruiser, just like an Oka, built in Cairns; perfect for off road tours.
The tour guide was extremely knowledgeable of all plants and animals. The tinnies are run on batteries that are recharged by solar panels. While moving through the water, they are completely silent. The water is at places more than 4 m deep; we also saw a fish that comes to the surface and spits at spiders which then drop in the water. This area is known for minerals and gems, in particular gold.
The cows were very friendly; Cobbold Station just runs only 10,000 of them.
Cobbold Gorge (85 Km south of Georgetown) was an unexpected beautiful surprise; we took a tour in an electric motor driven tinny.
Fresh water crocks and heaps of birds populate this gorge that is part of a private property.
On the road to Normanton, we were encouraged to run the car and trailer through an automatic wash street on the side of the road to get rid of seeds and plant material. In the outback we often find road condition signs at the beginning of long tracks (800 km plus...) and all drivers should check with the local police. No point in driving 600 km and then finding that you have to go back due to a deep river crossing, a muddy road or washed away sections, you may run out of fuel or get stuck for a week in between two river crossings. Some crossing have posts that mark the depth, can be up to 4 meters deep! If you get caught driving on a closed road you may get fined for the total amount of the repair costs; how much for say 500 km of churned up track?
When Captain Cook had to repair his ship, he had a major headache of finding a way through the Great Barrier Reef. He stood on this hill, as we did at sunset.Here is the main street of Cooktown. Once again, the rain followed us and huge gusts of wind attacked the tent at night. Then we found that the rain had caused the Burke Development road to close, so we had to go further south and travel the Savannah Way to the west.
