I Didn't Climb Uluru

October 20th, 2013 - Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Hello all!  Orion here this time.  The past few weeks have been some of the most eventful of our entire time in this fabulous, rust coloured country.  I'll do my best to keep it summarized, but hang in there, because this might be a long one...

Where did we leave off?  Ah, yes. Darwin!  Our first impression of Darwin wasn't mind blowing, but as Marina told you, we came to love it.  Once we discovered the underground scene, we found that Darwin fulfilled all of our qualifications for a fantastic place.  We left friends and memories behind to hit the open road once again.  By the time we left, the "build up" was in full swing, and the temperature and humidity were nearly unbearable.  Sleeping at night was very difficult. As we left, we had a bittersweet goodbye with that lovely tropical city.  Though we were sad to go, the road called, and the prospect of cold desert nights was highly appealing.

Before departing, however, one of our dread clients offered us the use of her air conditioned home so that "Masta-M" could give the original Rasta Masta dreadlocks again.  Marina spent the next 22 hours yanking on my hair and giving me the most perfect skinny locks that I'd always dreamed of. Though I was in immense pain for parts of it, it was worth it. It's been two weeks now and they are already mature.  The apprentice has officially become the masta. We enjoyed the gracious gift of our friend's king size bed, shower, and mind-expandingly succulent raw cheffing, then bade her farewell.

We spent the next few weeks and 3000 kilometres on an epic journey down the "red centre" towards Adelaide, exploring the many national parks and beautiful places along the way.  This is that story...

Our first stop was Litchfield National Park.  Though it is only a few hours out of Darwin, we arrived near dinner time because of one last market day in the city to say goodbye.  We camped just outside the park next to a perfectly spherical boulder significantly larger than our van.  It seemed to be perched, ready to roll, and it was a powerful spot to get back into "road-mode."  An itchy head on my part made for hours of late night photography which was well worth it. Finally, I joined Marina in the van and slept like the giant rock watching over our camp spot.

When many people think of Australia, they visualize red desert, red desert, red dunes, red bushes, red rocks, red desert, and red desert!  In reality, there is so much more!  There is a lot of desert, for sure, but Litchfield and our journey down to Katherine was quite the opposite.  We spent most of our time hiking in the hills, relaxing in the perfectly pure streams, and swimming under waterfalls.  The streams are amazing.  Visualize one of the perfect mountain streams from BC, complete with deep rock pools and all, and then crank up the temperature!  It was like being at home, but rather than frantically jumping in and out of the water, we lazed around, snorkeled, sat under the falls, and enjoyed the perfect peace while letting our bodies heal as they sat weightless in the pools.  We also explored another spot with a huge waterfall in a setting similar to that of an alpine lake, hiked around the beautiful hills, and marveled at the tantalizingly climbable rock faces in all directions.  We took advantage of every non-crocodile-infested waterhole, and luckily, there were many.  It was fantastic. 

When we arrived in Katherine, we immediately noticed the difference in the air.  The sun was still intense, the air was still hot, but the humidity was gone!  Ah, glorious, glorious dry heat.  It felt so good.  We kept our sights on water though, and we managed to find some more amazing places.  The Katherine Gorge had a big river with a couple hundred metres square monitored for crocs.  We swam there, wondering whether it would take someone getting chomped before they would notice a new croc, and looked down the river at the beautiful cliff walls of the Katherine Gorge rising out of the water.  It was wonderfully refreshing.  After swimming we saw a little wallaby that was nearly tame, and went right up to it and hung out with it for a while. 

The next waterhole on our list was the Katherine Hot Springs.  I was a little skeptical as we arrived, for two reasons: 1 - We have AMAZING hot springs in BC, and 2 - It was definitely hot enough outside.  I wasn't even sure if I wanted to go in!  I definitely didn't want to get any hotter than the air outside.  Luckily, the springs aren't actually heated.  The water is kept at a constant 32 degrees celcius due to the temperature of water underground in that area, but there isn't any volcanic action to bring the water up to boiling or anything.  I'd call them more like "luke-warm springs," but it's all relative I guess.  As far as I know, there aren't any truly HOT springs in Australia, or at least in the centre.  The water was in a narrow canal that was so clear that it looked like it was only a few centimetres deep, when in reality it was up to my chest.  Upon entering the canal, you were immersed in a tropical paradise.  Giant palms stretched overhead selflessly offering shade, thick ferns lined the edges, and underwater was the purest, most beautiful tropical blue you could ever imagine.  The body temperature water was also amazing, because if you closed your eyes and floated, you could easily forget that you even had a mass of flesh surrounding your brain.  It was quite surreal, and we spent half the day there enjoying the little canals and pools.

Eventually it was time to go, but we didn't leave sadly, as there were more springs en route.  The next stop was Mataranka, another beautifully forested area with two perfect waterholes.  Bitter Springs was the first one, and it was like something we had never experienced before.  The perfectly clear, deep water, combined with a rich underwater life cycle made for a unique experience.  We brought our snorkels and paddled down the river marvelling  at the crazy plants, algae, logs, turtles, and so many brilliant colours of the water.  Mataranka Springs came next, and was a nice contrast from Bitter.  Rather than a myriad of crazy things to look at, Mataranka was a small network of brilliant turquoise pools, perfect for lounging in for eternity.  The colour of the water was like so many swimming pools try to imitate, with the white sand on the bottom, blue sky above, and perfect mixing of the two in the phenomenally clear water in between.  We said goodbye to what we thought would be the end of our experiences with water, and went on our way after thoroughly enjoying the beautiful H2O.

One day, we saw a sign for a random town in the middle of the outback a few kilometres off the road, and decided to check it out.  And it was a good call!  It was the typical Aussie experience.  The "town" consisted of two glorious things: a rustic roadhouse (pub/servo), and a bunch of locals drinking and gawkers gawking in it!  The walls were covered with photo IDs, AFL jerseys, random knick knacks, thousands of bras and panties, and about $10,000 in foreign cash.  The vibe was so chill that when I went in to pay for petrol, they asked me how much it came to! I had to go back out and check because I was so taken aback.  It was amazing.  We took advantage of their free swimming pool and not free ice cream before we hit the dirt again.  It was well worth the extra two kilometres.

As we continued down the road, we started noticing an interesting spectacle on the side of the road.  Every so often, amongst the hundreds of termite mounds gathered by the highway, a couple would stick out.  They were dressed up!  They looked remarkably like people, and the clothes made some of them realistic enough to take a second glance.  Roly poly ones, tall ones, skinny ones, fat ones; gangsters, duffers (ravers), business people, rock stars, and a lot of mediocre mud streakers.  Some people didn't have much imagination and just dressed a mound in a T-shirt, but the most creative ones were phenomenal.  My personal favourite was a mound ready to rave.  He was dressed in AFL footy shorts, had a bright neon singlet on, neon bracelets and bling dangling on stick arms, green star shaped sunglasses, a headband, and Nike balla shoes. Surrounding him were two or three of the "streakers," clad simply in dirty Ts, which enhanced overall image.  Ah, the happenings of the outback!  Hilarious...

We also passed many rhyming, inspirational road signs, which were always good for a laugh after driving for four or five hours. Classics such as, "Please arrive alive," and "Stop, revive, survive," as well as more risqué ones like, "We like our lizards frilled, not grilled," and "Drowsy drivers die."  There was also a regularly recurring one that said, "Have a spell," which I still don't fully understand, but find very funny for some odd reason.  It had to do with encouraging people to use the rest stops every hundred kilometres or so.

Suddenly we saw a sign for the Devil's Marbles, a beautiful scattering of giant boulders in the middle of the desert.  We were pleasently surprised, as we had thought that Karlu Karlu, as it is known in the native tongue, was only 4WD accessible.  We spent a few hours exploring the magical place and did yoga on the epic boulders.  I put on my climbing shoes and climbed to the top of the highest boulder as a finale to do some handstands, a somewhat death-defying feat as the climb was not exactly easy, the space at the top was very small, and I was about 25 metres above the ground.  It felt fantastic.

Thrilled by our experience with the boulders, we sped away and reached Alice Springs in "no time," relatively speaking.  We stopped briefly at Wycliffe Well on the way to see the UFO centre of Australia.  It's a town with hundreds of UFO sightings and a tiny population of three people.  Travelers and locals alike have seen UFOs regularly over the years and many people have no doubt in the stories.  It was an interesting break from the road and their bumper stickers were pretty hilarious.  

Alice Springs is smack dab in the middle of Australia, and is the gateway to several amazing places, including the Aussie icon, Uluru (Ayers Rock).  But before I get to that, I have a few more things to cover.  I'll stick to telling the tale in chronological order. 

As I was saying, Alice Springs is in the centre of Australia, and is sandwiched in the middle of an ancient mountain range.  The East Macdonnels stretch off to one side and are mostly 4WD accessible, and the West Macdonnels slither to the other side, with a few more conveniently sealed roads.  We chose to explore the West Macdonnels as we are without 4WD capabilities.  I think we may have to come back on another trip with a fully decked out four wheeler.  Australia is a mecca for four wheeling, and you can penetrate into some seriously amazingly rugged, untouched terrain.  For now though, we stuck to the pavement. 

As we drove in between the crubling mountains, I was reminded of Leh, with its insanely high yet rounded peaks, and also of a distant vision of himalayan grandeur.  314 million years ago, the Macdonnels were higher than the Himalayas are today, and looking upon the hilly yet powerful landscape, I could easily visualize the not-so-distant past.  Rock solid hevitree quartzite walls remained where soaring ridges used to reign, defiantly jutting out of the rocky hills as if to say, "I dare you to look down upon me.  I've seen more than you will ever see, and still I stand tall."  

We had many adventures over the two days that we allotted ourselves in the Macdonnels, and wished we had our backpacking gear from home.  There is a huge 249 kilometre trek through the ranges that I would have loved to do.  Amazing.  Instead, we swam in several ice cold water holes and rivers, bouldered over the water in deep water solo fashion, and I scrambled to the top of one of the huge ridges overlooking a river.  As the wind threatened to blow me off the hundred metre high cliff faces, I looked over a safari-esque flat bottomed valley dotted with stunted bushes surrounded by rock walls and crumbling mountains stretching off as far as the eye could see.  

We ended our exploration of the Macdonnels by going to Standley Chasm, a water carved gorge made out of solid rock.  It was only about five metres wide at the bottom, and the walls stretched high, high above.  We hopped the rope that said, "Do not  go beyond this point, you risk injury and even DEATH," which was a great decision.  We climbed up a maze of gorges, chasms, and hillsides until we were at the peak of the mountain, looking down at the tiny speck that was Standley Chasm.  We could see 360 degrees around us, and as we stood at the top of a cliff face admiring the view of the range stretching to eternity, I considered the implications of becoming a hermit and living the rest of my days wandering in and amongst these gigantic rock formations.  I decided against it, and reluctantly left the indomitable place behind with awe and respect, forever embedded in my memory as a place of unsurpassed beauty.  Viewed from a distance, the Macdonnels command great veneration, but only when you explore into their depths do you truly discover the sublime secrets that they have kept for millions of years.

Our wheels spun madly again, and another thousand kilometres ticked over on our odometre.  We had more rock to meet:  Watarrka, or King's Canyon - the Grand Canyon of Australia. 

We arrived in the afternoon and proceeded to make lunch in preparation for the Watarrka hike.  It was sweltering outside, but this was our only shot to really experience the canyon, so after a hasty meal of fly covered egg sandwiches (the flies were SO bad for the whole centre of Oz, and they were the worst at King's Canyon. There were literally thousands. In your eyes, mouth, on your face, in your food....disgusting. I think I ate one that was too ballsy to move just to spite it for being too stupid, brave, annoying, or most likely all three.), we hit the trail with five litres of water on my back, wet buffs around our necks, and kangaroo hats hiding our noses from the  baking sun.  The hike was steep and hot, but very rewarding.  It climbed up a steep ridge and then circled around the edge of smooth, dizzying cliffs with not a hold in sight for the climber's eye.  At the top were stunning beehive shaped mounds of stone creating mazes of mini-canyons that you could get lost in for hours.  The trail wound and wove through the mounds, veering off to the giant cliff's edge at convenient view points.  It reminded us of Nepal, but with less mountains and more glorious cliff faces.  We took a side trip down to a sacred aboriginal site in the canyon called the "Garden of Eden," which was a perfect year-round pool of water surrounded by soaring rock faces on all sides.  The hike took us about three hours, but with the intense heat it felt more like five.  When we got back to the van we were exhausted, but energized by the powerful vibrations present throughout the sacred canyon.  We drove late that night, excited about the plan for the next day, and...

Lo! Uluru!  How can I describe this incredible place?  It sounds cliche, but words really can't do it justice...  Neither can photography, video, or anything.  I think that it is one of the most powerful places energetically that I've ever been to on planet Earth, and is probably my favourite place that I've ever traveled to.  

When I first saw photos of Uluru, I thought that it would be a big crumbly hill thing.  Majestic, yes, but nothing like it actually turned out to be.  It blew my mind.  Uluru literally is a rock.  It's a legit, solid ROCK, that's been carved and mutated by the winds, water, and maybe even waves over millions of years.  When our van first approached it and I realized that the faces were completely smooth stone, I was overcome with awe and joy.  What's more, I knew that the stone standing 348 metres above the ground was only the tip of the iceberg.  Like its colder cousin, most of Uluru is hidden below the surface.  An estimated two thirds of solid rock extend beneath the unexplored red dirt.  

After we parked and checked out the information centre, which gave us some insight into the aboriginal history behind the rock, we had to decide how we wanted to see Uluru.  As rock climbers, our first thought was to climb it, but after a lot of thought, we decided against it.  The Australian governement basically "stole" Uluru from the aboriginal people and only recently have they gotten their sacred land back.  Back in the day, everyone used to climb "Ayer's Rock," and chains and handrails were even bolted along the climb.  Of course, back then, no one bothered to ask the aboriginals what they thought of it.  Traditionally, Uluru was very rarely climbed.  The aboriginals only ever climbed it in a rare coming of age ceremony for young men, and it was a serious spiritual journey.  We did a lot of reading on the different viewpoints and decided that we would respect the wishes of the aboriginals and not climb the beautiful rock.  What sealed the deal for me was when I saw a big sign posted by the aboriginal custodians that said something along the lines of, "Please do not climb the rock. Uluru is a place to be enjoyed in the silence and observed, not conquered and stood upon.  Please think of our culture and respect our wishes by not climbing. "  Right next to that was an Australian governement stamped sign that blatantly gave directions of how to climb, safety information and more.  I found it incredibly rude.  Although climbing is not conquering for me, and I would be undertaking the climb in the spiritual spirit of the young men who used to climb it, I decided that I would sacrifice my desire for the sake of others who may watch me climb and then follow with a less respectful attitude.  Often actions are stronger than words.  There was also a significant negative environmental impact due to climbing that we did not want to be a part of.  The water in that area is scarce enough.  Damaging the sources and dirtying the water should not be by-products of visiting Uluru.

Instead of climbing, we decided to walk around Uluru.  We started in the afternoon, and the heat was merciless.  The path was flat and extended around the entire rock, giving hundreds of different views.  As the day progressed, we saw the rock in different lights and shadows, with the ever changing, always inventive backdrop of sky.  The twelve kilometre walk was grueling, but as I trudged along I felt a lightness beneath the weight of my body, giving me relief from the sun, wind, and elements.  It's a feeling that is difficult to describe.  The intensity was still there, but I was removed from it, as if I was insulated from the negative feelings of burning and heat stroke.  It was as if my nerves were tuned to only feel the positive through my flesh.  Perhaps my continually renewed awe as we marched was the cause of it, or maybe it was something deeper.  Perhaps it was an energy that emenates from the rock that attracted the aboriginal people in the first place, and the ceremonies and respect offered from then on over the next ten thousand years only added to it.  Perhaps it was a conscious, benevolent force, urging me to go on, urging me towards...something...

Upon returning to the van, we celebrated with another ancient pleasure from the other side of the world: chocolate.  We parked the van with a great view for sunset, and cooked dinner as the light faded and the clouds blew imperceptibly swiftly overhead, like the time lapse video we filmed as we ate.  The clouds obscured the sun early, and as a result we didn't see the famous red glow of the rock at sunset, but we saw a lesser known personality of Uluru, the stormy desert skies. 

We woke up before dawn and hurried to see the sun rise, to make up for our lack of sunset glow.  We were rewarded (along with about 200 other people) by the classic image of the rock lit up bright red by the first rays of sun.  It was freezing cold, but even with the hoardes of people loading off of tourist buses, it was rewarding.  We snapped some photos, basked in the glow, and then said goodbye to Uluru and drove to the other giant rocks nearby, Kata Tjuta.

Kata Tjuta, or The Olgas, is an area with giant rocks similar to Uluru.  However, instead of one giant rock, Kata Tjuta is a "scattering" of 36 impressive domes (Kata Tjuta means "many heads").  Though lesser known than Australia's monolithic icon, Kata Tjuta is equally amazing.  The highest dome is 546 metres tall; that's 198 metres taller than Uluru!  Kata Tjuta's domes are made of a different rock than Uluru, which was interesting to note.  It is a type of conglomerate.  From a distance, the gigantic cliff faces look like one rock, but when you get up close, you see that the giant face is made up of thousands of little rocks, from as small as a pebble to bigger than a person, smashed and glued together to create one HUGE boulder.  In contrast, Uluru was fairly smooth, and was one uniform rock.  I think Uluru is granite based, which was originally sand, wheras Kata Tjuta is a great many things all squashed into one.  

As you probably guessed, we did some hiking through the epic gullys and gigantic gorges that wind through the many heads.  The day was spent oggling at the rocks, scheming about free soloing, and sitting in the silence of the gorges, listening to the wind, birds, and peace.  At sunset, we were gifted the experience of the red glow over Kata Tjuta, and feeling fulfilled, we packed up the van and left the magical centre of Australia.  I'll keep Uluru forever in my heart as an example of the purity and raw power of Mother Nature.  It is a very special place. 

Once we got driving, we were on a roll!  We had two marathon days and before we knew it, we had reached the overwhelmingly condensed and populated East Coast.  We stopped briefely to see Cooper Pedy, a strange town with a post apocalyptic feel... Surrounding the town are millions (literally) of piles of rock where mining shafts had been dug for opals.  As the opal capital of Australia, Cooper Pedy's landscape has been massacred.  Walking through the fields is not recommended, as open thirty metre deep shafts are left when they are exhausted of gems.  Strolling at night or without paying attention is a potentially fatal undertaking.  Besides the massacred landscape, there are other things that remind you of the zombie apocalypse as you explore Cooper Pedy.  As the land there is solid rock, half of the population lives underground in houses carved out of old mines.  The temperatures are forty plus in the summer and below zero in the winter, and there is always a huge varience between day and night climates.  It isn't a very welcoming place, but it was defintiely interesting!  We went to one of the underground churches to see what it was like living underground and it was actually amazing!  The temperature was perfect, it was sound proof, and because the walls, cielings, and floors were all carved of the same block of stone, it had a really peaceful feeling.  The church also had an amazing carving in the wall of a saint or something: another reminder that everything from the entranceway to the art was made of stone.  Pretty sustainable living if you ask me!  No heating or cooling needed, no building materials except a chisel, and there is no way that you'll need any repairs in at least four or five lifetimes!  Despite the feeling that zombies might leap out at any moment and drag you into one of the pits in the fields to feast, Cooper Pedy was a fascinating place.  

As we left the desert, we felt nostalgic, missing in advance what we had come to love.  We had new challenges ahead of us, challenges involving masses of population instead of unbearable heat.  Challenges that I know are far more testing to me than the baking highways.  But all things in this physical universe must come to an end, and as we approached the spiderweb of sealed roads in the South-East, we steeled our minds for the change of pace.  It started with a few towns, more powerlines, more fences, a few bigger towns, then towns with only short breaks of nature in between, then....the city.  Welcome to Adelaide.

And now I will pass the baton to Marina, who will attempt to describe the utter chaos of millions of people compared to the absolute peace of the outback.  The outback is home to me in Australia.  Sure, the rainforests and mountains and lakes are amazing, but where I feel most comfortable is in the midst of the desert, with nothing but the sun and the red dirt to keep me company.

Until next time,

Orion (& Marina)

Great Red Country

September 14th, 2013 - Darwin, NT, Australia

So where did we leave off?  Marina here this time.  I guess I'll just start from the moment we hopped in the van and drove off.

So we hopped in the van and drove off!  It was super weird to be in the van driving somewhere, except knowing that we wouldn't be returning back to Freo ever again! (Freo = the nickname for Fremantle, the suburb we lived in in Perth.)

We stopped on the way out of Perth to say goodbye to a few people and grab a few last minute supplies, and by the time we actually hit the road it was pretty late in the afternoon.  The first day of driving was pretty uneventful, but very exciting.  It was like the whole world lay before us!  The start of an epic journey!  As well as happy excitement, there was also nervous excitement.  I must admit that despite Orion's complete faith in the new repairs done to the van, I didn't quite trust it yet and every little smell or noise I heard freaked me right out!  I learned to relax pretty quick though, and was soon able to enjoy my turns behind the wheel.

The first night we had the BEST camping spot.  Our van came with the Australian bible, a giant heavy book called "CAMPS Australia Wide" which every road tripper MUST have.  It has maps of all Australia and lists every single camp spot on every single highway in the entire country, and many of them free!  A comment on the back says, "Worth its weight in gold.  Literally."and I totally agree.  To choose our first spot, we simply drove until we didn't feel like driving anymore, and went to the closest campspot!  It just so happened to be an AMAZING spot.  We pulled up and just parked right on the beach, opened up the back of the van and cooked some dinner, eating as we watched the sunset.  Amazing.

In the morning, we woke up to the shining sun and the ocean, opened up the doors in the van, and enjoyed the view while still relaxing in our comfy bed.  A bed OPEN on the ocean!  A pristine sea view!  Talk about paradise folks.  Forget your fancy "American Dream" holiday (not that we should have those anyway, Canadians!), all you need is a beach, a van, and the open road!  That's the real "Australian dream."

We still had much exploring ahead of us, and although we enjoyed our camp spot, we woke up early, did our morning routines, and hit the road.  Another day of epic driving ensued and we started to find ourselves slipping into the road trip flow.  That day we entered the proper Australian outback.  Towns and petrol stations (yes people, petrol is what you put in your cars, not gas!  We had a few confusing and awkward encounters with petrol station staff before we finally got that sorted out...) dwindled to just one every couple hundred kilometers, the red dirt started to appear, the sun intensified, and the foliage dwindled to outback bush.  

That night we camped on a plateau, rising above the sandy bush desert around us.  We sat and watched the sun set over a faraway streak of shoreline in the distance, and marvelled at the intense stillness and silence of this foreign land around us.  It was so quiet after months of city living, and it almost felt as if it was pressing against your ears.  But I could tell my body enjoyed it because I slept the deepest I had in months and woke up with the sunrise.  Ahh, the natural rhythms!  Being in tune feels amazing.

We passed through the city of Carnavon the next day, and although there was potentially some seasonal work there, we felt too fresh on the road to stop for too long and we headed off after only a short stop.  Part of our working holiday visa requirement is to do 3 months of some seasonal work.  If we do that 88 days of work, we are eligable for a second year on our visas.  It can be fruit picking, farm work, or anything that the government might count as "seasonal."  Carnavon has a lot of banana farms, but it wasn't the season and we didn't feel like stopping anyway.  The open road called us!  

Some may call it boring but I enjoyed watching the subtle changes in the landscape as the kilometres and hours stretched by.  Sometimes there were small shrub-like trees, other times almost straight red sandy desert, other times sand with low lying shrubs or spikey grasses.  And always it stretched out in every direction as far as the eye could see.  It was like looking at an ocean of outback.  And looking at that landscape, it was amazing to imagine the aboriginal people living here for thousands of years in perfect peace, connected to this world that people these days would call "dangerous" and "desolate."  I loved imagining the people walking barefoot through the desert under the burning sun feeling completely safe and at home, and the strange Australian wildlife lounging in the shade or in their burrows or other homes during the heat of the day:  Kangaroos, wallabies, wombats and other furry marsupials.  Predatorless for thousands of years (except for the Dingo) and free to roam and live in the desert, many never drinking a drop of water in the lives, having their thirst quenched by the food they ate.

Did you know, the name "Koala" is from an aboriginal word that means "no drink" for that exact reason: the koala never drinks water in it's entire life as it gets all the moisture it needs from the eucalyptus it eats! Amazing evolution of this adaptable creatures!

Our next destination was the magical land of Exmouth, a town on the Ningaloo reef.  We stopped outside the town in a place called Coral Bay for our first coral reef snorkel ever!  An exciting moment!  

Perfect turquoise water lapped on pure white sand with the sun blazing overhead as we put on our snorkel gear and waded into the warm tropical water.  It was beautiful!  There were so many types of fish! Huges ones and teeny tiny ones, some brightly coloured and shining, others striped and speckled, some with flat bodies, long thin bodies, and fat wide bodies.  The reef was like underwater abstract art as it had formed in intricate shapes and the sunlight and water danced around it making ever new patterns.  The coral held deep crevices and little caves for fish to seek shelter in, and it was endlessly fascinating to swim about them checking for what treasures we might find.  Finally we started to feel cold and could feel sunburns approaching so we decided it was time to go.

We arrived in Exmouth and were forced to stay in a caravan park as there is nowhere to park discreetly for free.  It was okay however because we happily washed our clothes and had some serious much needed showers. 

 The next morning we hit up Cape Range National Park for some more snorkelling.  This time at Turquoise Bay.  You can imagine the colour of the water :)  The bay has a fabulous snorkelling feature: There is a semi strong ocean current that starts at one end of the beach and runs all the way along to the other end.  Snorkellers simply walk down the beach, swim out to the reef and watch the fish while the current gently carries them to the other side.  When you finish, you can just walk out and do it again!!  The amazing thing about the Ningaloo reef is that it's just directly off the shore and very safe to swim out to.  If you want to visit the Great Barrier Reef, on the other side of Aus, you have to take a boat out to it as the reef is way far out.  And many Australians said that the Ningaloo was just as good as the Great Barrier!

This time we were really starting to get burnt, and I unfortunately got burnt on the back of my knees!  A place not accustomed to getting much sun, but was well exposed as I lay face down in the water for hours.

The other major attraction of Exmouth is whale sharks.  We unfortunately didn't get to experience this as it was the end of the season and was a little ridiculously out of our price range, but I would love to come back some day to  do it.  Every year the whale sharks come to Exmouth (not exactly sure why actually! Perhaps its a migratory or a food thing.. I forget now) and when they are here they come in massive numbers!  Possibly the largest gathering of the sharks in the world!  Tour boats locate the massive beasts, take you out to them, and plop you in the water with them and a snorkel!  Imagine!  These massive 14 -18m creatures swimming just a few feet from you! Wow!

We did however treat ourselves to a fancy whale watching tour!  On our last night there, we hopped in a boat before sunset and went out to find some humpback whales.  They breed north of Exmouth, off the coast of a place called the Kimberley and migrate south each year to Antarctica for food.  Along the way, they stop in the safe waters of the Ningaloo reef and the mothers can rest with their calves before completing the journey.  We enjoyed delicious snacks and an exhilerating ride on the bow of our boat as we went over huge ocean swells in search of whales.  Finally they appeared!  There was a HUGE mother whale breaching amazingly high!  We sped towards her and were blessed with the sight of her and her calf taking turns breaching (perhaps she was teaching him!).  It was amazingly when the mother went up because despite her massive size, she was somehow able to almost completely throw her entire body out of the water, making the biggest splash I have ever seen!!   We enjoyed the whales while the sun went down, and watched the full moon rise over the ocean, and finally returned to the harbour.  All in all, a very special experience!

That night we had our first kangaroo sighting!  (Or it may have been wallabies: basically tiny kangaroos)  Back at our campsite we saw them in a big group hanging out and went up to them... It was too dark to see them clearly but we could hear their feet thumping on the ground as they hopped.  Such weird but cute creatures!

The next day it was back to the red dirt outback and our journey continued.  We had some dread clients already in Broome, and decided to head straight there.  We have been dreading our way around Australia!  In Perth, we "opened" a dreadlock business called "The Rasta Masta" and had been making a decent living from that.  When we left, we decided we would find more clients all around the country and become a travelling dread caravan!  We put up ads on Gumtree (the buy/sell online site of Aus) declaring our arrival, and people just phone us up!  Its that easy.  So we had a couple people waiting for us in Broome, and it was time to go there!

It's pretty sketchy driving in the outback, but it's best not to think too much about it.  However, I will describe it to you as it makes for a good tale!  Sometimes you can go 3 or more hours without any sort of establishment or petrol station or road or sign or anything.  Just you, desert, and the highway stretching before you.  The sun is SO HOT, that the van literally becomes like a sauna.  The windows trap the sunlight and heat and you just roast.  And you have to be EXTREMELY careful not to overheat your engine.  Any excessive heat on the gauge, and it's time to pull straight over and give it a rest.  An added challenge for us is that we have no sort of air cooling system in Xavier, as somewhere along the line a tiny hidden tube or switch must have broken.  The only blowing air we get is from the windows being open! (It's better anyway because it's the REAL outback experience!  None of this air conditioning crap!) 

 But the actual scary part is that if you were to break down, you would be potentially thousands of kilometers from the next city, and a tow truck is pretty much out of the question.  Even scarier  than that is that we carry only 18L of water and sometimes you don't see anyone else on the road for almost the whole day.  And the sun is SO INTENSE.  If you couldn't find shelter, you could easily perish from it.  Luckily for us, we have a very good running van, and roadhouses and an extra jerry can exist to save the petrol tank from getting empty.

A roadhouse is the most Australian thing ever, after the kangaroo.  Its basically a glorified gas station, with every thing the Aussie road-tripper/truck driver could ever need: a bar. (As well as a caravan park, a mini motel, bathrooms, showers, a restaurant, shade, sometimes a swimming pool, and a store.)  In the literal middle of nowhere, every few hundred kilometers, a roadhouse will loom like heaven's gates before you.  You can top up the tank, give the engine some time to cool down, get a coffee (instant...), get some ice cream, eat some lunch, and most importantly, drink beer.  The people you see at roadhouses range from people like us, to retired travelling couples from Melbourne, to the Aussie redneck, called the Boagan.  Its always a cultural experience stopping at a roadhouse!  

Unfortunately the petrol in the middle of the outback does not come cheap.  When you really get out there, the prices actually go up to $2.00/L and more.  But you are definitely forced to pay that, because it is just not worth the risk of skipping a station!

I mentioned our goal was Broome, but that is seriously a long haul, so we broke it up into 3 days of driving.  The first night we made it to the city of Karratha, a major hub for the oil and gas industry that is so booming in Australia.  What a shock to see this place after Exmouth!

Exmouth sells people on its nature, its marine wildlife.  Karratha is unapologetic in being a huge, ugly, industrial town.  Our camping spot that night was a pull off on the side of the highway, listening to road trains fly by all night.  The next day we visited two contradictory sites, the paradox of our modern age.  One was the tourist/info centre for the hugest gas plant in Australia.  The coastline was cut and chopped right up, and covered in thousands of kilometers of pipes and strange storage containers for gas.  The aim of the tourist centre was to convince people that the gas industry blokes weren't the bad guys.  And it did work a bit on us.  We realized that the people running and designing these plants weren't these evil scum demons trying to destroy planet earth and all the happy baby whales.  They were just people trying to make a living, and keep powering our world!  And the amount of science and engineering that goes into extracting the gas from under the sea floor!  Its insane.  

The next stop was an ancient petroglyph site of aboriginal rock art, thought to have carvings as old as 30,000 years!  The carvings depict species of animals living in Australia that are now extinct, and the whole thing is thought to be the largest collection of rock art in the entire world!!  It's thought that the whole site is kept very hush hush, as they would like to continue building more gas plants along the coast, which is the very location of the ancient art, and having heaps of tourists coming round all the time wouldn't look too good.  As a result, the entire site is almost completely untouched.  There is only one very worn and faded old sign that tells you you are entering a sacred site of rock art and to be respectful.  After that there isn't even a path!  We climbed up a dried up creek bed in the centre of a crumbling gorge, stacks of huge boulders making mountains on either side.  And on the sides of the boulders were fascinating carvings!  We scrambled up the side of one the piles and discovered many amazing and detailed carvings!  Some were of people, some of animals.  Pretty sure we saw a crocodile, a whale, definitely some kangaroos, lots of people, and some strange marsupials that possible don't exist anymore.  It was amazing to think and wonder about the people here 30,000 years ago living among the rocks and carving their culture into the faces...

Next stop.. Broome! Woo!  We LOVE Broome.  I think it has been our favorite town/city I have seen on our travels so far!  It was small, and the whole town completely revolved around the two perfect beaches.  Our first day we went to an amazing hippie market filled with natural and organic veggies and products, delicious food, music, and hippie festival clothes.  FUN!  We met a dread customer, Bonnie, there who became our friend!  

We spent our days in Broome driving between the two beaches, Town Beach, and Cable Beach.  AND.  Orion's dream finally came true.  Bonnie's housemate told us about the bit of surf at Cable Beach, and we headed over there straight away to hit it up.  Or Orion did.  I would have happily tried, but for the rest of our time in Broome, for every spare second, Orion was out paddling around on our one board, waiting to catch a wave.  (I couldn't bring myself to take it away from him and take a turn!)  And catch a wave he did.  A new obsession has arisen!  It looks fun and I'm a tad jealous...  Can't wait to try it on the east coast!  But not to worry, I passed my time boogie boarding, or swimming, or just floating in the perfect turquoise water, cool enough to refresh you but warm like a perfect tropical ocean should be.  Paradise!  

At night we would cook dinner parked on the other beach, the local beach.  Every night, people from Broome drive out there, park on the beach, pull out their camp chairs and a cooler full of beer, and sit and enjoy the sunset together.  When you look down the beach, there had to be like 60 or more cars and campers parked on the beach.  What a fun community event!  It was amazing sitting there cooking and eating dinner and watching the sun slip down beyond the sea...

We had heard much about crocodiles and their dangers, but we wanted to see for ourselves.  (As much as we could, and as safely as possible.)  The Malcolm Douglas Croc Park is just outside Broome, and the home for many a captured crocodile.  Crocs that had attacked people, boats, etc, and had to be captured.  Since they are protected, they can't be killed, and are transfered to parks such as these.  Malcolm Douglas is the original and first "crocodile hunter" and is originally from Broome, hence why he opened his park here.  (Not sure if you've heard of Steve Irwin, the "Crocodile Hunter" but he is like Malcolm Douglas #2...)  We went and checked out some crocs!

We witnessed an amazing and terrifying feeding tour, where this epic Aussie croc dude tossed dead chickens and fish into croc cages and watched them fiercly fly up and snatch it in the blink of an eye.  They are actually invincible!  Their eyes are really their only weak spot, and they know it, so they've developed an epic eye protecting system!  Whenever they attack or feel threatened, they can literally retract their eyes into their skull, and an actual piece of bone, like a heavy duty second eyelid, covers over them.  The croc man prodded the eyes with a stick pretty hard, and the croc didn't even flinch.   Terrifying!

There are saltwater crocodiles, by far the most dangerous, and freshwater crocs.  There are also alligators, which are like soft gentle cuddly rolly polly puppies compared to the salties.  Salties can live in fresh or salt water, and are HUGE, like 8m, and invincible.  They can see you walking along the water line, calculate how long it will take you to reach a precise spot ahead, silently slip under and zip over to spot, lie in wait for you to arrive there, and BAM!  Pop up and snatch you at the exact right/wrong moment.  And unlike most other predators, ie. cougars, bear, sharks, they LIKE to eat humans.  A shark bites a human, says yuck, no thanks (unless the blood starts a feeding frenzy, but thats another story!), but a croc takes a bite and says YUM.  Plus he doesn't even bite, because if he's big enough to grab a human, he's big enough to swallow you whole!  Terrifying, but true.   Around Broome (luckily not at any of Broome's beaches) and north, don't even think about going for a swim no matter how pretty the beaches are, because chances are pretty high that you're floating about some salty's territory and he's eyeing you up for his next lunch...!

Everyone in Broome has amazing 4WD offroad vehicles,  fully equiped with fog lights, a roo bar (I think we call it a ram bar, but its called a roo bar here for a good reason...  Those beasties jump out FAST and the big ones can cause a lot of damage), a snorkel, epic tires, and anything else you might need.  Broome is the doorstep to the wild region of the Kimberley, which is completely unsealed roads, and if you want to do any exploring up there, you must have an offroad vehicle.  We wrote off going up there as our van is only a 2 wheeler, but Bonnie invited us on a day trip up to Cape Leveque in her ute, and we gladly accepted!

That was an epic day!  We offroaded for a couple hours through beautiful bushland, and magically came upon the nice little park area of Cape Leveque.  First we swam on a beautiful beach next to these amazing red cliffs, then we had a beer and a pizza at the restaurant there.  Then we hiked over to the other side and went for a snorkel!  We explored the rock reef and found lots of fun and colourful fish, and walked along the beach looking at all the beautiful intricate shells that come in with the tide.  We lay in the sun in the late afternoon, and saw humpback whales breaching way out in the distance! After that we found a picnic table, ate dinner while the sun set, and finally headed home in the dark.  On the way back we passed our first proper bush fire!  Bonnie works for Parks and Wildlife, and she called to make sure it was okay to drive past it.  With the OK, we sped past it, watching the flames dance among the grass and trees.  Luckily there was no wind that night, so there wasn't much concern of the flames leaping across the road.  

The next day we said goodbye to Broome, with a special place for it in our hearts forever.  The beaches, the first surf, the whales, the wonderful people.  Such a special place!  Our next destination would be the biggest city we had seen in quite a while: Darwin, capitol of the state of Northern Territory, and with a population of about 75,000.  And believe me, that is a LOT  of people for way up there.

The next few days of driving we saw so many bush fires! It was so scary driving through them sometimes, because you never know what to expect until you get there, in terms of how big the fire is, if it's right on the road, how hot the fire has made the pavement, etc.  Most fires start from stupid people throwing cigarette butts out the window, leaving fires unattended, blah blah, so they tend to be right on the highway.  One night we were driving and we drove through quite a big fire, and for the next half hour or more of driving we drove through deadened areas completely charcoaled and covered in ash, with the odd stump still burning, where this huge fire had passed through.  Amazing!  Despite a few sketchy moments, we passed every fire unscathed.

Another outback lesson: kangaroos are suicidal.  Perhaps unintentionally, but they are literally suicidal!  Everyone always warned us, "WATCH OUT FOR KANGAROOS," and I found myself thinking, "Oh no, not me, only careless drivers need to worry about that."  That was until the first roo literally THREW itself onto the road in front of our car!  There must be some kind of strange wiring in their brains that makes them hurl themselves into half ton hunks of metal flying at 130 km per hour down the highways.  We've had to dodge them several times now, and its come to the point where if you see one near the road at all, INSTANTLY slam on the brakes, because the odds of that kangaroo deciding at precisely the right/wrong moment to throw itself at you are VERY high.  Beware outback drivers who don't want to murder roos and seriously damage their cars... Beware!!

On top of the roos, there are also cows, sheep, and goats left free range in the bushland who also enjoy wandering on the highways to play a game of "chicken."  If you have to hit a roo, or a sheep, or a goat, fine (as lone as you have a roo bar).  Sometimes you can't avoid it.  But, DO NOT HIT A COW.  Sometimes you would drive past skid marks on the highway and you could see the accident that occured... A smallish car, a biggish cow, and BAM.  You're totaled.  Cars left unattended off the highway are looted of absolutely everything you could possibly take, and then usually smashed and often torched.  But that's not even a worry if it did happen to you!   Just be grateful if you survive!!  Those outback cows are huge...

For the first time since arriving in Australia back in January, we finally left Western Australia, our "Aussie home" state, and by far the largest state in Australia, taking up almost half the country.  The state is largely untouched and wild, and the nature is phenomenal, the oceans fantastic.  WA contains the deserts, the bushland, and even the magnificent old growth jarrah forests near Margaret River that we explored briefly on the roadtrip where Xavier broke down.  Amazing!

We said goodbye to Western Australia, and hello to Northern Territory, the state with the slogan, "Outback Australia."  The highway speed limit here is 130 km/h!!! And I'll tell you, it is SCARY passing a road train on these tiny lane highways at those speeds.  Road trains are like semis, but here they have sometimes five trailer cars!  They're HUGE and terrifying.  We've heard that on some highways, road trains can take each other's mirrors right off as they pass on the narrow roads!

We passed through Kununarra right before the border, and then through Katherine, and finally reached Darwin.  (These places are all very far apart and I just condensed a few days of epicly hot sweaty intense driving into one short easy to read sentence.  Do not underestimate what it means to drive from Kununurra to Katherine to Darwin!!!  I sunburnt THROUGH the windows of the car while wearing sunscreen!!!!!!)

Darwin! WOW.  We are still here as I write this, although planning to leave in the next few days, and I can say I am SO GRATEFUL for what this place has given us.  We have become FAMOUS DREAD MASTAS!  As I mentioned, we are doing dreads as a business every town we go to, and our work in Darwin took off!  We have been booked every single day since we arrived here, and have met some amazing and wonderful people who have opened up their homes to us.  We will never forget what amazing people we have met here!

One client, Dave, and his wife Ali and their 3-year-old Tahlia, offered their lawn for us to park on!  They are an amazing family and have been so generous, letting us use their pool, their toilets and showers and facilities.  Now, every morning, we go for a swim, and often play with little Tahlia who is an amazing swimmer for her age.  She can almost paddle across the entire pool without any flotation device!  

Other clients have offered to let us use their laundry machines, their showers, their coffee machines, or even just their air conditioning!  There are so many wonderful, generous people in this city.  We almost feel like we're back in India!  

India comes to our minds, not just with the people, but with the heat.  Summer is coming to Australia once again, and I'll tell you what that means up here, at the very top of the country:  HOT, oh so very hot, and HUMID, OH. SO. VERY. HUMID.  The only way to survive is to keep your body submerged in water somehow.  Anytime we mention how hot it is getting to anyone local, their response is always, "It's only going to get worse!  MUCH worse..."  Just in the week or so we've been here the humidity feels like it's doubled.  The nights are so hot!  It's not fair!  It's supposed to be cool at night and refreshing from the heat of the day! Nope.  It's only like 3 degrees cooler, and Ali was telling me that in the "Wet", the night doesn't get any cooler at all!

There are only two seasons this far north: the Dry, and the Wet.  Or the Super Hot, and the Super Super Hot, Humid and Flooding with the Occasional Cyclone.  During the wet, things just flood over with water, including the highways.  There's usually a couple week period where the highways are literally closed because they are underwater.  And that is why we must leave here soon!  The Wet is well on its way!

I think the next email we write, we'll be somewhere far away from here, so I'll summarize our Darwin experiences:

It was such a shock coming here, and we were overwhelmed and feeling disconnected from the nature we had bonded so strongly with on our travels.  It took us a while to get settled, but now I feel like this city is a wonderful welcoming place, and that I could almost stay here forever!  There are some major downsides, like you can't EVER swim in the ocean here EVER because saltwater crocodiles are literally EVERYWHERE  (And its not even a joke or like something parents say to scare their kids.  It actually happens.  People get taken ALL the time!), the insane heat and humidity and lack of it ever  being cold even a little bit, EVER.  And if you don't get taken by a croc, the box jellyfish season is always a lovely time, when these little guys come to town and their sting will send you instantly into cardiac arrest, resulting in a sudden untimely death.  But the people are amazing!  We went to our first Aussie doof (what we call a rave.. people dancing to epic DJs, everyone fire spinning, hoop dancing, and wearing festival clothes.. That sort of fabulous fun stuff), and we went to a permaculture party!  A neighbour of Dave and Ali had built a completely sustainable, 100% edible garden with 170 different plants, and was celebrating it's 1st year of life and success.  Such an amazing and inspiring man!

Well I reckon that's about all I can say for now. (What! I've barely written anything! .......)  The next time you hear from us we'll be telling tales of Australia's great icon, Uluru, or Ayer's Rock, the journey through the great Red Centre, some amazing gorges and national parks, and once again another culture shock when we hit the populated east coast...

We've officially been away from Canada for a year and 2 months, and I can tell you, we are still proud Canadians, and getting more and more excited each day to come home and continue our adventures in our homeland!  How strange is it to know more about the culture and people of the land down under than about our own wild northern home!  We are excited to return...

Until next time beautiful people,

G'day!

Marina (& Orion)

The Past Six Months: A Summary

September 9th, 2013 - Darwin, NT, Australia

Hello loyal OM readers!  Orion here.  Before I begin, I must apologize for our long silence.  In this email, I'll give you a short summary of what has happened in the past six months.  In the next one, I'll get to the real excitement that has transpired over these past few action-packed weeks. 

About six months ago, we landed in Australia, and you received our culture-shocked first impressions of this sunny land.  A lot has changed since then.  We lived in the biggest city of Western Australia, enjoying our first experiences surviving in the big city.  We were in the suburb of Fremantle, which has a wonderfully cosmopolitan vibe and catered to all of our artistic needs.  We lived and worked and lived and worked and lived and worked, wrote songs, amassed possessions, played gigs, made friends, and lived as an Aussie for our entire time there.  It was a wonderful time and we were accepted not only as residents of Australia, but as Australians. 

Many other side stories were born and died in our Australian home, but I won't be able to relate them all here.  I'll skim over a few of the more important ones to fill you in, and I'll do my best not to leave you with too long of a novel to read through.  However, I know my own writing pattern, and this is likely to be long, so I recommend taking it in a few sessions, or at least reading it on an ipad or similar device so you can get comfy.  If you can't get cozy for this session, plan ahead.  The next blog is bound to be even longer, and nail-bitingly tense.

After living and working for a while in Perth, Marina and I had saved enough money to buy our home for the months to come.  We proudly purchased a camperized 1995 Mitsubishi Starwagon, and started doing little trips in and around Perth.  For those of you not familiar with Mitsubishi, I'm sure you've seen heaps of jacked up 4WD Delicas in BC.  Mitsubishi made the Starwagon for a while, until they realized it's superiority over other vans.  It had more clearance, was more rugged, had more power, and handled better than the competition.  To put their newfound knowledge to practical use, they created the Delica.  They took the Starwagon, put bigger tires on it, jacked it up, put in a bigger engine with four wheel drive, gave it all of the other necessary 4WD amenities, and the Starwagon became the Delica.  To aid your visualizations of the tales from this point on, just picture a Delica.  Most people who see our van in person think it is one, so your metal picture won't be too far off from reality.  

After only a month of owning our trusty steed, Loup-Xavier, disaster struck.  On one relatively far weekend trip down south, we broke down on our way home.  Rather than going through a long and tedious description of exactly what happened, I'll quote my elated facebook status when I fixed the major problem.  I had never even owned a vehicle before, let alone done mechanical work, so it was a major accomplishment, and I think this status best expresses the situation and my emotional state:

"55 days ago, our van broke down in Busselton, a long way from home... After an epic adventure involving identity theft (with permission), a "free" rental car, a "free" hotel, a 3 hour "free" tow, and insane amounts of gratitude to my fake identity/my friend's RAC coverage, we made it home with our broken van. 

The next stage of the adventure involved finding out the problem. After some time and fiddling, the local mechanics nearby discovered that the valves were bent in the head....a BIG job. I took it upon myself at that moment to become a mini mechanic, as it would save us thousands of dollars in real mechanic's labour. 

Arduous weeks passed, and I entered the forsaken realms of the interior of my van's engine. Finally, the head was out! I sent it off to be reconditioned and found that 14 of 16 valves were bent! The head itself was in great shape though, and came back gleaming and as good as new. 

Putting it all back together was another epic, and I replaced everything that needed it on the way - water hoses, rusty pipes, etc... To keep this relatively short, I'm leaving out the numerous side-plots of savage difficulties that occurred along the way. 

Finally, at 5:35pm tonight, it was done. DONE! I started the motor and it purred to life gracefully on the first try. No leaks, no scary noises, no dramas! I checked all of the oil levels and checked and re-checked all the hoses, nuts and bolts. The test drive around the block was a glorious occasion. Amazing...

The van drives so much better now than before! Wonderful. The engine is quieter, the acceleration is smoother, there's more power, and the van is happier. Makes sense when you recognize that the engine is essentially brand new... 

It's been a battle, but I can tell you one thing: it feels INCREDIBLE to have conquered."

Marina had been there helping me take the engine apart, but she had to leave for her yoga teacher training in India right when we got the head out of the van, leaving me to do one of the hardest parts alone.  It took me almost the whole month she was gone, doing it between work and music and yoga, and I barely finished it in time to pick her up from the airport.  As difficult as it was, I wouldn't change it.  I learned so much, and when we finally hit the road for good, I felt 100% confident that I could fix almost any problem, and had an amazing intuitive sense of our newly (shorter) named travel companion, Xavier.  We thought that a new engine merited a new name, and he likes it.  Loup was the old owner we bought the van from, and we had named the van after him because he too put a lot of work and love into it.  But after our mechanical journey with Loup-Xavier, as well as some epic cleaning and detailing, we decided he had graduated from Loup and simply become Xavier, like a fresh new van and a fresh new man!

I'll let Marina summarize her arduous experience becoming a certified yoga teacher in the Indian summer!  Here she is.

Hi everyone! So yes, India.  Well, first I quit my job at Gordon Street Garage, a fancy and very hip little restaurant/bar/cafe in central Perth where I was learning all the snobbishnish of making fancy coffee and decorative latte art, and started to pack a very small bag for my shortest and 3rd trip to India to do my yoga teacher training.  I had enjoyed that job, but was ready to move on to bigger and better things!  The course was a month long intensive and I would be staying in an ashram in Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh, in the middle of the humid roasting summer and the pelting rains of the monsoon.  After a 20 hour layover in Singapore, and a few more plane trips, I was on the flight to Khajuraho and had already met some of the girls from the course on my flight.  Everyone was very nice, and none of us knew what to expect.  

Upon arrival in Khajuraho, we had one night to spare, and a new friend and I found a cheap room together, easily slipping back in the chaotic bargaining ways of India.  Ah, India!  I can honestly say it was good to be back.  The next day in the pouring rain we met our pickup and headed off to the ashram.

It was a very beautiful ashram  with so much NATURE all around... I swear I had never seen that much free untouched land in all my travels in India.  It was beautiful.  There were many people from all around the world in the group, including Columbia, Australia, Canada, USA, and all over Europe.  Everyone seemed super awesome and we all became fast friends, knowing we would sharing a very special experience.

Well, what can I say? The month took off with a bang, and before you could say "Shavasana," we were doing hours and hours of yoga everyday, teaching our own little mini classes, and learning vedic philosophy.  On the FIRST day of class, they had everyone learning headstand, and though I was a little intimidated at first, I had it down after only 3 classes.  I was rather proud of myself :)  We had three teachers: Ram, Omkar, and Madhav.  I loved learning from Omkar and Madhav, and watching Madhav (who taught us asanas) bend and contort himself into ridiculous poses and then telling us to try!  However, I think we all surprised ourselves with what we could do and how fast we progressed.

Everything was going so well... until the sickness started... 

 A couple people were getting sick and I thought I would be fine as I had eaten many a slightly unsafe thing in India and been ok.  But one night I was sitting outside after dinner and felt some upset in my stomach.   I ignored it, thinking it was nothing, but next thing you know, I was throwing up! And MAN was I sick.  I was up the entire night throwing up and I couldn't even drink a single sip of water without it coming right back up.  By the morning I was SO dehydrated that as I lay in a stupor in bed, I was having visions of waterfalls and of sucking on icecubes, and sweating cold glasses of water.  I began to get worried when morning came and I still hadn't had anything to drink, when one of our teachers saved me!  He offered me "lemon water."  I said sure 'cause I had no idea what that even really was and I thought maybe it would be cold, and I was dying for cold.  What I got was super hot water with limes in it.  Not really the same thing, but when I drank it, it was 100x better!  Somehow I was able to drink almost half of this huge jug in one go!  The limes and hot temperature just soothed my stomach and I was saved!  Hurray!

It wasn't just me who got sick.   By the end of the month, I think at LEAST 30 of the 40 people had been in bed for a whole day sick, and pretty much everybody had some form of diarrhea.  By the end of the month, we were all several pounds lighter, a LOT flexier and stronger, completely detoxified, and totally open with eachother about any sort of issues we may have been having.  I swear our friendships developed extra fast and extra close as everyone was suffering some form of sickness and it was up to us to support eachother.  By the end of the month, we had all worked our asses off to become teachers and we DESERVED our certificates.  It wasn't some show up and win a prize lame-o yoga fun, it was full on, intense, use-every-ounce-of-your-will-power-to-make-it, monsoon hot yoga of survival!  Which is what I think the true practice of yoga is about anyways... pushing yourself past where you thought you could go.  By the end we had all learned some powerful lessons about ourselves and discovered the ability within us to teach others!  I really feel like I learned a lot.

At the end of the month, we said our tearful goodbyes (I think everyone cried a little!), congratulated eachother on surviving the month and earning our certificates, and parted ways.  Time to travel home! 

I thought I was totally better, but NOPE!  Whatever evil little creature was inside me had not quite given up.  I had a layover in Hyderabad and I had booked a nice hotel to stay at.  I thought I deserved a proper shower and comfy bed after that epic month!  I got super excited by this epic free breakfast buffet, and as I finally just gotten my appetite back up, I perhaps over indulged a tiny bit.  I felt fine for the first while, but as I was waiting in the airport to catch my flight, I started to feel some interesting stomach pains.  I won't describe the whole thing in detail, but I will say, when I finally made it to Perth, poor Orion was expecting a nice excited hug, but instead I just collapsed on him!

I spent the next 4 or 5 days recovering from these crazy wild stomach pains that assailed me with intense force, and slowly, slowly I survived!  When I was up and about again, I weighed myself and discovered over the course of the month I had lost 15 lbs!!! As I normally weigh 120, 105 lbs is NOT a healthy weight.  I panicked a little, and as soon as I felt up to it, I got to eating!!  And eat I did.  

Anyway, I got all better and my stomach somehow resumed some kind of normal digestion again, and I regained all the weight I lost, and I was ready to hit the road!  What an ordeal!  But I can now officially say I am a certified yoga teacher!  And I feel proud.  I can't wait to get back to Canada and start teaching!

It's Orion again.  Time to wrap this summary up.  Immediately after I turned the key in the van and shouted for joy as it hummed to life,  I quit my job and started planning our epic 'round Australia road trip.  I got new tires, spare parts for possible outback repairs, and checked and re-checked nuts, bolts, and fluids.  The van ran like it did when it's life began eighteen years ago.  When Marina got home almost everything was ready to go!  We packed up our house together and said goodbye to Fremantle, keeping a special place for it in our hearts labelled, "Our Australian Home." After the serious detailing of the van and saying goodbye to our mates, we hit the road!  The next phase of our adventure had begun, and it was about to get a lot more exciting than anything we had anticipated...

Stay tuned for our next update - bush fires, roos, coral reefs, road kill, roos, crocs, roos, and the constant, unrelenting, merciless sun...

Keep on skankin,

Orion (& Marina)