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)
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