It takes a while to get used to this camping business. Down sizing to a queen size bed, no oven, worse still no cellar. It’s tough I tell you! The worst thing is the strange liquor licensing rules where shops don’t open until mid afternoon, ask for identification, and limit the quantities of alcohol you can buy. We’re learning though, the trick is to never let a chance go by. If you see a liquor shop open, just buy, buy, buy, it’s an investment against future disappointment.

Trying to cobble together a simple meal from ingredients lying around or picked up along the way is also another inconvenient exertion. We have managed a couple of half decent meals. Examples follow.

Kununurra fruit pancakes with butter and Canadian maple syrup, topped with Greek yogurt. Ethiopian coffee (pressed).

Gregory Tree Ancient Grains Fried Rice.

Grampian Salmon with steamed vegetables on a bed of mash, served with Leasingham Bin 61 Shiraz. Don’t stress, the balsamic glaze had sufficient weight to carry the Bin 61.

Tennessee Fettuccine with bacon and mushrooms in a Jack Daniels cream sauce.

Bungle Bungle tri colour pasta with mushrooms and black olives in a tomato sauce and toasted parmesan and herb bread.

Lambert Central goats cheese pizza. Half vegetarian half with Hungarian salami.

Vegetables, no doubt in season somewhere, with toasted sourdough.

The universal repair kit.

Why do people dress up termite mounds, hang underwear from trees in the middle of nowhere, nail thongs to a tree, or arrange a group of strollers with stuffed animals in them on the side of the road. We certainly are a weird bunch of people us Aussies. Do we do this as artistic expression or are we all just a bit warped. Warped works for me, I like warped, nice warped that is, not twisted warped… hey look the rum is starting to work.

Thank heaven for gun control.

The beer might be hot, but at least the phone is cool. These people are just wrong, wrong I tell you!

Good old Fran’s homemade everything. She was closed fortunately.

Emu Vs. Alien.

By all that is green. That’s the biggest chicken I’ve ever seen.

Bargain?

Rock Art.

Bubbles in the pond at Cathedral Gorge

Who is this Muppet?

Seriously. Who is he?

Jen who is deathly scared of cows, let alone bulls took this photo. You cant tell me the camera doesn’t sense fear. Click to enlarge.

This is my image of the same bull. It was kind of a Crocodile Dundee moment! We took the long way aback to the camp ground.

Ant Hill

It was the Heartbreak Hotel. Elvis would be.. well I don’t really know what Elvis would be.

???

The invisible man waiting for the invisible bus

Early Commonwealth Bank

Just one more week and I can ……….

The picture is a little unclear, but I am sure its the Loch Ness Monster, or maybe the Loch eel. We were at Lochiel after all.

Mail Box. It has to be a bull because its male.

The Landrover Lollipop as promised.

It’s Friday night and we’re in the middle of nowhere.

We left Finke National Park early with every intention of going to the rather unattractive sounding “Boggy Hole” wetland on the other side of the Finke River. This entailed a lengthy detour through the historic settlement of Hermansburg. We arrived early. Hermansburg had the feel of a ghetto, lots of chain wire, barbed wire, and dogs. Not the kind of place you want to leave a caravan and go off for the day. We gave Boggy Hole a miss and headed for Alice Springs.

Full of coffee, Cornish pasties and apricot slice we attacked the Old Ghan Railway. Running from Adelaide to Alice Springs via the bottom of Lake Eyre, mostly through desert country with shifting sand dunes and floods in the wet season, it was probably certain to fail from the day it started. Like most Government projects “it seemed like a good idea at the time”.

One could, and people have, written volumes about the Ghan Railway but the stand out story has to be the one where a woman complains to the conductor about labour pains. The conductor chastises the woman for boarding the train so late in pregnancy. She replies “ I wasn’t pregnant when I boarded you’re damned train”. The Ghan was nothing if not slow and unreliable.

Our part of the Ghan’s track was from Alice Springs to Finke.  This section is mostly through the Simpson Desert and its rough, sandy, corrugated, dry and just about the worst road you can drive on. This is because its not really a road just the old railway corridor. The track and sleepers have all been removed, only the rail spikes remain, they unfortunately are a little tougher than your average steel belted radial. (Contributions to “Les and Jens Tyre Fund” are not tax deductible however they are greatly appreciated). There is an off road race in Australia called the Finke Desert Race, it also follows the Old Ghan Railway line from Alice Springs to Finke, it runs parallel to the road we were on most of the way. We actually travelled part of the racecourse and it was smoother than the road. Maybe they should move the road over a few feet.

I should mention that Finke is nowhere near Finke Gorge (see last post). Finke Gorge is named fort the gorge and Finke the town is named for the river it sits on. They are hundreds of kilometres away but on the same river. I Finke that’s sufficiently confusing.

Aboriginal rock carvings, that’s right carvings not paintings, thought to have been chipped with a chisel-like rock which was whacked with a larger hammer like rock, can be found on this route. They pre date the pyramids by tens of thousands of years. Unfortunately photographing the rocks is frowned upon. Fortunately I found some old black and white photos, no doubt taken before the sign went up, and I include them for your viewing pleasure.

So here we are in the middle of nowhere but were not in the middle of nowhere we are in fact in the middle of Australia, the exact middle in fact. This is the spot where, if Australia was siting on a pin it would not tip one-way or the other, it would be balanced (unlike some of my friends). The problem is that this point does not take into account any islands that are part of Australia. Tasmania, for example, not an insignificant island (in terms of weight at least) is excluded from the calculation. I suspect that this is because the inclusion would have upset the apple cart, Tasmania being the apple hub of Australia. There is also the problem of all those Tasmanians popping over to the mainland on the weekend, I’m not saying that they are overweight there’s just so many of them.

So here we are in the middle of AUSTRALIA its Friday night (Pizza Night), we are the only people here because camping here is frowned upon, and it’s a full moon. I know what you’re thinking, but no, we didn’t sacrifice a goat and dance around naked. We did however eat a sacrificial pizza and washed it down with a nice Coonawarra Red. We also lit a fire in case there were any aliens about curious as to the geographic centre of Australia.

By the way the geographic centre of Australia is named after a Dr. Bruce Lambert a very well respected surveyor. “Lambert Central” has a lovely flagpole with an “Aussie Flag” which I saluted (being a good New Australian) unfortunately the flag is held on with cable ties and covered in bird poop. I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come……

File photo rock carving 1

File photo rock carving 2

File photo rock carving 3

Natural Enemy Of The Rubber Tyre.

Filling Up.

A Cutting On The Old Ghan Railway Line.

Sacrificial Pizza and Red Wine (Australian of course).

The Centre.

My Poor Flag!

If the Finke River was having a birthday party there would be two hundred and fifty million candles on the cake, give or take. That makes the Finke River the oldest watercourse on the planet.

Having had a cursory glance at this aged stream I conclude that it is yet another one of those places where the pictures are better than any description my meager grasp of the English language can come up with. The best I can do is Awwwwww…. or maybe…. Oooooooo!

Access is via a four-wheel drive track so a lot of people don’t make the trip. The sign at the start of the track suggests that it is very arduous, we found it quite easy compared to the Gibb River Road, that is to say no wheels fell off, and lets face it the Paris to Dakar Rally is easier than the Gibb River Road.

The Finke Gorge track starts at Hermansburg, home of the famous indigenous landscape artist Albert Namatjjra. Driving through the surrounding countryside it’s not too difficult to see where Albert’s artistic inspiration came from.

Palm Valley in Finke National Park is quite unique it has a stand of Red Palm Trees that grow only in a two kilometre stretch where conditions allow for year round water. The leaves are red on the new growth and turn green as they mature, so if you visit don’t expect to see red palm trees like some people do.

Veiw from Lookout

Lookout 2

Finke River Gorge

Palm Valley

Red Palm

Palm Valley 2

A rather restless night last night. Apart from the usual night terrors that accompany one on holiday, like how am I doing to pay the MasterCard bill, did I put the cat out, is the tap still running and do I really need to get up for a whizz,…….it rained and rained and rained. The fear then became are we going to be able to drag this holiday carnival out of it’s red-mud quagmire and back onto the bitumen.

Then the sun came up and all was well.

We are travelling south on the Stuart Highway named for the man who plotted the route way back in eighteen sixty. It took John McDougal Stuart two years to travel the three thousand kilometres. I have a mental image of “The McDougal Stuart” striding the plains in full Scottish regalia. Kilt, bagpipes, sporran swinging in the mid day sun, his red complexion no doubt giving a modern day dermatologist his very own version of the night terrors.

A capable driver can now complete Mr. Stuart’s two-year trek in two days thanks to the Northern Territory’s “open speed zones”. The open speed zones mean that you can drive as fast as you like, at your peril naturally.

The “Cannonball Run” race was once held in the Northern Territory, no doubt due to the liberal speed limit. There is a memorial to a couple of participants that on the race results were listed as DNF (did not finish).

Where was I ….Oh Testra. Back in the eighteen seventies, the Australian government commissioned the overland telegraph line. This was to link Adelaide in the south, to Darwin in the north along Stuart’s route.

The statistics for the line are quite staggering. Eleven telegraph stations, three thousand kilometres of wire across very inhospitable countryside, thirty six thousand telegraph poles at a cost of four hundred and seventy thousand pounds. The cost of sending a ten-word telegram was one pound ($2). This allowing for inflation would now be $50 for your ten words.

The last time we travelled away we returned to a $10,600 (that’s right ten thousand six hundred dollar) mobile phone bill. After much argument Telstra agreed that it may have been a slight overcharge and refunded about ninety nine percent of it, much to their credit (ha ha….credit , get it). Anyway, now I at least know what scale of rates they were using.

Sunrise at Tennant Creek

Telstra’s head office 1870,s

Sunrise at Tennant Creek

We were so impressed with Mr. Gregory’s efforts in the north that we decided to explore the National Park named in his honour. Fifty odd kilometres of dirt found us at Bullita Homestead (now abandoned) where we spent an unrushed couple of days exploring the area. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely park well stocked with flies and numerous other biting insects, it has a rather ordinary escarpment walk, a river that would be great for swimming in except that its infested with saltwater crocodiles. The ranger station information describes the climate as “hot and dry in the winter months and hot and humid in the summer months”. What more could the budding masochist hope for… Oh look …..are they locusts.

The two, count them, two standouts here, in no particular order, are the Stromatolites and the calcite flow.

For those unfamiliar with the above a brief description of each follows.

A Stromatolite is considered the oldest evidence of life on this planet; it is basically a whole mess of primitive bacteria that formed cabbage like colonies to feed off passing sediment. These dozy bacterial cabbages, too slow to move, became fossilized in the rock. See picture.

A calcite flow is a flow of calcium rich water that when made turbulent, by running over stuff, releases carbon dioxide and allows the formation of calcium deposit on the stuff it is running over. See picture.

Apologies for the scientific nature of the above description, however I did include pictures for the layman.

White Waterfall

The Road In

Stromatalites

Hands up anyone who knows about the exploits of Charles Augustus Gregory. OK, I’m the only one with his hand up, but I get a free pass being a new Australian.

Chuck, as he would be called today, was a pretty clever fellow, he established an out-post in Northern Australia from which he was able to do his exploring. Unlike Leichardt who killed off most of his helpers Gregory set up a camp by a permanent river (water being handy if you are homo erectus by design) and shipped in supplies (by ship surprisingly enough) to stock his “northern safaris”.

Chuck is credited with, amongst other things, the invention of the packsaddle, which replaced the old English horse hardware used up to this time. Chuck experimented with dehydrated food to make it last longer and lighten the load for pack animals. He also built a compass, which could be used while riding a horse thus speeding up his surveying efforts, although using the compass while riding did lead to more tail end accidents, much like the mobile phone.

Impressed yet?

One of Chuck’s better-known exploits was the day his horse trod on a crocodile tail while crossing the Victoria River. This feat of bravado was captured by watercolour artist Thomas Baines.  Young Tom was obviously quick with the brush, to get so much detail in such a short time, f1.4 at 1500 and ISO 200 probably. I would have to check with Lyndal on that one, being the most awarded relative, photographically at least.

Chuck’s biggest problem, apart from the crocs, was his botanist companion Dr. Mueller who, perhaps due to his size or riding ability, not only continually lagged behind but kept wearing out the riding stock. To compound Chuck’s distress the ship that transported supplies up the river fell apart on arrival and the horses on board (no doubt spares for the good doctor) drowned getting ashore. The drowning getting ashore I can testify is a real risk having attempted a “quick paddle” myself in the croc infested waters only to find myself knee deep in mud.

On the second of July eighteen fifty six Greg carved his name into a Boab tree and into history. The aborigines have a different story for the tree…..

Toms watercolour

Gregory’s Tree

The alternate view.

Dingo

Right on the Western Australia and Northern Territory border your float trailer comes unstuck from your prime mover, plou ghs up twenty metres of prime bitumen and comes to a sudden halt after snapping ten high tensile chains, leaving your thirty-five ton excavator in a very unhappy place. Oh well at least the excavator stayed upright.

Look, I cant keep trying to come up with new and exciting adjectives to describe the Bungles Bungles. Let’s just agree that they are pretty special and that a picture is worth at least a thousand of my words. Probably closer to twenty five hundred, but who’s counting (its taken forty seven words to here by the way, think of the saving in one finger typing over, say ten or a dozen photos. That’s half a book!)

Cathedral Gorge.

The Mummy’s Face. Not you Mum.

Cleft in Twain. I’ve always wanted to say that.

More Bungles? I don’t know…. are these things called Bungles? Jen……..What are these things called?

River Bed.

Bungle Bungle Bungle…….Etc.

Overhang.

Every geological feature has to have a name. This ones called “The Window”. How insightful is that?

Sandstone River bed with more than a little wear from rain.

Jen’s grasp of the unusual, or is it an unusual grass that she has grasped?

Purnululu National Park or the Bungle Bungles is only about three hundred and fifty years old, some of the smaller mountain ranges in the area are one point six billion years old.

The Bungle Bungles are comprised of sandstone and conglomerate rock and have weathered to their current state though interaction with their environment, wind, water, drought heat etc. That’s it basically, that’s all you need to know, other than the Bungles Bungles are world heritage listed and in my opinion make Uluru look like a rock sitting in a paddock.

The palms grow anywhere they can get a grip.

Sedimentary my gear Watson.

Great Bowerbird Bower.

Great Bowerbird. Well above average anyway.

Raiders of the Lost Ark. The sign said “don’t linger under suspended rocks”. So why build a ladder under one?

Echidna Gorge.

Triffid Plant.

Practically a weed according to the photographer (Jen).

Simply “The Critter Tree”.

Sunset on the ridge.