Australiana

Uploaded by ladyhedda.

It's a rocking horse, and it's the biggest in the world - of course.

Australians like things big. Really big. Almost every little town that we drive through has some LARGE tourist attraction that we really must stop and visit. We've seen the GIANT CLAM, the large Koala and some kind of cockatoo, a massive miner (?) - who finds it necessary to stop and take a photo of an over sized miner. Not me. I gave that one a miss - which I am of course regretting now. Hmmm.

Not the ones in Scotland

Uploaded by m_hagen.

We just spend a couple of days in the Grampians National Park. The weather has been really brutal, with severe weather warnings in effect. We've had gale force winds and more rain than Seattle.
Rain and winds of 100 kph (65 mph) do not make for good camping. They make for wet camping, which is not always fun, at least not all the time. But the van has kept us dry and warm, there's just not that much room inside with the doors closed with Michael and the surfboards.
In between rain storms we were able to get out and about and do some walking. We made it to the Mackenzie Falls, and I amazed myself by standing on top of the Pinnacle overlooking the valley in howling winds!

At the cellar door

Uploaded by ladyhedda.

The Clare Valley is known for it's really delicious Rieslings. There are an abundance of small great wineries in a relatively small area, so who are we to pass up this fine opportunity to learn a little about riesling.

There is a bike trail that leads from Auburn to Clare covering a distance of 25km (ish) each way, and a couple of additional loops that you can choose that include more of the areas cellar doors. The trail is called The Riesling Trail (inspired huh?), and we grabbed some bikes, donned our go faster bike helmets and hit the trail.

We started in Clare, from where we headed South to the Sevenhill Winery. Sevenhill is the oldest winery in the Clare Valley, it was established by Jesuit priests - to make their communion wine when supplies from Europe had run out.
Lunch was eaten at the Skillogalee winery - where we ate rack of lamb with a 2004 Shiraz. After there we merrily peddled on our way to Jenneret, Mitchell and finally Penna Lane where the winemaker gave us his open bottle of reserve shiraz to have with our dinner.
The whole day was amazing. We were on the trail cycling and tasting for over 7 hours. My legs are sore, but I'm happy.

Did I mention the flies?

Uploaded by ladyhedda.

Because if I have not mentioned the incredibly annoying flies, I would be remiss in my duties.
The flies here are the most annoying flies ever experienced. And they are really dumb. Really really dumb. I open the window of the van, so that they can buzz off. Do they? No. They'd rather hitch a ride with us and buzz in my face for hours. Arrrrrgh.

Lunch anyone?

Uploaded by ladyhedda.

The Eyre Peninsular is known for it's seafood. Fresh delicious and straight off the boat seafood.
We have eaten Coffin Bay Oysters, Streaky Bay Oysters, Smokey Bay Oysters and some other kind of oyster whose name I don't remember.
We've been buying them closed, and Michael has become a master shucker (that's shucker with an s)....

After coming through the hot dry middle we're now on the other side of the continent.
We drove through Port August and Port Lincoln to the Coffin Bay National Park, where there is real wildlife, not in cages, hopping and slithering and running in front of me.
Last night, when we pulled into the park it was dark, so I jumped out of the van with a mag light to search for a good level spot to park up for the night. I rounded a bush and came face to face with a MASSIVE kangaroo. I'm telling you I don't know who was more shocked, me or it. It was less than 5 feet away from me (that's human feet not kangaroo feet) eating supper. Now, I wanted to eat my supper too, but not so badly as to interrupt a kangaroo. So, I made my apologies and hopped back to the van, suggesting that we find another spot. Pronto.

Don't step back...

Uploaded by ladyhedda.

We're in Cober Pedy - the Opal mining capital of the world. It's a trip here - 80% of the population live underground in dug out homes. Some of them are old mines, and some of them have just been dug out for the fun of it.
The above ground landscape is almost like a moonscape. Not that I've ever been to the moon, but it's what I imagine the moon could look like if people had been digging for opals all over it's surface.
Not being that interested in gemstones myself I avoided all the millions of opal stores in town and headed for the underground bookstore and underground church.
I also took a tour of a mine and tried my hand at divining. What can I say. I'm a natural.

Hop hop hop

Uploaded by ladyhedda.

I've been having hours of fun perfecting my wallaby impression.

We're in South Australia now, having driven 3400 kilometres through the Northern Territory, to Uluru and Kata Tjuta. Next up the coast for some surf and then onto the Clare Valley and Barossa Valley for wine wine and more wine.

Persistent would be an understatement

Hedda gettin back at the flies....
Uploaded by m_hagen.

It all started in Kakadu National Park - up in the 'top end'. We were camping at the Merle campground and as the sun set the mosquitoes started to emerge. Holy shit, I have never in my entire mosquito fearing life been surrounded by such an ungodly number of buzzing mosquitoes.
I retreated to the van, put on my longest trousers, and despite the fact that the temperature was in the 30s pulled on a long sleeved sweater. I then covered my ears nose and hands with 30% deet. All this did was make me hot and angry. And the mosquitoes were still there, buzzing in my ear, taunting me. The van has mosquito netting on the windows, and even though I had killed every living insect in the van with a massive dose of bug spray, all I could hear was the constant whine of the damn bugs outside the van, buzzing at the windows, trying to get in and bite me.
As we've moved further south, the number of mosquitoes has decreased and the number of flies increased. And Australian flies are the most numerous, annoying, persistent of all the flies in the world. And, when we were eating a lunch at Uluru, I finally lost it and pulled on the fly hat. They may look ridiculous, but hell, they're effective. It's just hard to eat a sandwich when you're wearing one.

Dining in style

Uploaded by ladyhedda.

We got up early for sunrise at Uluru, and had ourselves a breakfast of beans on toast with coffee.

As soon as the sun has risen, the coaches of tourists leave and we had the place to ourselves.

We followed our breakfast with a brisk 10km walk around the rock. Beautiful!

A walk around the canyon rim

Kings Canyon
Uploaded by ladyhedda.

We spent a night at Kings Canyon (Watarrka National Park). It's a 300km ish detour off the road to Uluru (Ayers Rock) - but well worth the extra hours on the road.
We got up early to avoid the worst of the heat, and headed out for the canyon rim walk. The first part of the walk is the toughest, with a 500 step climb. Once you reach the summit there are breathtaking views of the canyon, which has amazing dome shaped rock formations and sheer walls. The walk itself is only 6km, and we took it slowly - taking photos and trying hard not to get blown over the edge.

Woo hoo

Uploaded by ladyhedda.

I got some photos uploaded..... Click here for the Australia photos so far....

Photos to come....

I'm having a horrible time trying to upload photos, can't figure out why...... So, you'll all just have to wait until I get to Adelaide, or some other such civilized place.

Banka Banka

Banka Banka is a working cattle station, right here in the 'red center' of Australia. We learned about jackaroos and jillaroos and all you could possibly want to know about cattle farming in the outback.
Maybe a little too much information... After they castrate the bulls, they stick the 'Prairie Oysters' on the grill. Apparently they're delicious.

Kakadu is absolutely beautiful...

Right now I'm simply amazed by the scenery here in the Northern Territory. We drove to the Kakadu National Park and spent two nights there.
The first night we camped at the Merl campground - where we were attacked by droves and droves of mosquitoes. I was covered in DEET repellent and the bastards were still landing on my nose. I really hate the mosquitoes here. With a passion. They are worse than any other mosquitoes that I have EVER met.
The next day we were up with the sun, preparing coffee in our little van, then off to the Ubirr rock art site. We were fortunate enough to make it to a couple of ranger talks at the different sites, so we learned about the aboriginal kinship systems and the paintings and some of their meanings.
In the afternoon we headed to see more rock art at Nourlangie. Again, we listened to the rangers talks - which were really great, and the best way of appreciating what you are looking at! We also took a walk around the Anbangbang Billabong. We saw so many birds - really beautiful birds - (photos to follow)......
This morning we got up early (6am - that's very early for me) and took a boat ride down the South Alligator River. First thing in the morning is the best time to see the wildlife. We saw CROCODILES. I was so excited. Real crocodiles, in the wild. Yikes! (more photos to follow)
We also saw a couple of live wallabies hopping around the park, and plenty of dead wallabies by the side of the road. The roadkill here is big and there's plenty of it!