The outback (p

The outback

Finally some time to write about our time in the outback. I write these words in the Kakadu National Park, Australia's largest national park (about half the size of Switzerland). It's located in the tropical north about 130km south of Darwin. But that's another story.

The outback. Clearly Australia the way the world thinks about Australia, although almost all of Australia doesn't live in the outback (probably similar to the Alps / Switzerland). We've driven 4500 km from Townsville (east coast) to Darwin (north coast) with a detour to the Uluru, that famous rock in the red centre of the continent. It has taken us 7 days to do that, and we are correspondingly tired.

Why on earth would we drive 4500 km in 7 days? Two reasons. Number one, it gets very cold at night inland - not funny in a campervan. Number two, there isn't really much to see in between, unless you have a special interest in mines and world war II memorials. Virtually every toilet along the road is called a historic site. But of course, this is exactly why it is the outback - because there's nothing there. And that is the very beauty of it.

The first three days were just driving along the Flinders and Barkley Highway, the east-west road that connects the Queensland to the Northern Territory. Except Mount Isa, a 25'000 people mining town, there's not much along the entire 1600 km. On the fourth day, we drove south along the Stuart Highway to Alice Springs. On the way to Alice Springs, there is an interesting geological feature called Devil's Marbles. It's lots of stones that split in the middle for some reason:

I wrote earlier about Alice Springs, so there is no need to repeat it here. The next day, we drove the remaining 450 km or so to the Uluru.

The Uluru, formerly known as Ayer's Rock, is an amazing sight. Although it is "just a rock", it's an extraordinary rock. First of all, it's huge. We walked along it's base which is about 10 km. But the most impressive thing is its color, a color that changes with every nuance of the sunlight. Especially at sunset it is very beautiful when it seems to glow like a hot piece of coal in the middle of darkness:

Ever since the Europeans have "discovered" the rock, they have climbed it, presumably because the view up there must be quite nice. For the local Aboriginals, however, the rock is a sacred site, and for them it is like climbing over the altar in the St Peters Dome. It is not forbidden to climb it, but they ask you not to. While we were there, the climb was closed anyway due to strong winds.

After a horribly cold night, we had enough of the cold and drove almost a 1000 km up north to find a warmer climate. After another two days of driving, we arrived in Darwin, the northernmost city of Australia (with a relaxing 33 degrees). We stayed here for two nights before heading to the Kakadu National Park. More about this soon. For now, let the Emu say good-bye:

Posted on June 23, 2007 8:13 AM | Permalink

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The outback

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