Road’s to nowhere - Ozzy outback
It was pretty silly to get so drunk on my last night in Cairns and not go to bed til 4am when I was getting picked up for the next leg of my Oz adventure at 5.15am. So the Desert Venturer 2250k trip from Cairns to Alice Springs started off pretty badly. I was in a right mood and didnt speak to anyone all day on the first day, after that it got a lot better and there were some really cool people on the trip. It was pretty nice to have a detox for 2 nights and catch up on sleep on the bus - well lets face it, theres not much else to do when travelling over 2000k’s through pretty much nothing! It really does make you appreciate how huge Australia is and how dangerous the outback can be. It is amazing to see how some people live in the outback with nothing and no-one for miles around. In fact most people have a helicopter as their main form of transport!! Cattle ranches that are bigger than the whole of Switzerland and alcoholic Kangaroos - that was pretty cool actually - and he drinks coffee in the morning to get rid of his hangover!!
Sunrise at the house in the middle of nowhere, lets nip into town in the chopper, alcy roo, sunset at the ranch, Hilton Hotel
The heat and dryness really was amazing. 42 degrees minimum. I would never attempt to make that journey alone, if anything went wrong with your car you really would just fry out there, especially if you ran out of water. It’s quite scary to be able to see for miles in all directions and there is nothing but arid red dust, the occasional termite mound and a few dry green bushes. Also the flys - it would definately take a long time to get used to the amount of flys here. It is way worse than in South and Central America even, but at least they werent mozzy’s so I was happy!
The desert Venturer bus, giant termite mound, desert and more desert.
32 of us in the group, so not much space on the coach, but it was much comfier than the OZ bus - not that that takes much. On the 1st Day Laurie announced that there were 2 songs he played everyday - you can guess what the 1st was im sure…………….. G’day G’day, Hows it going!! and the other was The Road Less Travelled. Well I didnt know whether 2 laugh or cry when he said that - bit of a joke from the OZ Bus, and any Ozzy would probably understand it, otherwise I will find the song and play for you all sometime!! The food throughout the trip was amazing and as we were not getting much excercise my skirt no longer falls down anymore!
Makeshift BBQ, Border crossing of Queensland and Northern Territory, Winton - where Qantas first began.
Considering there really was a lot of nothing, it was a great experience. However I was so glad to be back in Alice Springs and Civilisation, although when we all met in Melenka’s for dinner and they announced there was a quiz I made a sharp exit to the toilet - think I’ve participated in enough quizzes (of the backpacker kind) to last a lifetime!! So last night was back to the same dancing on tables and laughing at people making a dick of themselves - for once not me!!!
Tags:
alice springs,
queensland,
termite mounds,
Travel
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on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 4:35 am and is filed under Travel.
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