To the south

today we leave Alice Springs toward Adelaide.  it is around 1500 km from here to Adelaide, and we have 2 days to cover this distance. I do not expect seeing much on the way.

the road and the vegetation around seems totally different from what we have seen on previous days.

we pass the boarder between Northern Territory and south Australia, where there is some bus staying to have a rest and take some pictures . The language that the travelers of one of the bus is speaking is familiar to me, Ja Ja, Klar, Bestimmt……doch ,…. .

we have a stop on city named Marla to  take a rest and eat lunch. it is not a hot day, just a nice temperature. after lunch we continue our way untill we arrive at Glendambo, another small city . we stop here to take a short rest.

tonight we will stay in a camping ground in Glendambo. we mount or tent but it is a windy night, really windy. we use some extra rope to make sure that our tent will stay stable and not move too much at night. I am not sure if we can sleep with this wind on the tent. adding this point that it is really a cold night,as i remember from my childhood, when i was visiting my village of origin in a city on East of Iran , that had really cold nights despite its warm days. It is how desert is . each of us use 2 sleeping bags and try to sleep, even if i really think the wind will lift our tent with us inside.Lets see where we will be tomorrow, in our tent at Glendambo camping ground or somewhere else  due to the heavy wind, but hopefully still in our tent .i am thinking of Dorothy in the magical Land of Oz now. 

 

 

Around Alice Springs-Part3

we are going to drive back to Alice Spring , stay the night there and tomorrow move forward toward Adelaide.

The next thing we see is a memorial of a person who had an accident when he was driving his Motor Bike on the road. Actually i have seen some others as well during the trip. since this memorial is on a hill we can have a look at the are around.

 

going further to the Alice spring, there is this amazing view that worth  to stop and spend some minutes to enjoy it.

 

 

 

Around Alice Springs-part 2

leaving Desert Sanctuaries to the next stop, Ormiston waterhole and Gorge which again I do not expect to see much water in this time of the year.

but there were some people there who seems were swimming before we arrived in that shallow green water .

we leave the Gorge . it is around 1:00 PM . we think we drive further and if we see something interesting we can have a stop there. now it is around 30  minutes that we are driving , and we see the sign of outlook to the mount Sonder. we decides to stop and have a look around.

driving further , after around half an hour we reach the sign to Red Bank Gorge in West MacDonnel national park. I can say this is one of the most beautiful places I have seen today. you want to know why, let’s have a look at the pictures together.

Here is the route for this part of the trip in MacDonnel National Park in the center of Australia.

Around Alice Springs-Part 1

Today we are going to have a look around Alice Springs, and I think we will come back again to the city and sleep here at night, or maybe we drive further, we do not know yet. we will find it out.

we leave the Camping place and decide to have breakfast on the way. It is around 8:30 that we reach a parking place with a nice view around on the top of a small hill,so we stop here and have our breakfast.

view from the parking

some minutes after another car drives to the parking place, a couple around 50 get out of the car.  We great each other. The man asks us where we are from. and we answer, Switzerland and Iran, but we live in Germany. They say that they are living in Sydney and they are in a one week holiday in Alice Spring, Then the man asks me if my family is in Iran, and if they are safe there. and I answer yes, Iran is a safe place to live. I get up to go taking some pictures. some minutes after he gets close to me.

-I am sorry young man, I did not want to offend you, he said.

-why? you did not do that, I answered.

-The western mind thinks that everything around that area is not safe, so I just did not think when I asked about safety in iran. But later i thought with me and told myself that there is no war there, but in other countries around, he said.

-No worries, I am used to this kind of questions. most of people in west do not really know that area, so I am familiar with what you said. that is all good, i said.

-yes , actually we have a neighbor who is from Iran…… and he continued talking about the neighbor , and his son who is studying in London.

we are done with breakfast and the conversation is almost to the end. we say good bye, but we know that we will meet them again on the way,since they are going to drive the same way as we want to do.

The first stop after breakfast is Ellery Creek big hole, where we can have a look at the shallow water in this time of the year.maybe in rain season there is much more water here.The next stop is Serpentine Gorge, where I almost see no water, but there we have the chance to go to an outlook on the top of a big hill to have a look at Desert Sanctuaries.It is really hot here and to go for this kind of walk means the body needs much water or you can easily collapse and die because of dehydration. But probably you can survive if you are a small Lizard which is not really small.

The same couple we met in Parking  place. we advised them not to continue the way, because it is really hot and also they did not have enough water in hand

one of the inhabitants of the area

To Alice Springs

Last night was one of the coldest nights I have experienced in our trip , or I can say the coldest night so far. we are on desert area moving to the south. Today we want to reach Alice Springs. It is said that this city is the center of Australia, geographically. The highway we are driving is of a high quality, with a very beautiful landscape on the both sides of the way.Our First stop is Tennant Creek Telgraph station ,which is a historical site 16 Kilometers north of Tennant Creek . The station was built in 1872. If you are interested about the history of this station, you can find more information here.

Food Storage

The next stop is the city where we will have a lunch , then we will drive further to Devils Marbles. There are many blogs and websites explaining about Devils Marbles, so I do not repeat them, But in case of interest you can click here or there.

the next stop is a very small city with population of 11 , according to Wikipedia.We  make a short stop here to have a look at its historical Telegraph station. This  station is also not very different from other small historical places we have seen on the way.we were supposed to have a look at UFO center as well, but it seems that we passed it some minutes ago and we did not recognize it.

It is around 17:00 and we still have 200 km in front of us to reach Alice Springs, Just now a very strong wind pushed our car to the other side of the road, and I say we are very lucky that there is no other car on the road, otherwise our trip had to end disastrously right now.

It is around 19:00 and we arrive at big 4 McDonnell camping ground in Alice Springs, where there are many Cars and also some buses. This camping place is the most crowded one i have seen in this trip. people come here to go to uluru, where we probably will not have time to visit.

Here is the way we covered today, almost 900 km.

 

To Elsey National Park

waking up at 7:45  in the morning and getting out of the tent,  I can see there are some Kangaroos around us looking for their breakfast .we can get close to them slowly, but there is a moment they realize our presence and run as fast as they can.

 

The camping ground is close to Katherine Gorge, therefore we decides to have a look around the gorge. Like many other things we have seen in the outback so far, this river also has routes in the Aboriginal people stories.According to the story, Nabilil ( NAH-bill-il), the dragon-like creation being from the Jawoyn ‘dream time’, had traveled from Wadeye(Port Keates) many kilometers to the west and decided to rest  at the entrance to the river. His journey up the river and subsequent death created the flowing water  we can see today.after the short walk to see the river, we drive further and reach the address we got in the morning by phone from the car rental agency to change our  broken tire. then we can continue our way again with one extra new tire.our way is oh highway No. 1 , or Stuart highway to the south toward Elsey National Park.

we pass some historical memorials , related to the second world war .

Stirling mill , dated 1942 :

 

 

Stirling Mill – dated 1942

Old Sheep Dip on Mataranka station , dated 1913:

 

sheep station

The next is Mataranka Aboriginal Army Camp. where Aboriginal people had to serve for a war that was not really their war.The Camp was established by late 1943 composed of 350 Aboriginal workers who were supporting the war effort by working for the Army. Army Aboriginal camps were also set up at Adelaide River, Manbulloo and Larrimah and as far south as Alice Springs. [For the source click here] and finally is the 45 Australian camp hospital, mainly operated by women. unfortunately  the description in my picture is not readable but if you are interested to know about that you can always look at the article Woman at war by clicking here .passing all these WWII memories ,we have a chance to take a stroll along a Botanic Walk beside the Roper River. actually I have no idea about the vegetation and different trees on the walk.

driving further on the Stuart highway, we arrive on the Never Never Museum. I did not know anything about the novel ” We of the Never Never ” ,and the film which was made based on the novel.  I think in case I heard about that before, I could read the book or at least watch the film , but I will do it when I go back to Germany. If you have watched the movie , it can be interesting for you to know that the movie was produced in this location, actually the building was made to produce the film.

 

Beside the Never Never Museum, there is Mataranka Thermal pool where you can jump in warm water.  It may not be refreshing to be in warm water when the temperature outside is around 33 degree but it can be pleasant. Let’s try it .

we move toward the springs, passing high palm  and other kinds of trees. I hear many birds are crying or shouting and I am wondering what kinds of birds can they be. Just a look upward and see hundreds of bats hanging from the trees or flying on the sky, what I have never seen before, a Bat Garden, or as Alan told me Flying Foxes.

 

It is more interesting when you see the bats are even hanging from the branches extended over thermal springs. I try to avoid looking up , to avoid bat poo on my eyes, and i hope i had nothing on my hair as well.

 

It is around 4:30 PM that we leave the thermal pools to the direction south. we think we will sleep in Dunmarra camping ground tonight. It is around 6:30 PM and we are still on the way, with a very beautiful sunset view on our side.when we arrive in Dunmarra camping ground I can see there is a Petrol station there and there is also an aircraft runway beside the petrol station. So you can imagine that you are in the middle of nowhere again. The temperature dropped down ,and it seems it is going to be a very cold night , those kind of nights in desert.

Note: If you are interested to know more about Elsey national Park, click here.

From Today I try to uplad some pictures of the route on where we passed on the map,and i will try to do the same for the last days later.

 

 

 

Boodjamulla to Borroloola

Time to drive further, after the first 2-day camping and relaxing a bit on Adels Grove. The next stop will be Borroloola , in Northern Territory. There are 2 different way we can select in the beginning of the ride, The first one is just derivable with a 4WD and the second one which is a part of Highway No. 1 . we decides to go on the 4WD- only way. The first things we can see on the way is a beautiful outbacky Rainbow. although the presence of rainbow is beautiful it means that there was a recent rain which can make the way on 4WD road more challenging. driving further on the road , and now we are on our first 4WD challenge, a Creek . before we start the way we were told on the camping place that there are gates on the road, to prevent the cows to escape, so we need to get off the car and open the gates and when we pass, we need to close the gates.now I see the first gate with the cows that may not see any car or human for weeks. The same way they are interesting for me, I think I am also interested for them. I can be the first Iranian they have ever seen, i do not know about Ivan. comparing the cows in Australia to what i see when i go hiking in Germany, I can mention that these cows are really thin and the one on the Alps are really really fat . the ones that I see here can run very fast, specially when they see our car, and they have no idea what we are. They just start running like a race hours. I am in doubt if the one on the Alps can compete with them.

although the road is very nice but it is really slippery after the rain last night and not easy to control the car.

this is the trace of our own car we made some minutes ago, we can see in this picture

because of the road condition Ivan needs to drive slowly to make sure that he can control the car. driving some kilometers on this road, we start discussing that if we go with this speed probably we will not reach Borroloola tonight , so it is better to turn back and take the highway number 1 .

according to the map it is 502 kilometers from Adels Grove to Borroloola on the highway, and as I learnt on this trip, the highways are not what we expect from highway in Europe. it is mostly gravel road , where also should be shared with Long Fast Road Trains, or The Killers.On the way we reach the small city Doomadgee and stop to tank our car. the name seems like an aboriginal name to me. there is not much to see on this long way. at is afternoon and we also feel hungry. soon we arrive on Hells gate Roadhouse where we can have a lunch, a huge huge outbacky Burger as usual on the Savannah way.

On Hells Gate Roadhouse we are not far from Northern Territory boarder, where we need to pass today. In my view, Hells Gate is the gate to Nowhere, is where the road to infinite road starts, as the next Everything is around 320 km. good luck .52 kilometers after Hells gate we reach the boarder between Queensland and Northern territory. Tonight we will be in Borroloola, 250 kilometers of gravel road in front.

Boodjamulla National Park

around 8:00 in the morning,  20th October. It is supposed to be a warm day. we are going to take the one-hour long guided cruise along tranquil Lawn Hill Creek winding through the  Lawn Hill Gorge, in Boodjamulla National Park. The area of the national parks belonged to a Waanyi people, who are among the aboriginal people of Australia. According to Waanyi stories, Boodjamulla  who is the creator of all other animals in the Dreamtime and he is a spiritual person to them.He is the one who created the all animals, the billabongs, green swapns and bush tucker in the Lawn Hill area. He rests on the Lawn Hill Gorge and should not be disturbed .

Also Waanyi people believe that you are not allowed to pollute the water, otherwise Boodjamulla will get angry.

They also believe that Boodjamulla has created the water of the river as a healing water.

after reading about Boodjamulla, the tour started. I am wondering if we can disturb Boodjamulla with our presence or maybe with the sound of our Cameras. Maybe I can see him , then I wish he is not angry and friendly with guests.

there are some water falls on sides of the gorge , listening to waterfall is always pleasant. also feeling  the  flow of cool air around the fall on the skin is something you would like to experience when the temperature is around 30 degree centigrade. Therefore our tour guide turns the boat toward  all the falls to let us experience the freshness.  He  explains that in this time of the day it is not common to see a crocodile , because it is simply too hot for them. But it seems we are not the only one who are getting close to waterfalls, there is another Boodjamulla’s creature who likes the freshness of the fall.

after the boat tour we have some time to take a walk around the national park and see the river and the area around from another view.

 

after the tour we go back to our camping ground, where one of the neighbors in the camp asks us if we have a problem with ants or not. He explains that they had millions of ants in their car last night and they had to take the car outside the camp and clean it. He advice us that we use some chemical materials on the wheels , to prevent ants climbing the auto from the wheels. our car is a bit far from where their car is, so we did not have any experience like what they had with ants.

we want to stay one more night in this camping ground, so we have enough time to jump in the small creek behind the camping place, where they say it is safe from any crocodile .