This is how we camp. It's a pretty good life.
The video is of life in a Hyundai Getz.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Dear Yous,
That is seriously used here. Where someone like me would say y'all, people down under say yous or yous guys. Like Jersey, man.
Month five has been pretty thrilling. We visited Adelaide, which was a very cool city and seems like it would be a nice place to live but was cold and rainy while we were there, and then stocked up on supplies and drove up through the Center. If you are familiar at all with Australian geography, you know that this means a whole lot of nothing. We drove through the Flinders Ranges, which are some pretty hills, visited the town that's the base for the missile testing site (Woomera) and then drove for hours through the Outback. And hours. And hours. Then we visited Cooper Pedy, a small town that exists solely for opals. And now for tourists like us. It gets so hot there that the houses are mostly dug into hills. The only thing to look at are rocks that are different colors from all the other rocks. So we did that. To their credit, they are very pretty rocks. Alas, we did not find any opals, despite some (decidedly lackluster) attempts. We did camp underground, visit the home of Crocodile Harry (probably the guy Crocodile Dundee was based on) and look at lots of opals we couldn't afford.
It turns out that along the highway out here, there are rest stops and it's A-OK if you set up your camp there. There might be water, there might even be toilets and there are usually neighbors in caravans. We've gotten to know a lot of retired Australians in this way. They are called the "Grey Nomads"--a generation of people traveling around their country, seeing the whole thing. We have really enjoyed sitting around campfires and chatting with all of these people on the move.
Picture this: 3 girls, 3 backpacks, food for 2 weeks, 20 liters of petrol, 5-10 liters of water + books and other entertainment, all in a tiny car, rolling down the 2 lane highway through miles and miles of desert, reading out loud or trying to remember the words to songs all the way through because there's really not any radio stations in the middle of nowhere and our ipod dock is buggered and won't charge our ipod. Got that picture? Now add a heavy dose of crazy. Add a little more because we spend a lot of time together in very small spaces. And add another few drops because it's getting warm now but air conditioning will cost us more very expensive petrol. Yep, that's about what it's been like for the last few weeks.
We got to Uluru (Ayer's Rock) and the surrounding gorges/rock formations just as the Northern Territory experienced its coldest night on record. We were in our tent. The good news about that is that we've seen water in places most people never do and have a totally different view of the place to most. It was fun. We celebrated the 4th of July around a campfire in Curtin Springs, eating kangaroo sausages and drinking ginger beer and then rum with some boys from Sydney.
We spent a few days in an outback town called Cloncurry, watching a horse competition called camp drafting and camping at the dam. It was really beautiful but we had to keep an eye out for crocs. We got to be friends with the ranger and his family and had a barbecue with them.
This last week, we've been working at a station north of the 'Curry. We've mustered (I love working cows on horseback! Why haven't I been doing this all along?), branded, drove (moved the cows from one area to another) and drafted (separated cows into groups). We've had an awesome time and have loved living with our current hosts. Queensland is pretty different to other places we've been in Australia and I like it.
We're off to the coast to celebrate Kristen's birthday. We'll try to brave the crocs, sea snakes and stingers to dive the reef and then work our way down to Sydney, where we'll fly out home. It seems unreal and I'm sure it will stay that way until I start looking at my credit card bills! I probably won't have much access at all to the internet until I make it home so I'll update you from there--after a little recovery time!
Erika
That is seriously used here. Where someone like me would say y'all, people down under say yous or yous guys. Like Jersey, man.
Month five has been pretty thrilling. We visited Adelaide, which was a very cool city and seems like it would be a nice place to live but was cold and rainy while we were there, and then stocked up on supplies and drove up through the Center. If you are familiar at all with Australian geography, you know that this means a whole lot of nothing. We drove through the Flinders Ranges, which are some pretty hills, visited the town that's the base for the missile testing site (Woomera) and then drove for hours through the Outback. And hours. And hours. Then we visited Cooper Pedy, a small town that exists solely for opals. And now for tourists like us. It gets so hot there that the houses are mostly dug into hills. The only thing to look at are rocks that are different colors from all the other rocks. So we did that. To their credit, they are very pretty rocks. Alas, we did not find any opals, despite some (decidedly lackluster) attempts. We did camp underground, visit the home of Crocodile Harry (probably the guy Crocodile Dundee was based on) and look at lots of opals we couldn't afford.
It turns out that along the highway out here, there are rest stops and it's A-OK if you set up your camp there. There might be water, there might even be toilets and there are usually neighbors in caravans. We've gotten to know a lot of retired Australians in this way. They are called the "Grey Nomads"--a generation of people traveling around their country, seeing the whole thing. We have really enjoyed sitting around campfires and chatting with all of these people on the move.
Picture this: 3 girls, 3 backpacks, food for 2 weeks, 20 liters of petrol, 5-10 liters of water + books and other entertainment, all in a tiny car, rolling down the 2 lane highway through miles and miles of desert, reading out loud or trying to remember the words to songs all the way through because there's really not any radio stations in the middle of nowhere and our ipod dock is buggered and won't charge our ipod. Got that picture? Now add a heavy dose of crazy. Add a little more because we spend a lot of time together in very small spaces. And add another few drops because it's getting warm now but air conditioning will cost us more very expensive petrol. Yep, that's about what it's been like for the last few weeks.
We got to Uluru (Ayer's Rock) and the surrounding gorges/rock formations just as the Northern Territory experienced its coldest night on record. We were in our tent. The good news about that is that we've seen water in places most people never do and have a totally different view of the place to most. It was fun. We celebrated the 4th of July around a campfire in Curtin Springs, eating kangaroo sausages and drinking ginger beer and then rum with some boys from Sydney.
We spent a few days in an outback town called Cloncurry, watching a horse competition called camp drafting and camping at the dam. It was really beautiful but we had to keep an eye out for crocs. We got to be friends with the ranger and his family and had a barbecue with them.
This last week, we've been working at a station north of the 'Curry. We've mustered (I love working cows on horseback! Why haven't I been doing this all along?), branded, drove (moved the cows from one area to another) and drafted (separated cows into groups). We've had an awesome time and have loved living with our current hosts. Queensland is pretty different to other places we've been in Australia and I like it.
We're off to the coast to celebrate Kristen's birthday. We'll try to brave the crocs, sea snakes and stingers to dive the reef and then work our way down to Sydney, where we'll fly out home. It seems unreal and I'm sure it will stay that way until I start looking at my credit card bills! I probably won't have much access at all to the internet until I make it home so I'll update you from there--after a little recovery time!
Erika
Monday, July 26, 2010
Recent Big Events
Camel Cup; We went into the camel cup pretty excited about the whole thing, I mean, how often do you have an opportunity to see something like that?! To say that we were most excited about the bucket we got as a door prize would be an exaggeration but not a big one. The camel races were awesome, don't get me wrong, they start lying down and have to race around a track, a lot of camels pull up fast, walk the whole way, leave behind riders and all sorts so it's a fun race to watch. The problem is they are few and far between and the thing lasts all day. We spent a good part of our time there on our other favorite sport 'people watching'. As to the bucket it has become a coveted possesion serving as a great container, a stool, a chair, a wash bucket etc.
Stockmans Challenge; the challenge was really interesting and a lot of fun, it was also the same two activities for four straight days. Seeing all the different horses compete in the same thing, often with the same riders was sometimes amusing but we enjoyed it, and the fact that it was free entertainment we could come and go from at our leisure.
Quamby Rodeo; was more along the lines of something we knew and recognized, there was all sorts of events and we understood most of them. It's not a pro rodeo and some of the things that went on were a bit sketchy but entertaining none the less. We had a great time hanging out with our wwoof hosts, meeting new people (Erika especially, our hosts are still making fun of her for meeting some guy named 'Tom the Pom' (POM being a term for English people) they thought it was especially funny as she's 'Erika from America'), and watching events we knew and understood. There was some great people watching here as well as it's a big social event for people from hours around to see their neighbors.
These are our big events of late.
Stockmans Challenge; the challenge was really interesting and a lot of fun, it was also the same two activities for four straight days. Seeing all the different horses compete in the same thing, often with the same riders was sometimes amusing but we enjoyed it, and the fact that it was free entertainment we could come and go from at our leisure.
Quamby Rodeo; was more along the lines of something we knew and recognized, there was all sorts of events and we understood most of them. It's not a pro rodeo and some of the things that went on were a bit sketchy but entertaining none the less. We had a great time hanging out with our wwoof hosts, meeting new people (Erika especially, our hosts are still making fun of her for meeting some guy named 'Tom the Pom' (POM being a term for English people) they thought it was especially funny as she's 'Erika from America'), and watching events we knew and understood. There was some great people watching here as well as it's a big social event for people from hours around to see their neighbors.
These are our big events of late.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
post from the bush
Erika writes--
G'day. I have no idea whether I can sum up what we've been doing in the last month or so since the last post. We've had no access to the internet since leaving Keith and the farm there. Sometimes, we didn't even have access to grocery stores. We carried enough water for a couple of days, food for a week and a tank of gas. How we got all of that into our little car beats me but we've really needed it all. One time, we didn't get to somewhere with water we could drink for so long that we had to break out the purifier. We've paid to camp in Adelaide, King's Canyon and in Alice Springs for one night but for the remaining time we've been all in the bush. In Australia you can camp along to side of the road or in rest stops, no problems. It's awesome. Somewhat purposefully and somewhat by happy coincidence, we timed the majority of our outback time with a new moon and have been seeing the most incredible night skies ever. I would never have believed how well one can see the Milky Way here.
So here's what we've done:
G'day. I have no idea whether I can sum up what we've been doing in the last month or so since the last post. We've had no access to the internet since leaving Keith and the farm there. Sometimes, we didn't even have access to grocery stores. We carried enough water for a couple of days, food for a week and a tank of gas. How we got all of that into our little car beats me but we've really needed it all. One time, we didn't get to somewhere with water we could drink for so long that we had to break out the purifier. We've paid to camp in Adelaide, King's Canyon and in Alice Springs for one night but for the remaining time we've been all in the bush. In Australia you can camp along to side of the road or in rest stops, no problems. It's awesome. Somewhat purposefully and somewhat by happy coincidence, we timed the majority of our outback time with a new moon and have been seeing the most incredible night skies ever. I would never have believed how well one can see the Milky Way here.
So here's what we've done:
- saw Adelaide (toured museums and listened to lectures there, toured a chocolate factory and enjoyed samples, toured the Botanic Gardens, etc)
- camped underground in Cooper Pedy (opal mining town. It gets so hot there that they build/dig their houses underground. Also, their churches and everything else.)
- saw the big red rock (Uluru/Ayers Rock. It was cloudy and cold)
- and the Olgas (great, very cool rock formations) and King's Canyon (an oasis that must have looked like paradise to early exploreres, actually part of it is called the Garden of Eden) and the West MacDonell Ranges (beautiful gorges).
- went to the Camel Cup Races in Alice Springs. It was quite the spectacle.
- visited the Devil's Marbles (most of what there is to look at in the Center is rocks of an unusual shape or color. These are giant spheres.)
- went to a camp draft (horse event where you cut a steer and direct it around a course) in Cloncurry while camping out at the dam. Beautiful camp spot and we made friends with the ranger and had a BBQ tea with him and his family several nights. Got to know a few jackaroos.
- At the moment, we are jillerooing at a station north of Cloncurry. Yesterday, we mustered a mob and drafted them to wean the calves. I worked cattle on horse back and had a great time.
In general, life is awesome. We're going to the rodeo this weekend. Next week, we're heading to the coast to be there in time for Kristen's birthday. Hopefully, it will be warm and sunny and we'll dive on the Great Barrier Reef. Hopefully, we won't be killed by: 1. sharks 2. jellyfish 3. sea snakes or 4. saltwater crocs. I'm afraid of all of them.
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