| Outback, Northern Territories,
Australia. |
February 9, 2003
GMT + 9.5 Hours. |
Back online again.
Quite a few of you readers has urged us to continue the stories from
our world tour.Maybe not as many as we had hoped, but still it was nice
to find out that somone was actually reading our reports.
Thanks to those of you telling us what goes on back home :-).
We have by now reached the Northern Territories after having dived
at the great Barrier Reef at Cairns and done some serious fishing at Karumba
at the Gulf of Carpenteria Jens actually managed to catch a fine Jewel
Fish, providing a nice dinner - especially combined with the two giant
crabs that our landlord brought us!. |
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| On our way to Darwin. |
Bettina checking out a huge termites
nest. |
We just found out that the ship from
Darwin to Singapore leaves on either February 18.th or march 5.th, pushing
our schedule a little bit ahead.We are targeting the departure on February
18.th in order not to spend another 16 days in Australia. Not that we don´t
want to spend more time here, but our time is unfortunately rapidly running
out.
One thing we will not miss is the Ayers Rock (Uluru) south west of
Alice Springs, so at the big T (tree ways) we will head south for around
1000 Km, visit the Rock and then backtrack the 1000 Km to the big T again
, before heading up to Darwin.
On our way south we passed the sleepy town of Wycliffe Well, apparently
the Australian version of Roswell!.Been there, done that. |
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| Driving on the highway to heaven. |
Ufo capital of Australia. |
We have by now reached the Stuart
highway, connecting Darwin in the far North to Adelaide in South.
Since we are in the wet season, risking heavy downpoor at any time,
we are of course afraid that the roads might be floded and closed.
As you can see on the picture, ot constantly looks like there is water
on the road. It is actually a mirage, created by the sun and the heat,
leading one to believe that the road leads into the sky.
Heading South with the cruise control set to 140 Km/h the LandCruiser
is consuming 25 liters of diesel per. 100 Km.
Not really an eco car !!. |
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| The Devils marbles. |
Highway to heaven. |
On our way to Alice Springs in the
center of Australia, we stopped at the famous Devils Marbles, which are
really huge softly shaped rocks scattered over a limited area in the outback,seemingly
in the middle of nowhere.
Jens managed to get Bettina not to wave her arms constantly to scare
away the ever attacking flies for just enough time to take this picture.
This, combined with a temperature of 41 degrees, makes outside activities
a limited pleasure :-).
After this, we headed to Alice Springs to spend the night, well deserved
after 1000 Km of outback driving, trying to avoid kangaroos and cattle
crossing the road. |
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| The Rock. |
The Devils marbles. |
One of Australias most famous attractions
is the Ayers Rock, located almost in the centre of Australia. The aboriginal
name is Uluru, and it is for these people a very sacred place, as the origin
of several of their Dream stories..
One could wonder why they have not put it in a more accesible point,
e.g outside Sydney. But then we would have missed the drive through this
dry, hot place, which gives an excellent impression of the enormity and
remoteness of this country. Yesterday we drove from Alice Springs (460
km) to the Rock, made a circle around it, visited the Olgas and drove back
to Alice Springs (another 460 Km) in complete darkness, avoiding to hit
any of the many roadcrossing kangaroos and cattle. |
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| www.doos.com JRa/BRa
9.2.2003 raarup_explorer@hotmail.com |
Us at Ayers Rock. |
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