Rizz goes round the world

Never Be Tamed: The Epic Chapter continued

Day 4: Just Truckin'

After the exciting diversion of being dragged by the feet end of our swags inside by Mike in his blue underwear (Claire, Emma and I had attempted to sleep outside, but then it started pouring and we were to lazy to get out of our swags, so our fearless guide to the rescue), the 3 of us slept soundly in our Blair Witch home for the night. Well, except Emma. I shined a flashlight in her face because I thought she was sleepwalking and afraid she'd bugger off on walkabout somewhere, but she just had earplugs in. Sorry, Em.

Mike spent the morning on the satellite phone, seeing whether we'd be able to drive on the roads and clear out or if we'd be stuck at the railroad crossing again. As fun as the prior night had been, I'm not sure we'd be as keen on staying another night. Plus we were running low on beer. Fortunately, although we couldn't head north in our intended direction to William Creek, the roads were clear enough down south to backtrack a bit. Even more fortunately, we didn't have to drive all the way back to the beginning to catch the sealed road up to Coober Pedy: there was an unsealed road that was drivable enough to cut over on.

It was a lot of driving, but our feral crew of course managed to have fun. We caught up with another, much less cool, tour company that was going to try to head north to William Creek. They were in their cozy cushioned seats in their air conditioned bus, and every single one of them looked absolutely miserable. Meanwhile, we were bouncing along madly with bruised bottoms and no AC, and we were loving every minute of it, blasting music, singing along (well, shrieking) and dancing in our seats. Life is what you make of it, no?

Finally we pulled up to Roxby Downs, where we'd hop back on the sealed highway. As we looked behind us, we noticed a sign indicating every single unpaved road through the Outback as closed, including the one we'd just departed. No problem for our fearless Landcruiser and its fearless captain! Still, our asses were thankful to be back on sealed comfort.

We were meant to spend more time on Lake Eyre, the salt lake we'd grabbed a loook at the day before, but that plan ran amok thanks to the rain, so we settled for a smaller, though still immense, salt lake called Lake Hart. It was truly bizrre to be walking, in shorts, across a surface that so closely resembled an ice rink, and realize, as your feet made a fun little crunch-crunch across the surface, that it was actually salt. All of the numerable salt lakes that dot the center of Australia are remnants of an ancient interior ocean. They remain as a pure, thick pool of solid salt, although they at rare points do flood and acquire a thin surface of water. At any rate, we took the obligatory ice-skating and licking-the-salt photos, and Keith tested to see whether he could right his name on the salt by peeing, and then we kept trucking on.

Finally, after many more hours of driving, singing, sleeping, and eating potato chips-- sorry, I mean crisps-- we rocked into Coober Pedy, the land of the underground homes. Coober Pedy is famous sheerly due to its importance for opal mining. As we neared the town proper, mounds of dirt marked mines, and sign warned you to not walk backwards or run, so as to avoid a painful death falling down a mine shaft. The people in Coober Pedy live underground in dug-outs. This helps regulate the temperature year round in an area of extreme temperatures. It also provides an excellent reason to add an addition to your house. A few people have struck it rich doing so.

Coober Pedy is a mining town, and as such is full of old, weathered men who enjoy ogling anyone in female form. It's a colorful town indeed. Still, we showed the locals what colorful was as we created our own party outside the underground hostel, dancing on the picnic table to Michael Jackson as we waited for our pizza. The locals literally stopped in their tracks, as did the other assorted tour groups in the town. One such tour group, Groovy Grape, was sharing our hostel with us. They will be important later on.

After finishing up our pizza, beer, and warm goon (that's wine in a box for the unseasoned non-backpackers), it was time to head to the local nightclub! The only nightclub in a town like Coober Pedy was just like you'd imagine it. And it was even underground! As in buried into the ground, not as in hip and exclusive. The juke box was jamming with such tunes as the obligatory MC Hammer, lots of 80s hair-band rock, and AC/DC. A drugged-out woman with her boobs hanging out of her dress swayed around out of beat to the music and tried to hit on anyone who moved. Another crazy woman, a bit older and just as out of her gourd, but fortunately with her boobs safely in her shirt, proceeded to embarass our dear (married) Hans by dancing with him. He just wanted to bolt. None of the Groovy Grapers were there, but, oddly enough, their guide, who uncannily resembled Otto, the bus driver from the Simpsons, was there getting absolutely obliterated on whiskey. Wondering how in the world he'd drive the next day, we felt safe and secure as our Mike sipped his quota of 2 light beers for the night.

We managed to take over the dance floor, playing some air guitar and shaking some booty to Hips Don't Lie (that was for you, Joey!!), and then it was time to go. On the way back, as we marvelled at the number of stars in the sky, Mike informed me that you couldn't see Orion from Australia, which isn't true. Hmmm, maybe Otto slipped him something. He doesn't remember saying this, but I swear he said it. ;) At any rate, Keith stayed up a while making up stories to tell to a very drunk Otto, but the rest of us headed on to bed in the cave.

Day 5: Jumping off the moon and landing in hot springs

After poor Emma was molested by Otto, who tried to pull off her towel as she emerged from the shower--a real winner, that Otto (who, by the way, the night before, kept pressing Mike to tell him which girls in our group were single so he could hit on us. Pervert.)-- we took a quick tour through the opal mine and underground display home next door, then it was off to play some catch-up.

We were meant to have only stopped in Coober Pedy for a few hours, but thanks to the rain had stayed overnight. I was happy, as I got to have the grand adventure of sleeping in a cave, but now we were unfortunately off course and would not have enough time to get to the Painted Desert. No worries, we drove through the Breakaways, whose other-worldly land formations are supposedly the same as what you'd see in the Painted Desert, according to Mike. But then, this is the guy who told me you couldn't see Orion in Australia. :) We were also able to drive through the Breakaways, something we couldn't do in the Painted Desert, so that was a nice bonus. Also, Mad Max 3 was filmed here. The landscape was dotted with eroded peaks of differing colors, surrounded by vast flatness. The landscape got bleaker and bleaker as we drove on, until we were finally in the depths of the vast nothingness that is the Australian Outback. The Outback was best personified by the Moon Plain-- an immense stretch of land straight out of a sci-fi movie, truly from another world. I was expecting to see an alien or two, but it was so bleak there weren't even any kangaroos.

We pushed on to Oodnadatta, the start of the famous Outback track, aptly named the Oodnadatta track. Imagine that. Oodnadatta consisted of a bright pink roadhouse in the middle of nowhere, once again, aptly named the Pink Roadhouse. We grabbed lunch and consented to listen a while to an older, very nice, but absolutely out of it Aboriginal man with an extremely out-of-tune guitar. We asked him to play "All You Need is Love", which he claimed to know, but the only word we could understand in the unfamiliar tune was "love". These things happen when you live in the middle of nowhere.

Dusk was descending as we pulled into our destination for the night. I'd been looking forward to this night since the beginning of the trip. We were to stay at the Dalhousie Hot Springs, a geothermically active area considered sacred and cleansing by the Aboriginals. I couldn't wait to immerse myself in the cleansing waters underneath a midnight moon. Unfortunately, after a twilight dip, we realized the mosquitos made camping nearby an impossibility, so we set up camp about 9 kilometers away. No midnight swim for me, but we still planned to wake up before the sunrise to drive back and bathe as the sun ascended into the sky.

Day 6: Skinny-dipping in sacred waters and playing footie with the locals

It was still dark as I grew conscious of music in the background: drumbeats and a didgeridoo lulled me back into this world. It was an ungodly hour, but I wouldn't have traded it for anything. I loved being woken by the gentle music, with the knowledge that I'd view the sunrise in naturally warmed waters, surrounded by tropical birds. It was amazing. A few of us, myself included, followed in Mike's footsteps and went au natural. We immersed ourselves in the darkness of the very early morning. As the sun rose, painting the sky with its light, the birds awoke and surrounded us, filling the air with their music as they dipped and dived, feeding on the mosquitos (good on ya', birdies!). I could have stayed forever. As we pulled away, Susanne shed a few tears. I completely understood why. Emotions were high, being surrounded by such utter perfection and bliss, yet knowing that very likely you'd never visit this place again. It was bittersweet.

Later on that day we stopped by the Aboriginal settlement of Finke. Finke is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, with few options for those who reside within it. Alcohol is banned and the gas pumps are locked up to prevent the inhabitants from huffing the petrol. The ground is littered with aerosol cans, proof that people will find a way to drown their hopelessness and misery no matter what you try to outlaw and control. Finke is the picture of the Aboriginals' current reality. As is the case with most indigenous peoples, the ways of the Aboriginals ran contrary to the ways of the white man. Somehow, yet again, the people who actually seemed to have it right, who actually lived in unity with nature, who, had they emerged historically triumphant, would have led us to a much less bleak present, were overpowered by the people with guns. They were dislocated from their ancestral land, which, for a people whose land defines their identity, was absolutely ruinous, and forced to live in a way and under values that they couldn't understand. An entire generation of children was ripped away from their families and brought to orphanages, in the name of progress. Their foundation was quite literally ripped away from underneath them. The current situation of the Aboriginal population is complex, and it's not entirely the fault of the white man, but still, are we surprised by the societal problems that surround a group of people for whom the future offers no hope?

At any rate, as we drove into tiny Finke, we were amazed and saddened by the bleakness. What do people DO here? How can they be happy? As we drove on, though, a little boy, Dylan, who recognized Mike from the last time he'd driven through, ran up to the car and hopped up into the window as we stopped. Soon his friends joined him. Here, in the middle of this sad hopeless town, the pure innocence and enthusiasm of youth triumphed still. They marvelled at Claire, called everyone with glasses on "Harry Potter", wore shirts displaying Tupac and reading "G Unit", and introduced themselves to each and every one of us. We joined them at the local footie field to play some Australian Rules football, which I don't understand at all. I still had fun until I got smacked in the nose by the ball. Damn nose gets in the way of everything. We marvelled at the kids' ability to run around barefoot on the searingly hot sandy ground. It was great to share a laugh with these kids, and know we brightened each others' days. Still, it was bittersweet: as we pulled away, we wondered what would become of them in a few years' time, and knew we could only hope for the best.

On the way to our bush camp for the night, we stopped at the geographical center of Australia. I'd been to New Zealand's center, now it was time for Oz. Fortunately, this time there was no lung-exploding, awful hike to the top. There was, however, a picturesque, ideally-Australian red dirt road that made driving fun. We stopped for the always necessary group photo, made some feral comments in the comment book, and pushed on to camp, crossing into the anything goes (apart from camp fires) Northern Territory in the process. Our home for the night was a spot called Kulgera rocks. As Mike prepared dinner, we climbed up the rocks for which the spot was named to watch the sunset. It was a full moon that night. I thought back to my night photo crew at home, wondering where they had shot this full moon, and thinking of the amazing places I'd seen during the last few full moons: a bonfire on the beach in Fiji, a wild hailstorm in the Catlins in New Zealand, and now the desert of Australia. Sam fortunately had a tripod, and I pondered these and other things as I basked in the contented solitude of night photography I'd missed so much. I was so happy I didn't want to go to sleep, didn't want yet another perfect day to end. As everyone drifted off to sleep, and Mike climbed up the rocks to play his didgeridoo, I read my book with the crackle of the fire and the eerie sound of the distant didge in the background.

To be continued again...

posted by La Rizz @ 9:25 PM