Here’s the long awaited, long procrastinated entry on what I did on my Australian “Safari”. In asking myself why I write on this blog if I put if off this way, I realize the dual purpose of these writings: first, this is my journal for posterity’s sake. Second, this is my way to keep friends and family up to date with my exploits. The fact that people read it motivates me to actually do it, and that I have to try to write something mildly worth reading. The only problem is if I want to include embarrassing facts… good thing it’s next to impossible for me to be embarrassed.
So here goes with the safari log.
Day 1 Perth to Lucky Bay ~650 KM
Picked up at 8 on a rainy day in Perth by Glyn the driver and proprietor of Southern Cross Safaris. 10 People in a modified 89 Landcrusier: bull bar, safari racks, snorkel kit, and trailer it looked like we were definitely leaving the city. The inside was comfortable, but torn up every surface impregnated with red dirt – as we would soon be. As I was last to be picked up I got the front seat and began to try to talk to our fearless leader. Glyn immediately struck me as an old grumpy uncle that acquiesced under pressure to allow you to join him on his favorite camping trip. This impression really stuck, only changing as Glyn warmed to us and I realized that this grumpy uncle really likes the company, he just hates admitting it. We left Perth and drove north. The landscape looks like rolling Texas hill country. We drove through Jarrellton and Glyn informs us that this is the last actual city before Darwin, which is about 6000 KM to the northeast. We stop at our first roadhouse for morning tea – I love this! Out in harsh wilderness, in this rough old truck, with our burley guide, and we stop for tea every morning and afternoon. We arrived at the Pinnacles, which were nothing short of alien and beautiful: endless fields of rocks sticking straight out of the yellow sand into a blue overcast sky. People begin to open up, learn the first few names and find out that I’m the only native English-speaking passenger. 3 Germans, 3 Dutch, 1 French, 1 Swiss, 1 Japanese, & me. Following the pinnacles we have a lot of driving, and finally around 4 we turn off the road on to a dirt trail and started cruising down a narrow trail of rough vegetation until we find our first campsite in a peaceful and very secluded pasture. So we get the camp setup instructions and I realize we are sleeping on the ground…oh damn…err, cool. Campfire, spaghetti bolognese, wine/beer and then breathtaking stars; so amazing I could barely go to sleep as I didn’t want to stop looking at the splash of the milky way above.
Day 2 Lucky Bay to Nanga ~450 Kilometers
Up at 5:45 – oh damn it’s early. Watched the last star extinguished by the sunrise from my “swag” (the ground sleeping bags we’re in). On the road by 7, we head towards the large hills on the western horizon which turn out to be massive sand dunes. Drop the trailer and most of the air pressure from the tires and go into L4 to climb up these 10 story dunes. We creep up to a precipice and drive off an unbelievably steep drop –crossing the edge I could almost hear the click of a roller coaster that I felt I was on. We arrive at the beach and go sandboarding, which is basically snowboarding on wooden boards on sand dunes. Once done with that, we go for a swim in tide pools. I realize standing in waist deep water I can see angelfish swimming round my ankles. Back in the truck on the way out and I realize it’s not even 9 am yet – it’s amazing what you can do when you get up before 6. Tea cliffside at Pott Ally with beautiful views. Then a drive to the zed bend, or Z bend as we Americans would say. (Apparently Brits and Australians say “zed” for “Z”, except of coarse for the growing population of kids watching Sesame Street). Fantastically beautiful rock and amazingly hot (~100). We climb up and down the gorge for a few hours and then off to our campsite for the night. This time we are at a caravan park setup at a sheep station. A caravan park is basically defined campsites with showers and grills. A station is a ranch – except that here they are normally around 2 million acres. That’s right, million with an M. So it’s funny to be at this holiday caravan park and know that you are hundreds of miles from a town. Beautiful sunset, great dinner, and conversations begin to really open up.
Day 3 Nanga to Gladstone ~350 Kilometers
Awoken by a downpour the night before – thank goodness we are near structures that proved some shelter. Up by 6, off by 7. We drive on a 120 KM road that is perfectly straight (only in Australia). We arrive at Monkey Mia and animal reserve where wild dolphins swim right up to you. Amazing but touristy and we all agree to get out as soon as possible. Everyone jumps on an optional sailing tour, but I must admit I hate to pay to sit on a sailboat and not actually be the one sailing – so I went for a walk down the beach. Got to the end of the foot prints and continued on to a perfect place to sit and stare for a couple hours. Watched hermit crabs, fish, and sting rays scoot by in the crystal clear water in front of me and soaked up some sun. We actually skipped morning tea and headed off to Big Lagoon which was an hour down a 4x4 trail on some station (I am continuously amazed with Glyn’s local knowledge of this endless land). Great swim with white sand, bright blue water, and red dunes. More 4x4ing to Eagle’s Bluff were we could look down on sharks and eagle rays swimming about. 200 feet above and Glyn clues me in on scale, the sharks we see are Tiger and Hammerhead and between 6 and 12 feet,… damn. Well at least there were only about 20 of them. Back on the highway where I’m lost in though watching the endless expanses when Glyn begins to slow… and of coarse we turn on some completely indiscernible trail that leads to an amazing beach. Flats that go on forever we walk out and can actually see the tide moving. This is on another sheep station and it has an old jetty and pier from the 1800’s. We climb out to the end balancing on the few timbers left. Feet dangling off the edge of timbers with grooves as deep as canyons, hundred year old cleats on the corners and I’m truly struck with the thought of they don’t build them like this anymore. Looking over the water with my new German and Dutch friends watching the sun dive into the ocean, I feel a pang of homesickness as this pier reminds me so much of sitting in Rockport on the end of the pier watching the sunset (albeit not in the Indian Ocean). I’m ashamed to admit it as a sailor, but I’ve always confused the direction of sunrise and sunset, west to east, east to west – but at this point I realize I’ll never forget again sitting Western Australia looking towards Africa. (Nothing like continents to help you see how big you are)
Day 4 Gladstone to Coral Bay ~450 Kilometers
Off by 7 and arrive at Coral Bay and resort town in the middle of nowhere, as everything is here. Actual campsite and a dive shop. We get snorkel gear and go hit the Nangaloo Reef which is on par with the Great Barrier Reef, yet there’s no one else here. It is amazing but the coral are spawning and the visibility is poor (this week out of the year). Hang out of the beach, swim, and then a rest at the campsite. Funny after sitting for hours on end in the car I can’t wait to lie down and read; yet snoozing in the sunshine reading my book is wonderful. I’ve finished my book and I’m nervous with how I’ll pass the rest of my time in the car (thank you Economist and iPod). We go to a restaurant/bar that night and enjoy happy hour with good food, plentiful drinks, and great new friends. We find ourselves exhausted and going to bed at 8:30.
Day 5 Coral Bay to Wyloo Station ~400 Kilometers
We slept in today, 6:30 wake up. Take off for morning snorkeling trip on a local boat, water was much better but not what it could have been without the spawning. Amazing and enormous corals, cresting one underwater cliff I see a 9 foot reef shark about 30 feet below and I have never had my belly feel so exposed before. After snorkeling we are charged with more beach time – so I went traipsing off to see the enormous dune in the distance with my camera. Great scenes to shoot - yet a problem with beautiful environments like this is that I ended up paying a fine of one broken toe for not looking where I’m going. Saw some wild goats, lizards, and beautiful views of white sand jutting out into light blue water broken up from the dark blue by a reef I can’t begin to imagine the end of. Dropped off Emily the French girl for her transfer to Exmoth and road northeast for 5 hours. The thermometer in my watch (thanks Bro for the bad ass watch) is not accurate when being worn so I set it on the seat beside me to figure out the temperature. But for the first time my wrist had lowered the temperature – in the shade it was 108. The wind from the windows was like putting your face in an oven – did I mention no A/C? Stopped at another roadhouse, which are these gas station/micro-communities. They are so far away from everything that the employees live there, where they have to provide for there own water and electricity. In one I met a girl with an Irish accent, she and a friend ran out of money and were there for 3 months to earn a bit more. (Guess it would be easy to save!) No phone, no internet – only a radio phone to call the Royal Flying Doctor (that’s right, doctors fly here because everything is so far apart) and an Ambulance so you can go pick up folks from the neighboring stations in an emergency. We have passed signs warning us that we were on the runway sections (that’s right the road and the runway are one in the same) and that we were crossing the Tropic of Capricorn so far on the highway. In the back of the roadhouses I’ve seen pet Kangaroos, wild monitor lizards, and piles of cars that apparently weren’t going to make it any farther. We passed 1 car in 8 hours and pulled off the road to sleep in endless expanse.
Day 6 Wyloo Station to Karijini National Park ~400 Kilometers
The flies are atrocious and we broke camp in record time. 40 or 50 on you at once and they are attracted to moisture so the crawl into your ears, eyes, and nose. Saw more wild Kangaroos (I saw them every day of the trip). Sitting on the road staring out the window I notice the black hair of my arm is now blonde. I’m listing to Aimee Man’s “Save Me” and I remember it coming from this great movie but I can’t remember the title. Tom Cruise, frogs falling from the sky, yet no memory of the title… It fells like I’m trying to remember things from a previous life. Somehow I’m now in a whole new life disconnected from what it was previously. We cross a train track and power line and it looks dramatically out of place and I realize I haven’t seen one in 5 days of driving. No fences either – expanse like I have never experienced. We arrive in the Karijini and walked to see junction pool 300-400 feet below in a steep gorge. It’s beautiful and unbelievably steep – so Glyn in his nonchalant way says “let’s go for a swim down there”. We begin our hike down the gorge and I am continuously more impressed as the land is nothing like I’ve seen before. Stones that look bronzed, jagged, broken off at a thousand angles, whole landscapes leaning over so much that I feel like I can’t stand up straight. The walls become steeper until we are climbing with our bodies like an X with hands and feet on opposite sides of the gorge. We have to climb over a small waterfall this way and I can see that the gorge goes up 200 feet from here. At the surface you could nearly jump across the jagged scar of sky that I can see from here in the bottom. The rock is amazingly beautiful. If it rained up stream from us now, death would be a certainty. Scale around a beautiful round pool and we get to the really hairy stuff. Glen has us look at a wall and sign another release form as we are about to climb over 120 feet and down 40 feet. This is very steep free climbing, with no helmets or ropes and nothing but rock to catch you. One slip of the foot and you would be dead or paralyzed, yet in 10 years Glyn’s had nothing “serious”. I love being in a country where lawyers haven’t taken away your ability to hurt yourself. Nonetheless, Glyn informs us we are some of the last that will be allowed through this “trail”, just because of the people that started dying on it last year. The trail is amazing and upon return we eat the best tasting lunch of my life (when your this hungry beef jerky tastes like fillet mignon). Then it’s off to another gorge trail, yet this time we swim the majority and it’s is fantastic. Floating on my back in water that could be 50 feet deep, looking up 200 feet to the surface, and touching both sides with my arms. The sky is framed by the narrow sides of the gorge and it contains white clouds whisping across the picture. The natural beauty here makes my heart ache. Majestic is a feeble word to describe it. Back up the gorge and into the truck for the short 4x4 ride to the campsite. Here in the middle of nothing but endless beauty the sunsets on our campfire and our trip is coming to an end. Silent lightning on the horizon temps me away from camp and I take a campstool a quarter mile down the trail and sit in complete darkness and quite. Watching flashes of light on the horizon over the mountains and hearing a few insects. Yet the quite of this place is driven home by the fact that I can barely hear anything over the sound of the blood running though my ears. The peace here, sitting alone with a glass of wine, surrounded by hundreds of miles of nature is something I will long remember. We set up tents for the first time because of the threat of rain; they are amazingly hot, yet Murphy has an Australian accent as we go all night with the only moisture being our sweat.
Day 7 Karijini to Newman ~300 Kilometers
A day of light hikes, great swimming holes and finally enough time to take a few pictures. We are in our first swimming hole by 8, then tea, and on to easy gorge hikes with beautiful swims, waterfalls, and crystal clear, cool water. We ate lunch in the bottom of a gorge at our 3rd swimming hole. On the way back I try to shoot a magnificent waterfall and find people swimming at the bottom, damn it I’ve gotten used to be alone out here, where did these people come from? Nonetheless I get a few photos that due absolutely no justice to the beauty of this place. Another group picture and back to the truck. I say good-bye to everyone but two of the Dutch as we drop off most of the tour for there bus ride to Broome. The 3 of us will now spend long hours cruising back to Perth. Our stop that night is in the Mining town of Newman where I see a truck large enough for me to stand up straight below its lowest point! Then again, this Discovery Channel sized dump truck carries 25 tons in one load. As we go to sleep we see a bright red glow in the distance that Glyn tells us is a brush fire. No worries here because they seldom threaten people so the just let them burn (that’s what I call space).
Day 8 Newman to Paynes Find ~800 Kilometers
Up at 5 and off to lots of driving. Yet so much as to keep us from stopping for tea and “bickies”. Even got a bad picture of a Kangaroo. 400K of nothing and then another unexplained slowing on a barren road and we pull off on another invisible trail. ½ mile of the road we stop and Glyn informs us we are going for a swim. This is curious as there is nothing around us but dry prairies and a mound of dirt to our south. I am suddenly nervous he wants us to swim in a cow trough, but on climbing the mound we see an enormous open-cut retired gold mine. We stroll past a sign Glyn refers to as just “legal stuff”, but I would call a “DANGER – Closed Mine – Keep Out” sign. We climb 200 feet down a road to the bottom and swim in beautiful and refreshing blue water. Here we join some black swans that are native only to Western Australia. Beautiful, yet there forte is not flying up as one can’t even get out of the mine and avoid us at the same time. Yet, he relaxes at one end, we are at the other, and his pals join him for moral support. Get a few photos and back to the road. iPod back in my ears, thank you Steve Jobs, music is like heroin to me here. We pull off to our last campsite. We watch the most amazing sunset yet, the sky on fire to the west, green to the north, and purple storms to the south. It’s our last night together. Stay up the latest yet (10:15) drinking wine and beer and I am utterly impressed with the authenticity of our host. Conversations about family, life, death, and religion between 4 people representing 3 countries, and 2 generations.
Day 9 Paynes Find to Perth ~450 Kilometers
Awaking to my 9th sunrise in a row (definitely a record in my life). Flies wake up to though and we hope on the road. We listen to more history lessons on the comparatively short jaunt the final 4 hours into Perth. Good byes and then back to Freemantle. Amazing experience has come to a conclusion and 10 more amazing people have passed through my life. I’m curious, but highly doubtful we will ever meet again – but that’s okay ‘cause the time we had was a blast.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment