K: Our first blog post from Australia has been a bit delayed due to lack of Internet connectivity. And pictures will follow when we can get a WiFi hookup.
The remote Northern Territory is not unlike the remote western US. We started our journey in the Top End Darwin, Northern Territory. We have rented a car (a Toyota Corolla) and are embarking on a 3,000+ kilometer road trip to Adelaide, NSW. "Straight down the guts of Australia", as they say.
We are in the wet season here in the North, and it is making things very interesting. Wet season isn't just some rain here and there. It ranges from cyclones to monsoons and lasts from approximately December through March. I am not sure we really understood what the wet season implied when we planned this trip. But so far we have been really lucky with sunshine-filled days and wild storms in the evenings. The only bad part is the incessant swarming of black flies that arrive for the wet season. Our first stop was the local supermarket where we purchased many supplies, including a cooler (or an "Esky", as the Aussies say) and loads of ice, insect repellant, rain ponchos, mosquito netting to cover our faces (for the flies, not mosquitos) and a fly swatter (for the car).
The remote Northern Territory is not unlike the remote western US. We started our journey in the Top End Darwin, Northern Territory. We have rented a car (a Toyota Corolla) and are embarking on a 3,000+ kilometer road trip to Adelaide, NSW. "Straight down the guts of Australia", as they say.
We are in the wet season here in the North, and it is making things very interesting. Wet season isn't just some rain here and there. It ranges from cyclones to monsoons and lasts from approximately December through March. I am not sure we really understood what the wet season implied when we planned this trip. But so far we have been really lucky with sunshine-filled days and wild storms in the evenings. The only bad part is the incessant swarming of black flies that arrive for the wet season. Our first stop was the local supermarket where we purchased many supplies, including a cooler (or an "Esky", as the Aussies say) and loads of ice, insect repellant, rain ponchos, mosquito netting to cover our faces (for the flies, not mosquitos) and a fly swatter (for the car).
Our first stop was Kakadu National Park, only 300 kilometers southeast of Darwin. The park is vast (Australia's largest) and is partly run by the traditional Aboriginal owners, the Bininj and the Mungguy. Much of the park is inaccessible in the wet season, but the sealed roads are still passable and river tours are still running. We were able to take a river cruise where we saw many birds but no crocodiles. The landscape is unlike anything I have ever seen with trees partly submerged and water as far as the eye can see. We were fortunate not to get rain during either of our two days in Kakadu, but we were treated to a tremendous electrical thunderstorm one evening.
V: G'day, mates! Well, for me the highlights so far in Oz, the land down under, have been ... Crown Ale, Victoria Bitter, and XXXX Gold!
Some mighty tasty brews indeed they serve down here!
Okay, perhaps I rented the wrong vehicle, as Karen was looking very interestedly at the large 4WD beasts in the rental car lot, and asking me what that 'thing' is coming up from the engine, along the driver's window, ending just above the roof line, with a little knob on top of it.
"Oh, you mean that thing that looks like a hose?"
"Yes," she said, "that tube."
"Well, that's a snorkel attached to the car's engine, so when it drives over the water-flooded roadway, the engine can keep 'breathing', keep going, even when the water is over the hood level, and pouring into the compartment of the car. Hey, wait, do you want to have a vehicle with a snorkel? That would be great!" I screamed. "Because then we can really explore Aussie roads! Woo hoo, let's do it!!"
Alas, no snorkel on the Toyota.
So we have to be content driving the paved, or' sealed' roads, as they call 'em, looking at six-foot-tall termite mounds, water, water everywhere, and wallabies grazing along the roads. And hoping no stones shatter the windshield from the 'road trains', the three-to-five trailer-long semis that zoom on down the road.
From Kakadu we cruised, or kruised, to Katherine, and visited the Katherine Gorge in the midst of Nitmiluk National Park. Took a speedboat cruise upriver on the Katherine, getting absolutely soaked in the rapids, and learned quite a good bit of local Aboriginal lore about the land and its creation. I just loved it, and Karen was relieved to be free of buzzing flies, albeit quite wet.
We'll get photos up when we can, perhaps tomorrow from Tennant Creek.
I am enjoying these 30 + degree C temperatures!
V: G'day, mates! Well, for me the highlights so far in Oz, the land down under, have been ... Crown Ale, Victoria Bitter, and XXXX Gold!
Some mighty tasty brews indeed they serve down here!
Okay, perhaps I rented the wrong vehicle, as Karen was looking very interestedly at the large 4WD beasts in the rental car lot, and asking me what that 'thing' is coming up from the engine, along the driver's window, ending just above the roof line, with a little knob on top of it.
"Oh, you mean that thing that looks like a hose?"
"Yes," she said, "that tube."
"Well, that's a snorkel attached to the car's engine, so when it drives over the water-flooded roadway, the engine can keep 'breathing', keep going, even when the water is over the hood level, and pouring into the compartment of the car. Hey, wait, do you want to have a vehicle with a snorkel? That would be great!" I screamed. "Because then we can really explore Aussie roads! Woo hoo, let's do it!!"
Alas, no snorkel on the Toyota.
So we have to be content driving the paved, or' sealed' roads, as they call 'em, looking at six-foot-tall termite mounds, water, water everywhere, and wallabies grazing along the roads. And hoping no stones shatter the windshield from the 'road trains', the three-to-five trailer-long semis that zoom on down the road.
From Kakadu we cruised, or kruised, to Katherine, and visited the Katherine Gorge in the midst of Nitmiluk National Park. Took a speedboat cruise upriver on the Katherine, getting absolutely soaked in the rapids, and learned quite a good bit of local Aboriginal lore about the land and its creation. I just loved it, and Karen was relieved to be free of buzzing flies, albeit quite wet.
We'll get photos up when we can, perhaps tomorrow from Tennant Creek.
I am enjoying these 30 + degree C temperatures!
Sounds like you are already learning to speak "strine"!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to some pix.