The Red centre unexplained

                                                                               

A Kwik-Fit tyre branch, outback style

A good example of the unexplained 

Further re-cycling

         

Backpackers guide to re-cycling

                                           

Thankfully this isn't our Falcon

Ayres Rock rocks!

After 25 hours on the rails we were reving to go. A Ford Falcon station wagon awaited us complete with camping equipment. One small minor detail - no tent only a swag (google it, then imagine Fe in one, no flippin chance). The wagon had cruise control so the 440 km wasn't too bad but no time was to be wasted in order to arrive by dusk, not just roo action here, cattle, camels and thorny devils also roaming around!
Our first night of swagging was interrupted due to some dramatic thunder, lightening and rain. The station wagon then became our new digs and to be fair it wasn't bad as she was so big she almost needed reverse beepers.  Accommodation at the rock has been limited to one resort which has multiple options. From boutique hotels to outback camping, guess which we went for?

Obviously our wagon didn't have curtains but that didn't matter as at 4.30am we were up and heading for sunrise at the rock.  You start to see the rock some 30 kms away as you work your way along the Lasseter highway with anticipation on what's it gonna be like. And then wham there she is just sat there glowing. Its one of those really, an object when no matter how many times you've seen it in pictures nothing really prepares you for your first sight of such a mass of red rock just sat there on the horizon.

After our chilly sunriser and a hot cuppa we spent time in the cultural centre reading out the rocks aboriginal history. As climbing the rock is a big no no (the aboriginals don't want people climbing it) we opted for the 14km base walk. She really is a big lump!

Dusk brings another wave of tour buses back to the rock for the sunset. After a bit of a cloudy day we were treated with a gap in the clouds and the sun showing itself just before dipping on the horizon.
Completely lighting up the rock with an orange glow, awesome!

Ulura (Ayers Rock) is 3.6km long and rises a towering 348m from the surrounding sandy scrub land. It is believed that two thirds of the rock lies beneath the sand. Archaeological work suggests that Aboriginal people have lived in the area for at least 22,000 years.

The beliefs of Uluru are that of strong aboriginal history acting under aboriginal law. The aboriginals hear of this law from others who know. Their grandmothers and grandfathers who held the law and culture
strongly, they lived strongly and happily.  Today within Uluru both white people and black people work together as equals.

Everything at Uluru still runs according to aboriginal law. All rangers wear a badge carrying the image if Uluru. The aboriginals believe this is the way things should be. The national park is protected according to the law. Aboriginal people are constantly training rangers and scientists about the animals and plants within
the park. They teach them where to look for animals and where to find their burrows and what and how they eat to survive.  Government laws are written on paper, Anangu (Uluru Aboriginals) only carry their law in their heads and souls. They do not or will not put it down on paper. The laws are continually passed down from generations held only in their heads and hearts.


The rock, A question of climbing : The climbing of the rock is not encouraged as it's deemed as a sacred
thing in the eyes of Anangu. It's believed that Tjukurpa law has taught the aboriginals the correct way to behave, therefore they ask people to respect the law and not climb the rock or photograph any sites that are marked as sacred. Over 35 deaths have occurred through people attempting to climb the rock, the Anangu people feel great sadness when a person is hurt or dies on their land.

Gain with the train

Today we leave south austrailia and head up to the northern territory on The Ghan from Adelaide to Alice Springs.  Four wheels not in use today, which is good news after covering some 1260 kms in a car and then 800 kms in the van so this morning's plan of just pitching up at the train station to cover the next 1500 odd kms north has made us both smile very much indeed.


We are booked into red class which gets us a spacious reclining sleeper seat for the next 25 hours. Once we jump off at Alice Springs the train then continues north up to Darwin, with a journey total of 54 hours and 2979 km! You can kinda see why she only runs in one direction once a week and she's only completed this journey, Adelaide to Darwin, in one go since 2004.

 

The original Ghan line followed the route of explorer John MacDouall Stuart. The first train left Adelaide on 4 August 1929. The train's whistle pierced the silence of the MacDonnell Ranges surrounding Alice Springs 2 days later. The train was steam hauled and had to contend with extreme conditions including flash flooding and intense heat. Once getting stranded in one spot for two weeks, the engine driver shot wild goats to feed his passengers!

In 1980, the Old Ghan's narrow wooden sleeper style rail track was abandoned in favour of the new standard gauge track. This was mounted on concrete sleepers to provide a termite proof rail system,
thankfully.  The service, old and new, has now been running for 81 years and today's trains have real spacious seating, lounge and lounge carriages all which have in carriage toilets and showers, they even throw in complimentary towels. Our train stretched for 30 carriages long. The first two up front carrying cars. The train tootles along at a speed of 60mph. The exterior and interior have an art deco feel and you expect Hercule Poirot to walk through at any moment.

Once away we headed west which took us up alongside the Spencer Gulf, this gave some great views of the Flinders Ranges up to Port Augusta. From here we leave the coast and head north where through the night
we will reach the outback and enter yet another timezone.


I arose early from my recliner seat to watch the sunrise around 5am. As she rose from the horizon it lit the whole right hand side of the train acting as a signal to passengers that a new day had arrived. Within a few hours we reached the northern territory boarder some 1000 kms north of Adelaide. A 1000 kms covered just like that, now this is the way to get around this island!! As they say, it's too easy man.  From the carriage display the outside temp reads a steady 28c whilst inside it's a steady 21c. Kinda slightly bed smelly, but alls ok.
Last winter brought record rainfall to the northern territories therefore as we glide through the outback it's full of colours not normally on show. We pass many culverts and track side gullies that are full with rain water, all slightly tainted orange from the surrounding soil.  Throughout the journey there were various info announcements highlighting points of interest as we passed through the outback. Some more interesting than other, but you just gonna love old Ozzie honesty.

Highlights of England's thrilling 35-18 victory over Australia

Its tough being a pom at times.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/9187428.stm

Average Adelaide

After great last night in Melbourne we found ourselves sat at Avalon airport feeling a little sluggish, Those margaritas were good though, well why wouldn't ya? Deano dropped us off and was then heading back to Ocean Grove for a surf, the lucky git. Well why wouldn't ya. For us two Adelaide awaited us.

Not a great start as on checking into our hostel at Adelaide we realized that we had mislaid our passports! Ahhhh. After a rather hairy 30 mins and some frantic calls to airlines, airport and the like we are told that we had left them on the plane. Double Ahh. I wouldn't recommend this type of manoeuvre for the weak hearted. This resulted in one of us, Dave drew the shortest straw, cycling back to the airport to collect them. Treble ahh. Have you ever tried to cycle to a airport complex, I can tell you its a nightmare and not really worth trying unless your forced too. Now this is the first type of boob on the trip. Were blaming it on the fact that we were doing an internal cheapy flight that had such a low luggage allowance we were forced to either wear or carry a fair amount of our belongings. Imagine what we looked like at check-in! The moment of relief to reach out and hold our passports again was pretty much beyond words. We think the flight up to Cairns will now be executed with military precision. Back to full baggage allowance, and no pre-margaritas will be tolorated !!

Our first morning and we woke at 7am to the sounds of christmas carols belting out over the tannoy. The streets were lined with 200 thousand odd festive folk hollering and singing christmas songs. Indeed today Christmas had arrived, its was Adelaide's christmas pageant. They were going for a world record for the most carol singers, 9116 to be precise, sang in tune of course for 15 minutes.

Locals were complaining of the cold at 20 degrees. Understandable we guessed as we were told last year it was 35 degrees.  86 floats rolled past us but it just didn't seem christmasy. Father christmas in flip flops? All seemed very strange to a couple of north hemisphere peeps.

Lawns, longboards and lavish sausage rolls

Lou's family owns beach house in Ocean Grove which gave us finally, yes finally, a sniff of a chance for a surf down under. The ute fully loaded with all sorts we headed for the south coast for a couple of days. It didn't seem fair though that Lou had to stay home and work but we agreed that someone had to for the state of the nation if nothing else!  Once we reached number 19, HQ for the next few days, we reloaded the ute with a quiver of boards and suits and we head for a local surf spot. Following a swift survey of the follow breaks: 13th Bach, Sign Post, Boings and Ocean Grove it was decided that Bass Straight at Ocean Grove was good for us. This spot is the stretch of ocean between Tasmania and south coast oz. We had some great fun on some cleanish waves that at times were peeling nicely and although a pretty glassy day happy to say not a dorsal fin in sight. Which was nice!

On return to HQ we had a job on. A touch of lawn attention. Well

why wouldn't ya? Petrol mower on-loan, fireboots on - for safety, stubby in hand and bug cream applied by the bucket load the 3 of us easily ploughed through it.  After the grounds were tamed, stubbies flowed and the barbie cooked us up some steak, alas the mozzies took the crown on this evening so it was a quick dive for cover around 10ish. We estimated a figure of 8 trillion mossies were involved in this swarm. Ouch.  All happy inside as we molded ourselves to the sofa and watched the classic surfing flick Morning of the Earth. One for you Mallinson.

Next day was an early start and a second surf session was successfully under our belts at Ocean Grove.    Did manage to get the 8ft 6 going but it was a bit of a paddle-fest. Lovely board its just I'm a few paddles off the pace ! Again all sticky out bits still intact, no sharks, whales or snakes to report. Today conditions were even cleaner and although the cloud had come in a little this seemed to be a good thing as it kept control of the wave height. Come two odd hours in though totally and utterly pooped, tanks right on empty. Fe had met some unexpected rocks resulting in some hoof damage. No drama though, just a couple of nicks which no doubt will go down as an extreme sport injuries tale.

All out the water Deanoooo took us to the local bakery where we had the most monumental of all, ever recorded, home made sausage roll, all well earned. It had the girth of a tree trunk, at a guess around 150grams of the finest oz pork. Grouse or what.

Time for a bit of local surf history, the History of Surf museum in Torquay. Some great pictures and footage here and a few very recent bits had be added. One to celebrate Kelly Slater's 10 title win plus one to mark the recent tragic death of surf pro Andy Irons.

Then back on the bus/ute Deanooooo Keeble tours took us along the Great Ocean Road which included some great surf spots and some real grand design style houses set back in cliff top locations. It was great to find some manageable surf and see a part of oz that didn't form part of our original plan. Nice.




The Great Ocean Road is 300km running along the the south-western coast of Victoria. The road was built by nearly 3000 solders returning from The Great War. The soldiers worked for 14 years to complete the road. It is dedicated to their fallen comrades.

Back in Melbourne and reunited with Lou, the only worker in the bunch, we enjoyed a rare meal out at a local restaurant named The Royal Mail. It was road-kill night therefore when in Rome we ordered to suit. Well if you are going to go out in Oz you gotta go native. This little place is well worth it as the food, beers and atmosphere was cracking.

The next day big Deanoooooo, the firefighter, gave us a tour of the City and of his station.  Yes there was a pole and plenty big hoses on hand. The poms both got the kit on, boy was it hot and heavy, totally nuts.  Didn't fancy climbing a multi storey building with all of that on!  Fe even got to sound the horn! Mad thing was mid-equipement try on there was a actual shout, sorry a call. Can it get any better when your mid-fire station tour.

Melbourne, well why wouldn't ya

Flying into Melbourne from the west the landscape seemed sooooo flat and for some reason the very first time it now feels that we are a very long way from home.

We were collected from the airport by the lovely Dean and Lou (a couple we met in Vietnam) and taken home for a cooked breakfast, smoked salmon, bacon, eggs the whole nugget, well why wouldn't ya.  It was very  much needed as our night flight was delayed and 3 hour time difference we'd been on the move for about 13 hours.

Following the rest bite we climbed in the ute and had a whistle stop tour of the city which concluded in a Gelato spot, mmmmm great ice cream.

That night we headed to their local, the drunken poet and has some local beers listening to live music.  A great spot to round off a pretty long 24 hours.

With our batteries recharged our tour of the city started.  Completed a city walking tour with a normally non-walker (Dean)  Jumped on the victorian style trams which are free within the CBD.  This took us to various spots but one in particular the sacred venue of cricket, Melborne Cricket Club (MCG).  Sadly for some, no cricket being played today but the tour of the stadium was great.  The longest ever straight 6 that was hit at the MCG is highlighted by a single cream seat on level 3 within the south stand.  The hit being 162 metres, Simon O'Donnell being the batsman.

Lunch was at Hells Kitchen and roo burger was on the menu.  Also managed a few cheeky beers at the Cookie Rooftop bar.  And to be fair from here in we then did pretty much sweet FA until sunset.

On the way home we saw some Christmas decorations and window displays in their main department store, better than Harrods I would say.  All a bit strange when its 25 degrees.

Bullseye near Haydon

Happy bonfire night. Sadly no roman candles or catherine wheels to be had downunder. Well these guys have been in a drought for 7 years so naked flames are defo a no-no.
 

After taking the risk on a gravel road down towards Wave Rock which saved as some 200ks we both were fairly pleased to get back on the bitumen, but would you believe it a passing 'road train' flicked up what seemed like a boulder and bang, bulls eyed us bottom left hand side of the wwindscreen. The hit was so hard it pushed same small bits of glass right through onto the dash board. Doris not to pleased. Thankfully we've opted for the fully insurance waiver hey !

Wave Rock is a 15 metre high 110 metre long inland wave that looks like it's gonna peak at any point. Formed some 60 million years ago by weathering and water erosion. Fe just couldn't help but ride this left hander right into the main carpark.  The streaks within the wave face have been created by years of run off of local mineral springs.

Right, back to the bitumen and those wheatfields.  Just spotted a longboard in Brookton. Our first sighting whilst being downunder. Shame she was strapped to a Ford Commodore 150km from the coast. Either way though it was a refreshing sign of there could be hope for this surf crazed island yet.

 

Back in Perth, well a campsite just outisde of town,  we like Perth. Tonight, our last night in the turbo charged Toyota, therefore it's eat all you can and then drink the bar dry prior to our flight east. Could well be a little sluggish and cloudy in the morn.....

A wander through the wheatbelts

Right, our fight to beat the bitumen continues this avo as we mount our final charge on WA with starting

our journey heading west to Perth which takes us through the heart of the wheatbelts. The wheatbelt is a stark contrast to the goldfield region as the deep pits and mining heads disolve into vast sweeping farmlands. These farmlands supply a large amount of WA with wheat, barley and oats. 40% of WA's wheat is grown within 100k radius. A more familar landscape for us but again what strikes you is the vast size.

Hugging the side of the great eastern highway is the Perth to Kalgoorlie externally mounted water main known as the golden pipeline. It sits in full glory knowing the fact it was the saviour of Kalgoorlie's minning life in the early goldrush days. Yeah sure there are now pipelines that run all over the world but this one was

installed some 100 years ago and still going strong. The pipeline runs for nearly 600 kms from the Mundaring Weir in Perth to the Mount Charlotte resesvor in Kalgoorlie.

There's gold in them those hills....

Kaloorglie is the gateway to WA's goldfields. Kal, as it locally known (but we nick named it testosterone town) is the sort of town you wouldn't pick a fight in as it feels a little bit like the Wild West. A frontier town where the bush meets brash. In town if you saw one grubby looking man in a high-vis and rigger boots you saw a hundred! This is a town where man does everything and anything in a pair of ovies.

Gold was discovered in these yer hills back in 1887 when Paddy Hannams pulled in from neighbouring Coolgardie in search for gold. As the story goes as he pulled up into town his horse broke the ground which exposed a rock fragment that turned out to be gold. Gold I tell you no less. This find led to the discovery of the 'golden mile' and the settlement of Kalgoolie was born resulting in the richest square mile of gold bearing in the world. It triggered one of the biggest gold rushes in Australia's history. Men came in their thousands, many unprepared for the harsh conditions they encountered with inadequate food and scarcity of water. There was no sanitation and few medical supplies. Thousands died from thirst or disease. Nevertheless stories of fame and fortune spread rapidly and within a few short years 93 hotels and 8 breweries had been established.

All said and done though a stroll down the main strip you couldn't help but think back on how life must have been at the height of the early gold rush days. On one of the traditional veranda fronted hotels a red LED sign streams up to the minute price of gold, nickel and local shares. A modern twist within a historic looking high street.

Ok cool kids, admittedly this won't rock everyones world but here goes, our info on a visit to Kals 'suuuuuuper pit'..... and she's a big'un. In mining terms think the Rhonda Valley on viagra, ,lots of Viagra. This suuuuuuuper pit is 3.7 km long and 1.55 km wide and 460 metres deep and has approval to go to a total of 660 metres deep. This will make the final pit almost twice the height of Aryes Rock.

All this can be viewed from a platform high on the south rim and the view is just staggering, honestly! Huge trucks zigzagging up and down the pit.  From a distance these huge trucks looked like kids toys.

Blasts happen 3 to 4 times a month which produces hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rock to shift. Each blast is given 12 hours to settle. Then machines known as face shovels, ($10 million each, 4 on site) remove rock from the blast area and load onto the haul trucks. The haul trucks take 45 minutes to climb out of the pit! Once the blast has been 'dug off' graded and levelled the whole process starts again.

Within the town there were various mining exhibitions, we chose to don a couple of hard hats at the aptly named 'The Mining Hall of Fame' which involved going underground with some bloke called Les. Les will stick in our minds for sometime a very very funny retired local miner.  The pit lift shaft (the size of a telephone booth holding a max of 5 people, cosy) took us down 120ft to one of Kalgoorlies oldest gold mines. We only travelled to the first level, for safety. Les informed us there were another 44 levels below. In total that would be roughly one mile below ground all manually dug.  From the start Les displayed some real ozzy characteristics, he had been mining since he was 15. We understood about every fifth word he said, but the poor German couple with us stood no chance at all as the ozzy mining slag flowed at a machine gun pace (the lack of teeth didn't help either). He had some real tales stretching back some 60 odd years of mining where he duly following in his father and grandfathers foot steps.

There were plenty of occupational hazards back in the day, you could see Les enjoyed his career. Unlike Les though miners normally were lucky to reach the ripe old age age of 50. No wonder that one particular drill was nicknamed the widower. This beauty though is now banned from the mining industry. Breathing through our noses was recommended, not our mouths. The hairs in you nostrils collect all the bad stuff and then should be picked out at regular intervals (a practice we were both used to from our time renovating our old victorian house). The banter continued for another hour and then we took that cosy lift back to the bright sunlight.

Back at ground level the museum attempts live daily demos of gold pouring. We took our seats with apprehension, the melting pot up front glowed away in the furnace which contained a mixture of silver, gold and glass, (glass is added to aid the pour, all in the name of tourism hey) good old Les let out all the museums secrets !! The melting pot itself was made of graphite and carbon, this was heated to a temperature of 1600 degrees. The kiln takes 2 hours to heat up, (today's demo was slightly delayed as someone forgot to light up first thing, that's what's great about the ozzies the whole 'she'll be alright' honest approach). The kiln runs on standard bottled LPG with a cost of $5500 a month to run. No wonder the museum runs at a loss. Another snippet from Les! The bar was finally poured when the molten materials reach around 1062 degrees. The poor guy out front was sweating cobs as he had to wear a rather fetching silver spacesuit. 

Prior to staff escorting Fe out of such a thrilling attraction we did have a bash at gold panning. It was back-breaking stuff and the heat didn't help nevertheless Dave still chose to pocket some sort of stones but neither of us had high hopes that any of them containing any gold. That's right, gold I tell you. As there's gold in them those hills.....
Gold panning technics cracked the excitement now escalated to new levels for Fe when we come across Big trucks. We like big trucks. The mine museum had on show some past and present equiprment that has
been widely used within the minning process. On show was a Catipillar 793C dump truck, worth $3.5 million. The tyres alone cost 26,000 dollars each that's 156,000 dollars per truck. Fuel tanks can hold 3,790 litres. Max speed 55kmh weighing in at 166 tonnes. This one was clearly in retirement but there are another 31 of these babies on site at the super pit !


Museums done for the day it was onwards to town. Now a town like this full of burley men, aside from visits to the pub or gambling at the towns race course there was one other booming business......brothels. Seems like these minning folk saved a little bit of energy for the end of the day (or the beginning, depending on the shift).  We took a tour round Questa Casta, the worlds oldest working brothel. The Madam showed us round and boy did she have some stories to tell (not fit for the blog, maybe more suitable over a cold beer). Dave had a few questions but she seemed pretty keen to want him to come back later with his wallet to find out the answers.

130kms north of Kalgoorlie you reach the small town of Menzies.  Menzies is famous for the Antony Gormley art installations on Lake Ballard. He of fame for the Angel of the North and the iron statues at Crosby beach in Liverpool, up north basically. The installation is at the end of a unbelievably dusty, pothole littered unsealed road where you then reach the Lake Ballard exhibition known as 'Inside Australia'. A display of 51 iron statues on an eerie salt lake setting 51 kms (the link to the number of statues 51) East of Menzies. These are derived from laser scans of some of the Menzies locals. I asked the girl at the roadhouse if she was one of the chosen ones but I didn't receive a warm reply so I filled in the beeps and guessed no. She was good value though and gave us both the low down on the time Antony actually visited Menzies to view his work. From what we can repeat he sounds a bit of a demaning diva.

150th Melbourne Cup day, That's lucky.....

The sand at Lucky Beach is so white you can't be without sunnies, it's also so clean it squeaks (or is that just it's granular makeup?). The water is aqua blue, so why so empty?  Lucky beach isn't so lucky when it comes to wind. The park ranger gave us the lowdown. It gets a strong North westerly in the morning and then around noon, 12.07pm to be exact on this day, it switches round to a South Eeasterly, still as bloody windy. Shame hey.  We braved a swim in the turquoise sea and skipped on the squeaky white sand.  A wind break hire shop would do a roaring trade here!

The whole of Oz seem to go mad for the Melbourne cup, with some having the day as an official bank holiday.  Being on our tight budget we couldn't stretch to a bet, just as well as the favourite didn't win!

Around 5pm in WA the sun starts to dip which starts the end of yet another clear blue sky day. Then and only then a warm red glow lights up the whole landscape. Our drive inland to Norseman was a great example
of this. Norseman was our first nights stop-off for our slow meander back to Perth via Kalagoolie, Menzies and then Hyden.