The Rest of the Story and Kakadu
After 6 months, I was finally able to complete the journey back to Darwin! I got a steal of a deal with Wayward on their
Territory Explorer 3 1/2 day trip - $99! Thankfully the tour was cheap because they only provided breakfast, and no other meals. At the full price ($230), I'd have felt a little shorted - you still pay a $30 kitty for 'camping fees, breakfast, and park entry fees' and an extra $10 for a fuel surcharge. Now, I may be wrong, but as a tour company offering motor vehicle tours to National Parks featuring camping, aren't those what I'm paying for in the tour price? Ah well, our guide was great and the tour was great, qestionable accounting aside. The Devil's Marbles (Karlu Karlu) were fascinating, Katherine Gorge and Mataranka were superb swimming holes, and Litchfield NP was one superlative swimming hole after another. These swimming holes are those ones that you see in travel documentaries that make you think - 'there aren't really places like that in the world, are there?' Also in Litchfield, there were 'magnetic' termite mounds. Now, they aren't really magnetic - they call them so because the termites build the mounds as tall, thin wedges that are aligned north-south. The early and late sun beats on them, but the hot midday sun can't. This maintains the colony temperature at an even 34 degrees year round! Smart little buggers, huh? Each one of these mounds can be over 50 yeards old and the queen of the colony can actually live for decades as well...
We got into Darwin after stopping at a place called the Digeridoo Hut where I figured out how to play the things. I can't yet do the circular breathing, but I can get the sound. I hope everyone is looking forward to hearing some digeridoo when I get back! I suggest ear plugs or something to distract you... But seriously, you can really tell the difference between the cheap didjs and the expensive ones - I like the ones that have this really huge sound - you try them out until you find one that sort of reverberates through your whole body and shakes the air around your ears... It's really a wonderful sound!
The next morning, I went on the
Kakadu 3 day trip with Wilderness Tours. Being the wet season, the book says that the average daytime humidity ranges from 95 % in the morning to 75% in the afternoon... Couple that with full on equatorial sunshine and you again have a little puddle of Kyle flowing around the countryside. Silliness aside, the wet season also means that everything is very green and all the waterfalls are flowing quite strongly. It was lovely - we toured several rock art sites with some of the works extending back 20,000 years! It's something else to look at artwork that belongs to the Earth's longest surviving culture - there is dated history of Australian Aboriginal habitation dating to 50,000 years before present! Our caucasian guide was taken to an aboriginal community in the NT and abandoned by his parents when he was a baby. He spent the first 12 years of his life being raised by the community, then took off to work on cattle stations and the like before becoming a tour guide. With such an upbringing, he has an extreme depth of traditional aboriginal knowledge and knew a great deal about everything we looked at. He says that the easiest way to make sense of the culture is to think of it in terms of survival - they have lived for a lot longer than most other human groups. For example, they used smoke from burning ironbark lumber as a contraceptive in times of drought; their stories relate simple, but important lessons strictly designed to protect their children or themselves. If they didn't want the kids out in caves after dark, they painted a figure of what amounts to a boogy man, then told the kids that he catches and eats children if they disturb him after dark. Survival...
Speaking of survival, on the tour, we also did a croc cruise on the Adelaide River to find saltwater crocodiles. We ended up seeing 5 of them, one of which was a hulking male 5 m long! Incredible animals - you get nervous when the tour boat it sitting on the banks of the river with a 5 m long carnivorous reptile sitting serenely in its little hole... There was a very large swimming female that comes right up to the boat... Wow! Stuie a young male, then one right beside the dock that swam like a rocket over to the boat... Pictures coming up.
We also hit some idyllic water holes with waterfalls cascading into them, a la Litchfield..., two great cultural centres, and some hiking. You haven't sweated until you've sweated in this place...
That brings me today, a day that R-man would enjoy! - I went down to the docks this morning where every high tide is a fish feeding event. Thousands of
diamondback mullet fish, 4' long
milk fish, catfish, bream, and diamond fish come to feed. You toss them bread and they swim around and go crazy gobbling up the food! You can actually stand in the water with these fish schooling around your feet while you hand feed them... Cool!
Now just going to try book a flight to Cairns and hopefully go diving for a while.
Ciao!
Rednecked Red Centre
The tour was as amazing as it was extensive. Check two posts ago for the itinerary from the Wayward website.
Wilpena Pound and Uluru/Kata Tjuta were as awesome as I was hoping! A highlight was a flight in a Cessna 210 over what's called the Painted Desert. It was truly an awesome sight and I got to help on the walkaround and with flying duties during cruise! I think we need to put that much horsepower in the 150 - then we'd have a performer! About 140-150 kts in cruise, cantelivered wing, six seats, full duplicate instrument panel - sweet ride... For you cattle folk out there, we drove through the largest cattle station in the world (Anna's Creek): it clocks in at 5.5 million acres and they manage about 17000 head of cattle. They have staff of about 19 people and slaughter a cow every 4 days to feed the gang - can we say 'cholesterol'! The owner was offered $20 million for it a while back, but refused saying that it wasn't enough. The same family owns other cattle stations around Australia, with a total area of 3% of Australia's land mass. How's that for farming? Holy Cow(s)!!
The family rock (Uluru) is quite the monolith, words aren't really that good at describing it, though. I'll post some pictures next chance I get. What is describeable is the climb, if you choose to do it. The Anangu people request that you don't climb it, however. You could liken it to someone going for a walk on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or chatting on a cell phone during mass. Going for a walk on the ceiling, though, would be kind of cool... Anyway, none on our tour climbed it because it was too hot. They close the walk if the forecast temperature is > 36 degrees, for high winds, or for other cultural reasons. After looking at the initial 1/3rd of the climb; however, you'd be nuts to walk it. It's so steep that there's a chain to hold on to to pull yourself up the slope. Again, pictures say it best... We got to see dingos, wallabies, roos, lizards of many descriptions, and wedge-tailed eagles. The coolest lizard ever would have to be the
thorny devil. Their defence mechanism is to stand perfectly still with their tail in the air and look threatening. They are so sure of their fearfullness that you can pick them up and put them in your hand and they won't move. Totally the coolest lizard ever. We also found a
witchetty grub, which, funnily enough, lives in the roots of the witchetty tree. They are white, bulbous, and taste like runny egg. Fortunately, or unfortunately for some, I know that first hand. Yes, gang, I ate a witchetty grub. High in protein, but with an unfortunate aftertaste. Didn't yack though, and I was hungry at the time!
Now I'm in Alice Springs and this is actually a little puddle of Kyle that's writing the post. It's been > 40 degrees everyday since I got here... Did you know that Canadian's melt in Alice Springs? I've flowed over to see the Royal Flying Doctor Service Base - the requirements to fly for them are suprisingly doable: hmmmm... After that was the Alice Springs Reptile Centre where I got to see and hold a python, bearded dragon, scale back, and blue-tongued skink! I wanted to grab the western inland taipan, but they wouldn't let me open the cage. Almost every other slithering toxic Australian fauna is represented at this place and there is a comforting layer of glass between you and all of them. They also have a saltwater croc hangin' in an enclosure: one look at his floating eyes and you can hear the croc thinking: 'ohhh... one of these days'. Fortunately there's 44 mm of glass between you and his teeth so all is well!
The next day, I saw off some new friends, then went for a long walk to the Alice Springs School of the Air! This is a service where lessons are conducted via satellite video and HF radio to 82 kids living on cattle stations, in roadhouses, on airbases, etc. and who are up to 1000 km away from Alice Springs. Cool! The kids consistently perform in the top 10% of public schools across the nation, so the format seems to work. The secret is that they have full time tutors (read mothers, or even employed tutors) to help them through the fortnightly correspondence packages. The satellite/radio lessons are to reinforce the material in the packages. The packages are delivered via air mail to each location! So, your school work arrives to your cattle station on the private strip each one is required to have. Teachers come out once a year to each student's home to make sure things are going well, but other than that, they are left to their tutors, parents and cattle stations. T-Dawg will be happy to know that there is another T-dawg who takes her school from the School of the Air! Next stop was the Central Australian Aviation Museum - it was wonderful to touch some airplanes again. There were a few displays of distinctly Australian airplanes and some distinctly Australian flying stories. One fellow went for a flying holiday in 1962 from Melbourne to Perth. He got as far as Ceduna, then had an undiagnosed compass SNAFU, which led him 40 degrees off course. He ran out of fuel, forced-landed, wrote his diary on some bulkhead panels in the tail of the airplane, but was never found. The airplane was found sitting upright 12 years later. He was flying over the Great Victoria Desert and with no references to anything, he went too far and that was it... There were also a bunch of engines on display, including a turbine with some melted blades in the first stage rotors... Great display, but decidely a bit small. The major bird they have is a
Beech D18S, originally flown by Connellen Airlines in and around central Australia. Needs some more resto work - certainly something ODFA could handle! Twin radial Beech anyone? What would the rent on that be...
Right now I'm watching a little bit of Olympics and it's kind of funny listening to Australian commentary of winter events. I just today booked a tour up to Darwin to finish seeing all the stuff I got to drive by during the races, then I'm touring around Kakadu for a 4WD camping, hiking, roughing it tour. After that is Cairns to dive The Reef, then a few other places to deplete the bank account. Of course, then will be the obligatory visit to Innisfail to complete a goal I've had since elementary school.
Sorry for the disjointed commentary this time around. I'll blame it on the heat.
Oh yeah, burned my neck so badly that the pharmacist says no more sun/don't burn it again for 12 months. I practically define redneck for the time being. Oh the Australian sun... Pictures to follow...
Miss you all!
The Red Centre
I'm off to Adelaide today for the Face the Outback Tour... Flying this morning in an hour and ten.
As my cell phone is on the Vodafone network, I will not have any service once I leave tomorrow morning on the tour. That also means that I won't be updating the blog until the 15th of February. The payoff is that you will get to see photos of Uluru et al. taken first person!
Yesterday was the epic public transportated trip to Monash to figure out the registration and enrollment huey-baluey. That went well, but seeing the Super Bowl on at lunchtime is definitely a little weird.
Oh, !car people alert! just found this on MSN:
Bugatti Veyron 16.4Huh-wah!
See you all in a bit!
Good Friday Two!
Because I miss flying so much and now that I have my own mode of transport, I transported myself to the Subury Airfield yesterday to hang out around some airplanes and hopefully find a flying club to rent airplanes from. (I know that prepositions are not words to end sentences with, but it will have to do for now.) It's quite a ride to Penfield Airfield... Anyway...
I got there and poked around the terminal for a bit to read the informative posters and realise the alarmingly large number of ultralights that seem to use this airfield. I found evidence for a few companies that do rent airplanes of some description, but no one was in the office at the time so my inferences were left unchecked. Then, this family arrived and I started chatting to the husband/father Brenton. He was there to take the flying club's Texan out. I got all excited for a minute with the possibility of that Texan being what I know a Texan to be - namely a Harvard, but what he actually meant was
this. It is an Italian ultralight that cruises at 115 kt with a 650 nm range! He is awaiting delivery of his own brand new Texan, which is set to arrive in two weeks. Nice airplane, but y'all probably know my feelings about ultralights. However, my recent dearth of flying hours has tempered those feelings. After getting a little closer to these new machines as well, which are made of METAL and SCREWS and have FLAPERONS, SPOILERS, FULL INSTRUMENTS, ENCLOSED CABINS, etc., it turns out that I would fly them given the chance. Now, we were standing on the hangar line, as most pilots are wont to do at airports, chatting about - you guessed it - flying, and a
Virgin Blue 737 flies through the sunlight overhead; Brenton looks up, points to it and says, 'that's what I fly!' It turns out he is a First Officer for Virgin Blue flying 737s and he only got back into the game a couple of years ago after 20 years of telling computer chips how to manipulate electrons (programming). What a thrill! Here I am all worried that I'm shooting my flying chances in their proverbial foot by Ph. D-ing for 3 years, when Brenton gets back into it after 20 years of a different career. He did, however, have three thousand hours when he stopped... Hmmm.
Anyway, we chatted for a while longer, and his wonderful wife was so patient letting us banter while the kids were indicating that it was time to leave. He pulled out his little Blackberry type thing with which he keeps track of his schedule, flights, phone, e-mail, text massages, etc., and I asked him where he'd been today. I told him that I was heading to Adelaide on Tuesday and he whips out the electronica again to check his schedule next week. He's flying to Sydney on Tuesday, which he said was 'too bad - you could ride up in the jump seat all the way.' My response you can guess... He continued: 'Well, he said, I live in Sunbury, so give me a call anytime. I'll be out to the airfield pretty frequently and we can go flying when the Texan comes in... Just let me know. Oh, and if your around, we can head into the airport (meaning Melbourne) and go take a look at the 737s in the hangar.' Me: '!!!!!!'
I'll have to look into what it takes to get an Australian ultralight permit with a Canadian Private License and maybe continue on with the Sunbury airfield for a bit. Heading into town today to go to Brokeback Mountain. Shame on the mainstream Melbourne screens for being too afraid to show it. Oh well, kudos to the private and arthouse screens as they get to show it.
