Day 17 - Katherine to Darwin

NOTE: Please accept my apologies for having taken 2 days to put up this post. I returned in Sydney and I left the bike in Darwin, as it was planned. The second stage of this trip, Darwin to Perth will start on the 8^th of August.

This is the last day of the 1^st stage of this trip. I reach this level with a small degree of apprehension. It’s been a great experience, one that I will never forget. However, I get this feeling that I did it all too fast. There is so much to see and experience out there; I really had no idea.

On the one hand, the decision of which machine to use was a good one. I put a lot of emphasis on comfort and reliability. This proved to be correct. I have met other people on adventure bikes that gave them the opportunity to visit some remote areas on dirt roads, whereas I avoided dirt roads like the pest. What they told me is that in the beginning, they visited a lot of stuff that was on dirt roads. However, whenever they were back on the highways, there were in pain, as the long distances made their bikes a torture to ride.

I did not have that problem; I missed some things, not that many, but the rides on the highways, which were the bread and butter of this trip, were done in perfect comfort and style.

When I arrived to Katherine, I met Trev, who was camping just next to me. He is 79 years old and is living his dream, he bought the biggest tourer Beemer, that he could find (a K1600) and is riding all over Australia at his leisure, on this own, like me. He is my hero.

Here is Trev, with his trusty steed.

...and going on his way. I hope our paths cross again sometime, fellow traveller.

He told me some stories of his trip. He had a fall some time ago during a rainy and windy day, his bike did not want to make a bend and it spat him off. The bike ended upside down in a muddy ditch alongside the road. We are talking here a 500kg+ sitting upside-down in a hole. He thought he would have no chance of getting it out. Many cars stopped and then somebody said to him ‘No worries mate! I’ll just call a couple of mates and we’ll get you sorted in no time!’ He got on the phone and after a few minutes about 10 young farmers from the area came and got the bike out and up in no time.

This is something that I experienced firsthand and it surprised me no end. Coming from Europe and South America, I am used to people not stopping for anyone on the road. However, here in Australia people are so incredibly helpful and friendly. Before leaving for this trip I was worried that if something happened to me on the road, nobody will stop and help me, so I implemented a lot of mitigation strategies in case something like this happened to me and I am left out there on my own. I used to stop many times to take photos once something tickled my fancy, and there were many, many things that did that to on the way. Whenever I stopped, almost instantly somebody, sometimes even two cars will stop and ask me if I am ok, if I needed any help. It was just so reassuring! I learned to keep the camera very handy, just on my tank and as soon as I stopped, I would take my camera and keep it very visible, so that people will see that I was just taking photos and was not in any problem. Isn’t that incredible that you have to do that just to stop people from trying to help you? That’s the nature of the Australians; a nice bunch of people.

This is even more true here in the outback, if I remember right, it was John Flynn (the founder of the Royal Flying Doctors) who said something along the lines of how the huge distances of the Australian outback makes people be very friendly and helpful to each other.

In the morning, I visited the Katherine Hot Springs, I had a dip in one of them and the feeling is something out of this world, I do recommend trying this at least once you your lifetime.

The hot springs at Katherine





Then it was onto the road again, this time to my final destination for this leg of the trip, the capital city of Darwin.

On the way to Darwin, the Stuart Highway was a continuous stretch of repairing crews that had only 1 half of the road open at a time, so I kept having to stop and wait for long periods of time. As soon as I could I took the scenic route and avoided most of these stat and stops.

Constant stops due to road repairs on the Stuart Highway

Chose the 'roads less travelled', but more scenic routes

This is what I am talking about. No traffic, no stops, no road trains, a lot longer....

Gong on these routes gave me the opportunity to find other, unexpected discoveries, like humongous termite mounds, like nothing I've seen before.

Gigantic termite mounds

The road less travelled

By taking these roads you find places like this.

Just before the night broke, I arrived in Darwin and I booked into the Discovery Campground. Very expensive, the most expensive I have paid since I left Sydney, $45 for a small space for the night, whereas I was paying $10-$18 everywhere along the route. On top of that, it wasn’t really a well setup camping and it was the only one that I saw that locked the camp kitchen at 9PM. Very strange and restrictive. This is a camping where I will not return or recommend.

The next day, I had a full day to burn, so I did a lot of sightseeing and attended to the Dalai Lama conference at the Convention Centre. It was very interesting and it’s nice to hear such a wise man talking. I hope I learned something.

The Dalai Lama in Darwin. He's been in Oz 8 times, but this is his first time in Darwin, lucky me.

Next to the Convention Centre there is this ‘wave’ pool where there were a lot of people having fun. I guess this is a reflection of a city with beautiful beaches, but where you cannot relax on the sand or you might find yourself eaten by a ‘saltie’ (a salt water crocodile).

The wave pool next to the Darwin Convention Centre

I left the bike on storage until the 8 of August, when I plan to start with the second leg of the trip, Darwin to Perth, following the west coast of Australia.

Here is where I left the bike

I left Sydney with 12,000km’s on the clock. I am now at 19,000, so the first leg of the trip clocked at 7,000kms exactly.

7,000 kilometres on the first leg of the trip.

The trip so far

Will be back ont he 8 of August. See you then!

Day 16 - Renner Springs to Katherine

Today I took it easy. Got up late, after a cold night with rain, I needed the rest and I am not that much in a hurry anymore.

I had a look at the famous 'Renner Springs' It wasn't really much, I was led to believe that this place is worth a look, so I made a punch to get here. however, the night was terrible, as the camping grounds are just next to the highway, and the noise of the trucks kept waking me up. Not nice, especially when there are thousands of free miles just behind the road house. Why didn't they put the camping there? Beats me.

The 'spring' was just a puddle of dirty water where you can't swim. I should have stopped at the last camping grounds, about 45kms south of here, where the camping was away from the road.



The locals were very friendly though

Then on the way to Katherine, I found lots and lots of termite mounds. These things have been here for donkeys' years, who knows how many zillions are there. In fact we are at war with them, we keep destroying their mounds to make roads and they eat our houses.

I wonder what happen if they claimed the land, as they have been here for more than any human. While I was wondering that, I saw this and I stopped.

The first fella I met was very friendly, he wants to learn our ways and be like all of us. he just wants to fit in. Although he is very slow, he moves about a metre every years or so



I also met this one, he asked me 'Take me to your leader' I was wondering if this is Julia...

And what else would you find on the way, specifically in Larrimah? Well, the Pink Panther of course!

The Pink Panther is in Larrimah

The I found this at the Hi Way Inn. What do you do when you don't have the best beer? well, you can always have the biggest!

A collection of interesting drinks in this place

Waht did I say?

And the keep coming...

No they don't...

Then just about 27km's from Katherine (by the way, the locals read it ending as in 'fine') I found one of the best places so far, I really needed this place. I am talking about Mataranka. Thanks Craig for your suggestion, they are really the best.

This place has a small pool of thermal waters (31 degC) and the water is the cleanest you have ever seen, the water purs from the depths at millions of litres a day, and it comes at the temperature of the basin, which is about 50 to 100 metres down the earth.

Arrived at Elsey National Park, the location of the pool

informationa about the park

What it means is that if you encouter a croc, you should measure it's snout and if the ratio is 4:1, the it's ok, it just might bite you, but if the ratio is 2:4 then you are probably already dead. if this scares you, then you should have never left the big smoke to start with.

Arrived at Katherine, just before it got dark

Got greeted by the locals

Day 15 - Alice Springs to Renner Springs

Day 15 - Alice Springs to Renner Springs

Alice Springs was extremely cold this morning, it was raining and really a sad day. Have to keep moving, I have a flight to take on Sunday from Darwin and there are lots of things to do on the way.




The camping in Alice Springs, very nice and reasonable

The camping however, very nice and with a great tavern next door to it. There was music on the night before; country music. I've never liked country music very much, but this time, I loved it.

There was a funny incident at the tavern. The musician wanted to sing some love songs, so he asked the audience who is in love... there was silence, even though there were many couples, so there I was, sitting on my own writing the post and I put my hand up. He said: 'Great, where is your girl' and I said, she is not here, I am travelling alone. He was surprised and said to all the audience: 'blokes, you should be ashamed of yourselves' And all the women started saying things to their partners, not nice things. Anyway, he asked what song I'd like him to play. I said: 'I've got a friend' from Carol King. He didn't know it. Then I said 'I will always love you' from Whitney Houston. He didn't know that one either. he said that he only knows country songs, so he chose one for me.

Alice Springs, from Anzac Hill.

On the way north, I crossed the Tropic of Capricorn (for the third time during this trip), but the sign was so nice that I thought it deserved a photo. do you see the band on the globe?

The sign at the bottom of the globe

Then a bit more north I saw these incredible sculptures that could be seen from the distance. Look at this.

The view from the road, 2 females on the ground and a make up the hill

A closer view

Look at the size of this thing!



Something else that amazed me was that the females were anatomically correct, it is usually normal to see anatomically correct male statues, but have never seen a female one.

Continuing the trip up north, I came across Wycliffe, where they claim is the 'Capital UFO' of Australia. Apparently there are UFO sightings here almost weekly. It all taken with a bit of fun.

The 'aliens' of Waycliffe



Now nobody can say I wasn't here

The shops of course are full of aline paraphernalia

The local press helps maintain the concept

And more from the press

I loved this one

Now, there are actually genuine 'aliens' in this place, there is a crab. yeah a crab! that lives here. Thousands of kilometres to the nearest ocean. this crab buries itself in the mud and so creates a humid environment where it can survive the dry season. It can survive up to a year without water of food. If you want to look it up, it's called the desert crab (Halthuisiana transversa).


And that's it. I pushed it very hard to get to Renner Springs before it got dark. A distance of approx 700km's. Crossed a few Kangaroos on the way, but luckily, none too close.



When I arrived to Renner Springs, I was greeted by the local geese

I did not have internet or mobile signal at Renner Springs, so I am doing yesterday post, today.

Day 15 - Renner Springs

Day 15 - Renner Springs

Dear friends and followers,

Currently I am in Renner Springs, Northern Territory, with no Internet or mobile signal. 

Tomorrow I'll be back with 2 posts for your enjoyment.

Cheers,

Gus.

Day 14 - Uluru, back to Alice Springs

It rained all night. I had the bike inside the tent, and the tent is big enough to be comfortable, even during rain. However, it stuffed up my plans to visit the canyon.

The idea was to wake up early, go to the canyon (about 400km's) do a 3-hour walk and then head to Alice Springs before it gets dark.

But with the rain and a temperature of about 6 degC, I wasn't feeling it, so I snuggled a lot longer in a warm bed, and then made myself a hot chai tea and packup up a very wet tent.

I met a very nice retired couple from Adelaide while at the camp kitchen. he used to drive those huge road trains. I finally could get answers to all my questions:

1 - The actually have to drive the trucks, the computer that drives it automatically is a myth, it doesn't exist, all they have is cruise control

2 - The reason the wildilife is most dangerous at dawn is because they come to the edge of the roads to drink the water condensed on the tarmac and then drained to the sides of the road by its camber

3 - You can't avoid hitting the kangaroos, they jump at you from the forest and by the time you see it, you are already hitting it. They even hit the sides of the trucks, he told me that this is the reason most fuel tanks on the sides of the trucks are dented

4 - Tucks also hit cows sometimes. however, they make a lot of damage to the front of the trucks, about $80K of damage a hit. It they go over them it's even worse as they destroy air hoses and other bits under the truck.

5 - Trucks never try to avoid hitting the kangaroos, they just try to hit them with the side of the bumper, so that they move over to the shoulder of the road, otherwise they can get under and damage the air hoses, additionally, if they stay on the middle of the road, they become a danger to motorists, too.

Truckies appear to be a nice bunch of people, I had good experiences with them, they also help you overtake them by indicating when there is clearance to do it.

In fact most people had been very nice to me, almost everybody a pass, waves at me, so I started doing the same, which is interesting, because when the other driver doesn't wave back I get a tinge of rejection; funny, ha?

I lef the camping grounds from Ayers Rock with good memories. the camping is great and surprisingly reasonaby priced.

Great campgound, I recommend it. The best in Ayers Rock... and the only one

Emus in the camping

I saw an emu in the camping grounds and I wanted to touch it. The emu didn't accomodate, so I chase it for a while, he didn't appear too happy about that. Anyway, I didn't get to touch it, but I did get one of  his feathers, it is the most interesting feather that I have seen, it is actually 2 in one,




An emu feather. One root, two feathers in one.

It rained almost the whole way to Alice Springs, so I took it easy, as easy as going at 80-90K on 130K roads; better safe than sorry I thought. In any case, I was not in a hurry and it was just too cold to go too fast.

I made a few stops where there were tables with covers to prepare me another chai tea and recover some of the lost warmth. The weather wasn't helping

The cover on the side of the table is actually designed for a wood fire, but it also doubles as a good carpot (bikepot?)

A Camel Farm, can you believe it!

And here are the camels for the rides

I kept wondering why would you grow camels on a farm, and unfortunately I asked the question.

1st reason - for the tourist and the camel rides, which is a nice thing; then there is the second reason....



I am happy with the 1st reason, I am not so sure about the second, I think I'll pass.

Talking abou the 1st reason, I booked a camel ride. Interesting thing, the creature sits on the ground, so that you can get on top of it, then it stands with the rear legs first, so if you fail to follow the instruction from the guide to lean back as much as you can BEFORE it starts to stand up, you are in trouble; which was my case because when the thing started getting up, I was still wandering 'why does he want me to lean backwards?'

My ride

Hey! that's me on a camel. how 'bout that?   What's next?

Telling me to grab tight; by now I knew that I had to do what he says.

I am glad I did this ride, it was a great experience, the guide loved my bike and he explained that the bumpiness nature of the ride on the camel dissapears once the thing starts running. so he made the camel run so I could see. I didn't fall just because god is great. Then I agreed to him that when it was running it was exactly like on my Kawasaki GTR1400 tourer. I told him so, so that he didn't make it run again or did it do something else. By now I just wanted to get off the camel.

Before it sat down, I was told again to lean backwards, which this time I did, as much as I could. The camel bent the front legs first and if I hadn't leaned back, I would have fell on my nose in front of the camel; so I'm glad I followed the instructions this time.

Didn't you know that there are camels in Australia? They are not local, they were brought in first from the Canary Islands in 1840 , then more from India and Pakistan, they were usually brought with Afghani people to handle them. They were used for the construction of the telegraph and for the supply of goods to Alice Springs and other settlements. However in the 1920's most of them were released into the wild, where they soon established large herds in many semi-desertic areas of Australia.

After that experience and a hot chocolate at the camel shop, I continued the trip to Alice Springs, then I crossed one of the inland rivers and took a photo of this sign. The reason? You know the TV program 'Man vs Wild'? Bear Grillis tells us that whenever you are lost, you have to try to find a river and then follow it, this is because (according to him) all rivers end up on the sea, where there are people. This is however not true with the Australian inland rivers, they do not end up on the sea, they evaporate or dissapear into the ground, some rivers end up in the Simpson Desert, so if you follow one of those, you'll end up in one of the most remote and driest places on earth.

The inland rivers



Finally, arrived in Alice Springs, just before dark, it'll be a refreshing change to put up the tent in sunlight.

I met a lot of people during this trip and they ar all interesting in one way or another. I just had a yarn with the guard at the camping ground, he was born in the Nederlands and came to Oz when he was just 8. since then he has never left Alice Springs, he is near 80 now. he said he has a lot of family in his mother country but he never visited them, nor he'll ever will. he said he is happy in Alice Springs, he never visited any other place in Australia or the world.

I think that this is sad. On the one hand it is good that he is happy where he is. I guess this is a good thing. However, I believe that the world can be compared to a good book. However, if you don't travel, you just keep reading one page of this book and miss all the others.