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Nomads life
Monday, 24 May 2010 03:58
We sit on a warm rock in the evening sun. Surrounded by Jabirus and Eagles hunting fish and a Wallaby watching us. Fishermen as waterbirds all look for a big fish - the Barramundi-season is on. Two silent eyes watching us from a distance. They belong to a 4 meter long saltwater crocodile, which keeps swimming up and down the river. It doesn’t bother the fishermen. Catching a Barra seems to be more important than life for some of them... The sun is setting down in the most beautiful orange-red-yellow reflections we have ever seen. We hold our breath - surrounded by so much beautiful nature!
The way up north wasn’t too exciting. One of the highlights were the hot springs around Mataranka. Siting into the 33 degree hot water and relaxing our highway-tired body could have last for ever. We have a rest for a couple of days and get a chance for fishing (without catching one) and organise ourselves. The way up north is scattered with dead animals: roos, cows, snakes and wild pigs are laying flat along the asphalt. One of the sad pictures.
After a short visit in Litchfield NP with it’s 6 meter high termite mounds and stunning waterfalls, we reach Darwin. It is the most northern point on our journey throughout Australia and we get there exactly half a year after our start from Germany - on May 14th 2010. We meet Hans again (from Hamburg) - he reached Darwin a week ago on his pushbike. He must be really proud of it - with his 70 years! It is tropical hot (over 80% of humidity and 35 degrees) and too expensive. Time to escape. We just don’t want to know how it feels like to get back into our sweat-soaked motorbike clothes...
Rene picks a virus up and fights a gastroenteritis for a day. We spend it in the air conditioned rooms of a visitor centre. After that follows a rest-day on a parking lot along Arnhem Hwy before we drive further to Marry River NP and Kakadu NP. Here we managed it to get into the rock art sites and saw this wonderful drawings on the wall - hundreds of years ago made by Aboriginies. They telling stories about hunting, food and every-day life. Impressive to see their good condition and to read the stories behind them.
The other streets are still closed in Kakadu NP because of the floodings from the wet season. We rush a bit trough - it is just too humid and too hot for riding motorbikes. In Katherine we need to order a new chain and sprockets for the Honda. That’s how it comes that we spend now three days on a highway parking area waiting for the parts. What’s good about it: we’ve got nice neighbours - a couple of grey nomads helps us out with power, beer and a shower. Grey nomads are the best invention which has ever been made in Australia: retired people, travelling for years around the red continent, towing huge trailers or even in buses. It’s them we can rely on as bikepackers to get a cup of tea or shelter from the rain...
We are driving west from here. Our next destinations will be Kununurra and Broome. But the coast is still 2000km away. We’ll make some detours along the way - into the Kimberly and Bungle-Bungles (as far as the raod conditions allow it).
Monique
Outback Adventures
Wednesday, 05 May 2010 04:28
A big amount of food lies in front of us. This should be enough for the following 12 days. Half of it goes into our backpacks and the rest will be dropped off along the track. The Larapinta Track is supposed to be one of the most beautiful walks in the world and leads us right to the centre of Australia – into the West Macdonnell Ranges. The 223km are divided into 12 sections. The forecast is 28 degrees and sunshine – perfect weather for hiking. Let’s do it!
On Monday 19th of April we start the first section of 23km. Food, seven liters of water for everyone of us and camping gear bring the backpacks up to a weight of more than 25kg. We walk on red soil, along Witchetty Bushes and green grass. The landscape is incredible beautiful. The houses of Alice Springs are getting smaller and smaller. The sun is burning down and its extremely hot. After 13km it happens: Monique breaks down in front of me and is laying on the way. Sun sickness. What to do? Help is far away. A tree gives us a little bit shadow and I wet Monique’s clothes with water for cooling. Slowly she’s feeling better. A hiker comes along the way and is not interested at all to help anyhow. He’s just saying something about grass seeds in his socks and disappears. I’m shocked by his ignorance, which is so untypical for Australia. We emergency-camp along the way and enjoy a bit of the very nice view. Within the next four days we get and start to walk in the dark and have a long break at noon. That’s the only way we can cope with the heat and can reach the end of the sections. Often it is already dusk when we use our last power to pitch the tent and to cook. After the third section the way becomes very hard and we climb over rocks in dry creek beds for kilometers. It is actually more rock climbing than hiking and absolutely no fun with the heavy backpacks anymore. At the end we walked 65km within 5 days, heavy loaded...
We are back in the WestMacs – this time with the motorbikes. We managed it to hitch the way back to Alice Springs, grabbed our bikes and drove the „rest“ of the Larapinta Track. Now we swim trough the clear and cold water of Ellery Creek – one of the refreshing and stunning waterholes along the way. After I had a little walk in Ormiston Gorge (the last part included swimming trough the waterhole)
We start our way to the main attractions of the centre – Uluru (Ayres Rock), Olgas and Kings Canyon. We thought a long time about it – if we should drive the long distance and should pay the high entrance fee just to see this famous rock. But when we reach it and see the stone glowing above the flat landscape – we are sure that we did it right. The first thing we see at the sunset-viewing car park is not the rock. It is an Africa Twin with a couple from Singapore on it. Goh and Samanta. They did an around-the-world-trip within the last two and a half years! Amazing. We are impressed that they managed it to load all the gear plus two people on only ONE bike! Two other bikes arrive – a french couple and an aussie guy from Tasmania. The whole time were no bikes around – and at the Uluru we meet heaps of them! Next day we see the impressive sandstone domes of the Olgas. A kangaroo crosses our way during our walk through the Valley Of The Winds and makes the scene perfect.
On a highway camp area we meet Goh and Samantha again and we decide to travel together the next day to Kings Canyon. Before we take off we get visitors: the two three other bikers from yesterday come around and bring us croissants for breakfast. The french way to say hello. Thats how we like it! An emu seems to have bad experiences with motorbikes and starts to chase us when we leave. It gives us a fast start and the good feeling that our motorbikes are faster than the two meter high bird! At Kings Canyon Resort we have to camp for the next night and Rene starts to fix his bike. Petrol is leaking out of the carburetor. It seems to be the sealing – destroyed by Opal petrol. We have to order a new one from Germany. The Canyon makes us feeling very small - the high red glooming walls create soft knees when Rene is standing right beside the rim for photo shootings. A phantastic spot and a great geological diary. Afterwards we drive our way back to Alice Springs – to bring that report online and to prepare for the next 1600km drive up north – to Darwin.
Did you know, that the oldest River in the world is the Finke River that we passed several times on our journey?
Rene
Right in the middle
Wednesday, 05 May 2010 03:53
For the first time on our journey our lights pointing west. After we left Townsville behind the landscape changes dramatically: between the lush green of grass and bushes we see spotes of deep red soil stretching until the blue horizon. The air is crystal clear and the sun shines on a highway without any bents. A loud scream is cutting trough the cool morning air behind my helmet. We reached the outback! A dream is fulfilled. A dream of Australia, a dream since years! The view trough my visier is filled with teardrops – the journey to get here has been hard sometimes.
Some people may think the ride trough the outback is boring. But we had always new things to discover: first road trains come along (hugh trucks) and we give way with respect. Suddenly, we realise a movement left of us and see four emus run away on their long legs. We are impressed, because we never thought that they are that big! An eagle is sitting on the street and protects his meat. He stretches his wings up to 3 meters when we pass on the bikes – but is not flying away. The deeper we get into the hinterland the smaller get the towns and the hoter get the temperatures. Cars are rare and everybody’s greeting us when passing.
Our drive along the highway gives us time to enjoya lot because we don’t have to take too much care of traffic and there are almost no twists. We realise every change of the landscape: before we reach Mt Isa the area is scattered with termite mounds, glooming red in the morning sun. The golden light lets me think back on an experience before we were going west:It’s after Easter and we start from Balgal Beach, where we spend the holidays. Here we have had a break of five days and tried to get coconuts from the palm trees. After that we reached Charters Towers – an old mining town – where we got reminded of 2kg sand we had in our panniers. At Hillsborough NP we found golden dust in the sand – washed, from flooded rivers, to the beach after the cyclone. In a one-hour goldrush we scratched the sand into an empty plastic bag. Since this time found no way to get the golden dust washed out. In Charters Towers we asked in the Miners Cottage for help – and the answer was that it is mica – fools gold. But it was worth the short goldrush and six week of carrying 2kg of sand!On a rest area along the Stuart Hwy we meet an aboriginie. He comes out of the desert directly to our table. Within two hours we get the chance to talk with him about delicate topics – like aboriginal problems – and hear about his life in the bush. He is still hunting and knows a lot about the native plants and animals. “We have all what we need for life in the bush”. He can’t understand why so many people go into the cities to become alcoholics or petrol-sniffers. He is also telling us about murders within the area – among the aboriginal people and what spiritual ways they have to find the killer. When we leave we know a many things about how he worked in the early 60ies as a cattle drover and that his grand children are not interested in the old culture anymore. We need just some seconds to turn our motorcycles and want to wave as a good bye. He’s gone. But he can’t hide anywhere. A strange feeling. But it was intersting to hear his point of view.The long journey to the centre of the continent makes us a bit tired of travelling and creates homesickness. We miss food and family. Every night we camp on the highway and the whole night are road trains driving along. The people we meet on the rest areas are friendly – but at the end it is just and exchange of the where-to’s and where-from’s. Therefore we are glad to meet Hans, one day before we reach Alice Springs. He’s an Austrian guy of 70 years and travels on pushbike trough Australia. With open mouths we listen to his stories about hitch-hiking trough the Orient in the 60ies andhis cycle-adventures in South America. We are really impressed by his energy and it gives us a new start to get the next day to Alice – without homesickness and not tired of travelling anymore! All what you need for life suits on a pushbike, too. We should keep that in mind… After the evening with Hans we reach Alice Springs on April 16th – the heart of Australia. Because of the long drive we decide to have some additional training: we’d like to start the 12 day hiking trail (Larapinta Trail) trough the West Macdonnel Ranges. 223km of walking. It will cost our whole strength and power. If and how we get along you’ll read in our following report! Did you know that road trains are up to 54m long and need (fully loaded) approximately 1,5km to stop? They pull up to four trailers and they are often the only supplies of food and water in remote areas.
journey / reports 
