Out Back

[Early Morning. Side of the road. Two Kangaroos are standing around having a conversation].

- "What's up, dude? Everything good?"

- "God bless. How 'bout you? How's the wife, the kids?"

- "All good, all good."

- "Cool."

- "Cool."

- "Hey, do you hear that?"

- "Hear what? Oh yeah. A car's coming!"

- "Oh crap! What are we gonna do?"

- "It's OK, don't worry, we'll think of something."

- "Come on, it's getting closer! We gotta do something!"

- "Wait, don't move, I have a plan."

- "Well?!"

- "OK, we're going to confuse it. You jump into the bushes and I'll jump into the road, and it won't know which of us to chase! All right?"

- "All right, mate. But we've gotta wait until the last moment, yeah?"

- "Sure thing. Ready? One, two, Three!.."

[One kangaroo leaps for the bushes, and the other hops into the middle of the road. Neriya and Eli make a gentle zigzag with their car and pass it by. The roo avoids certain death, and the car avoids being smashed.

Another morning breaks over the Australian desert].

***

Kangaroos may not have developed the formidable mental capacity required to perform tasks as complex as not jumping into the road when a car approaches at 130 kph. But they have evolved very well (or have been designed, if you're one of those) to deal with the rough natural conditions in this continent, and especially in the vast desert comprising most of it - "the outback"*. Australia isn't just the world's biggest island; it also contains some of the planet's oldest and most depleted land. There's no volcanic or tectonic activity (you know, when two giant plates collide and make mountains - go back to the Himalaya post, haven't you been paying attention?!), so there's no new ground being made except from sediments in river deltas. Over millions and tens of millions of years, the rain seeps through the ground and robs the soil of all its nutrients. And if that isn't enough, there aren't really seasons like "summer" or "winter", but only a dry season and a wet season. And even those aren't really important when compared to the multi-year cycles of drought years and flood years.

So the conditions here aren't very comfortable, but all the creatures that live here have survived because they've learned to deal with such conditions. The kangaroo, for example, is the only large herbivore that can't just stand in one place and eat all day (like a sheep) or follow the rains (like a zebra) but has to cover lots of ground every day to collect what little vegetation is available. The jumping mechanism does not only look great, but it also helps with this - the giant ligaments in a roo's hind legs keep the energy from jump to jump like a spring. And not only that, but it also doesn't need to use muscles to breathe when it's on the move - its guts move up and down and move its lungs! Amazing! Thanks to these two things, a kangaroo consumes 20% less energy moving around than a similar-sized animal that walks or runs. And it's such a successful animal that it can be freely hunted - even if 15% of all the kangaroos in Australia were to be killed every year, the population would remain stable.

Hello.

Hello!

Want another example? All the creatures in Australia find it hard to survive during the drought years while waiting for rain. So what is the ecosystem based on in some regions? Termites! After floods, they collect all the wild grass in the giant mounds (a few meters high) and store it there for months or even years. Lizards rest in the mounds' shade, birds feed on the termites, and the circle of life continues. There are some roads in the north of Australia with hundreds of mounds at every kilometer. Looks like a different planet.

Photoshop? Nope.

***

In the previous post we told you that we've left Melbourne and started to drive through Australia, south to north. There's exactly one road that crosses that vast desert, and it's longer than the distance between London and Moscow, or Israel and Afghanistan. The first tourist attraction you come across is a town that used to be a nuclear testing ground and now is home mainly to local rocket scientists (did you know Australia was the fourth country to launch a satellite, after only the USSR, the USA and France?). The Lonely Planet says it looks really planned and odd, but it actually just looks like a perfectly regular military base in the desert.

The town is called "Woomera" - "spear thrower" in the local Aboriginal language

Northern Territory speed limits! Yay!

Two thirds of the way to Darwin!

The second interesting place you come to is Coober Pedy ("white man's hole" in the local Aboriginal dialect) a mining town made famous as the world's opal mining capital. The mining of opal (a colorful precious stone) isn't a very profitable business, and is a little like long-term gambling. There are no commercial companies doing it, for example. The locals insist that the reason for this is the law which states only an individual (and not a firm) can stake a mining claim, but it might really be just because it's too risky and there's no way of knowing whether there's opal in a certain spot other than to start digging. There are a few spicy stories about disputes breaking out when the guy whose name is on the claim tries to kick his partner out when some precious stones are found. The plot thickens when the cops have to arrive, because they're 372 kilometers away and if they have to make the drive they get to town already pissed off. Another interesting thing is that out of a population of 2,000, about half of them live in "underground" houses carved into the mountainside to protect themselves from the scorching 50-degree sun and the pesky flies. Lots of the miners who first settled in Coober Pedy were WWI veterans with plenty of digging experience, and the unique carved-out structures are now the town's main attraction.

This is (no joke) an Earth Vacuum invented and designed right here.

Underground house. Lots of dust, but no windows.

Huh.

Speaking of flies - these creatures, called bush flies, look like regular house flies but are so desperate for moisture they fly straight into your eyes, ears, nose and mouth. Sometimes right into your throat. We speak from experience. We eventually bought nets to protect ourselves, only a week after laughing at said nets in a camping store.

They have a fetish for backs.

The flies drawn on the hat are supposed to drive them away, as they dislike being in a crowd. Yeah, right.

Kata Tjuta, also known as The Olgas. Some pretty big rocks.

Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock. The second largest boulder on the planet. It's rather big. 

King's Canyon. It's a canyon.

Hi.

After a few days of driving (straight, straight, straight), we arrived to the "capital" of the outback - Alice Springs, a charming towns full of interesting characters. We relaxed in a caravan park with a pool, some beer, and "wild" wallabies who come to the parking lot every evening to be hand-fed; and we relaxed in campsites with desert cockroaches and mice, wild winds and one moron of an emu who stood for the whole night in the middle of the camping ground and spent the morning pecking on tent strings (see video). On one of the days our car got stuck 80 km from town. By a stroke of luck we stalled right next to an emergency phone, but our luck ran out when we realized it wasn't working. We somehow managed to call a tow truck, and besides the fact that the towing itself was a fun experience, the driver was a fascinating guy - an ex-mechanic who spent some time opal mining. Apparently, he was one of the lucky ones and managed to find some of the shiny stones. Enough to buy his parents a house, give them $100,000 and retire at 45. He told us tales of life in the mines, like ones about celebrating new year's eve by throwing a barrel of explosives down a 60-meter shaft. Or about arriving to the pub on a bulldozer, not being worried about driving home drunk because you pave your own road anyway.

In case anyone was wondering, there are still places in the world where you can run away and live without any ties to civilization.

Who's photobombing who?

It has a baby! *Putting glasses on* actually, a young marsupial still in it's mother's pocket is called a "joey".

This isn't a wildlife center - they've just been coming to the edge of the parking lot for years, and the adjacent caravan park sells small bags of wallaby food.

Heya.

Well, hello there. At first we though this emu was a cardboard cutout, it was so still. See the video for its morning adventures.

Come on, Wally! You can do it!

Our mechanic/miner/rescuer was the one who told us about amateur dirt racing that was due for that weekend. We went, and it was awesome. Felt like a scene from a movie about the deep south of the US, with everyone arriving in pickup trucks ("utes"), sitting on their beer coolers ("eskys") and rooting the drivers on. But everyone we've met was friendly, educated and well-spoken. Actually, that goes for pretty much any Australian we've run into, even the ones you might not expect, like the permanent residents of caravan parks.

Speaking of "everyone we've met", they all told us the same thing when they heard we're going to Darwin - "Really? Now? Are you sure?" They meant it might not be a great idea to go to the tropical north in the wet season, which we felt for ourselves later on, but we thought "what the hell" and kept going.

Eli at the races.

Come get some real outback hospitality!

Devil's Marbles, a site with hundreds of cool round rocks. A good place to meet a dingo.

Move along, nothing to see here

***

We've traveled quite a bit in our lives, but until Australia we've never really had experience with camping. What's camping? Like trekking but with a car. Or like a road trip, but sleeping outdoors. You pack your vehicle with clothes, shoes, cooking gear, chairs, a table, a mattress, sleeping bags and a tent, and you're on your way. After only a day or two the car isn't just a station wagon but, for all intents and purposes, a home. He has a character, a name. It's "Wally", in fact, named after the fat mechanic we bought him from. You get up next to him in the morning, you go to sleep next to him at night, and sometimes you even sleep inside. If you're smack in the middle of a thunderstorm, for example, and the rain and wind are so fierce they knock your tent down and it gets soaking wet even though it's rain-proof and you covered it with a tarp, and the lightning is so strong it lights up half the sky. You know, hypothetically speaking.

Our home for the night.

Same home, different location. The kitchen's really close to the bedroom.

Like in pretty much anything, when it comes to camping Aussies don't like to overexert themselves. You'll never find a local sitting on the ground, hunching over a tiny stove while balancing it on uneven ground or wrestling with a charcoal grill. The stove will be the size of a briefcase, the grill will be gas-fired and turned on with the push of a button, the camping chair will be nice and large, and the Aussie will be sitting in it in comfort, stroking his beard with one hand and drinking his beer with the other. Only the beer will never be directly in his hand but in a rubber sleeve ("stubbie holder"), because they're obsessive about the temperature of their beer over here. At first it seemed excessive, but we have to admit - if you're going to be obsessive about something, it's not a bad choice.

Except for beer, Australians and obsessed with sports (even weird ones like Aussie-rules football, cricket, dog racing and fishing), but they're very laid-back about almost everything else. That might be their most striking feature - the "no worries" attitude. Generally speaking, they also tend to be super nice and will help you before you even ask them - sometimes too much. Need directions somewhere? No problem! You'll get a 40-minute overview of every campsite and point of interest on the way. Want to ask the time? Sure! You'll get the complete life story of a stranger who wants to share their wisdom with you. Looking for parking? Awesome! There's not a bad chance that someone will come by and tell you he's just leaving a parking spot before you even notice them. In short, a wonderful people. Maybe that's what the British could have been if they had a little more sunlight.

Um... We're not sure what's going on here either.

Two further examples of how awesome Australians are: first, Movember really caught on here and you can see a different group of gloriously mustached men in the paper almost every day; and second, only here can you find an ex-prime minister who set a beer-drinking record (1.4 liters in 11 seconds). Here's his epic response when a fan hands him a beer during a cricket match:

***

60 seconds about the Australian language:

Australians speak a sort of British English with a twist. The accent isn't that hard to understand (it's like British, but a little more... different), but there are a lot of words we're not used to. Instead of "thanks" and "you're welcome" they say "cheers" and "no worries", and instead of "friend" they say "mate" (including "mateship"). But more than anything, they like to use short words. It's like they can't be bothered to use the full, longer version - a mosquito is a "mozzie", Australia is "Oz", Tasmania is "Tassie", and a guy named "Thompson" will be "Thomo". They even do this when in doesn't save syllables - like using "footy" for football and "brekkie" for breakfast.

Oh, and they have their own version of the Texan "y'all". They use "you'se" for a plural "you", and while it's considered pretty uneducated slang, we found it brilliant. And one thing we couldn't get used to - they say "see you later" instead of "goodbye", even if you've just paid them for gas in the middle of nowhere and it's obvious you'll never see each other again.

And now, 52 seconds about the Australian language (including a non-hidden ad):

***

To finish this post off, here's "Scenes from a Camping Life"! This time, the best of Neriya:

--

[Late at night]
E: "Do you want to brush your teeth?"

N: "Yes."

[Pause]

E: "...Are you going to brush your teeth?"

N: "I don't know."

--

E: "So we're not doing the dishes today, right?"

N: "Well, I know *I'm* not."

--

[Neriya takes two cherries]

E: "Hey, pass me one."

N: "But I took the good ones for myself!"

--

E: "Let's move to the shade."

N: "I've been saying that for a while."

E: "What? When?"

N: "Oh, then maybe I've been thinking it."

--

E: "We need to remember, when we go back, to do fun stuff once in a while for no reason."

N: "Obviously. As far as I'm concerned, we'll do only fun stuff."

--

Just a nice photo we took. No context.

***

* The wonderful travel author Bill Bryson said it better than we can: The Outback doesn't have precise borders. For most Australian, anything vaguely rural is "the bush", and then at some point "the bush" ends and "the outback" begins. And then after a few thousand kilometers the outback turns back into the bush, and then there's a city, and the ocean. And that's Australia.

Another video! Three minutes of desert fun!