Darwin by Hybrid - Day Six

Monday (20 July) started with a trip to Reptile Centre so Will could see the thorny devils, his favourite reptile. While the Reptile Centre screams "Pissweak World - Come and See the Amazing Bungalow!" from the outside, inside the reptiles are plentiful and fascinating. Will got to see thorny devils, Lis, Emmy and I got to handle an Olive Python and we all fondled lizards. Lots of fun.

In the afternoon, Em, Will, Lis and I drove down the Ross River Highway, stopping at Emily Gap, Jessie Gap and finally Trephina Gorge to see the eastern part of the Macdonnell Ranges. I almost ran over a bearded dragon, which let me pass over it and then ran off, and did hit some sort of pigeon-like bird which exploded into a mess of feathers. Oh dear.

Darwin by Hybrid - Day Five

Sunday (19 July) was the drive from Coober Pedy to Alice Springs. It was a swift, efficient drive, with little to see except the barren, beautiful emptiness of the landscape. After six or so hours the space between my ears was as empty as the scenery. I had expected the desert to become more intense, more empty as we headed north but the opposite was true. The land around Coober Pedy (and the Breakaways in particular) is the nadir of life in the desert, and as we drove towards Alice Springs the vegetation slowly returned as the red of the soil and sand became more intense.

Lovely to see everyone again, and we spent the evening on Anzac Hill overlooking the town. Alice Springs is nestled behind the Macdonnell Ranges, raw layers of stone pushed up from one of the angrier circles of Hell.

Darwin by Hybrid - Day Four

OK, so obviously a whole lot of catching up to do....

Saturday (18 July) was spent in Coober Pedy. Coober Pedy and its surrounds are well and truly where dead things go to die some more. It's hard not to use the phrase "post apocalyptic" once you've seen it, or the Mad Max films shot in the region, so I won't use it. Emily and I spent the morning visiting an underground mine, some underground churches, the underground everything else before returning to our underground hotel.

Coober Pedy is The Land That Town Planning Forgot, which actually contributes in a major way to its charm. Some blocks are houses, mines, industrial sites and tourist locations all rolled into one. Large scale mining equipment is everywhere, as are piles of industrial refuse. It's a boys town.

After some faffing about, we jumped in the car and drove through the Breakaways, about 50kms to the East of Coober Pedy. And now is the time to whip out that "post apocalyptic" phrase I spurned earlier. Some of the country here not only looks post-apocalyptic, it looks like its been through several apocalypses, a handful of deathly visitations, a whole handcart of hells and has passed through end times at least twice. Eerie white and ochre sandstone rises from the plain which is devoid of vegetation and covered in sharp, broken rocks. And in the middle, a dingo fence. I thought of my father fencing in King Lake, where a team of four can do 200 metres a day, and look at a small section of over 4000kms of fence.

Saturday night we went to Coober Pedy's best Greek restaraunt (I know, that's far too obvious a set up). It was good.

Darwin by Hybrid - Day Three

Day Three starts with the laughable pomposity of North Adelaide and finishes among the utes and four wheel drives of Coober Pedy. North Adelaide reminds us that Adelaide is the town that gave us Alexander Downer, the man whose ambition was surely fulfilled as head prefect.

Friday started early, and we did well to get off to an early start. Out of Adelaide before 9.00am and well on the road northwards. The country is a lush verdant green near Adelaide, but becomes more and more scrubby until there is just saltbush and the occasional mulga tree growing from the dry, red soil.

The transition from pasture to scrub was gradual, a point emphasised by the orderly saltbush farm, where clipped saltbush was grown in neat rows. Who can tell? Trees coming and going, always red dust-like soil, occasionally a smattering of dead grass.

Wildlife highlight was seeing a Wedge Tailed Eagle eating a road kill kangaroo

Port Pirie an interesting port town and I'm disapointed I didn't get too close to the port. Port Augusta, on the other hand, must have been hidden in a ditch.

There was much laughter in the car - enjoying just doing stuff together.

We got into Coober Pedy in the dark. The hotel, like much of the town, is dug out. The woman at front desk was wonderful, helpful suggestions - Emily points out all the good places to go that she’s been to here before…

We had dinner in Cobber Pedy's pizza place - Friday night is busy. Miners, locals, tourists… staff harried. Decided against the "Coat of Arms" pizza with both emu and kangaroo sausage.

Over dinner more joking, merriment. Emily hadn't realised the shed at our house used to be stables, and thought there must have been a small door hidden behind the washing machine - it would only be big enough for an evil, mini pony… Discussed turning the backyard into a bog, because Emily wanted a pony, a bog and scooter. I didn't understand either.

Darwin by Hybrid - Day Two

Emmy and I had an early start this morning and were out of the hotel by 8.00am, which is unheard of for us, especially any combination involving Em. We walked up to the market, wandered around, had coffee, bought some things for lunch with a plan to eat them at the zoo.

I really like Adelaide market, in part because it reflects my broader perceptions of the city. It's an extremely neat, compact and well-ordered market with an obvious German influence. Pork can be found in many of its forms, mostly smoked and often fatty. We bought some double-smoked kassler to have as part of lunch and it was glorious. Charcuterie (or whatever the Germanic equivalent is) is also frequently blessed with humorous double-entendre names - Bung Fritz, Smoked Knobs - just fantastic.

Like many atheists, the only really convincing argument I've heard for the possibility of divine intervention is bacon. Surely, the logic goes, something SO perfect is proof that divine perfection is not only plausible, it is necessary to explain bacon, kassler, the German pork tradition and any number of glorious Vietnamese dishes that use every part of the pig except the squeal.

In any event, much pig was on display, and lo, I almost prayed.

After a longer-than-intended walk around the park around the Adelaide CBD, we went to the zoo at Emily's suggestion. We took our booty of kassler, a baguette, a soft cheese and a sheep's milk cheese rubbed in rosemary, some olives and muscatels. Yeah, life on holiday is real tough....

Adelaide reminds me a lot of Canberra, or rather that should be the other way around. In retrospect (after almost ten years in the ACT), Canberra looks in many ways like it was modelled on Adelaide. Adelaide's a pretty, low-rise city that's kept much of its late nineteenth century architecture, albeit on a smaller scale than the lavish, almost pompous gold-rush funded edifices of Melbourne, Ballarat and Bendigo, for example. Ordered without being sterile, pretty without being quaint, but also spread out that means there isn't a lot of concentrated activity.

A few hours lounging around the hotel reading, writing this and editing today's video, and soon we'll walk further up Gouger St to have dinner. And tomorrow we drive to Coober Pedy....

A link to today's video is here.

Darwin by Hybrid - Day One (Continued...)

So Day One was the drive from Melbourne to Adelaide. Mostly uneventful, but longer than I'd anticipated with a detour to Halls Gap, a walk to Silverband Falls and noodles for lunch in Ararat.

The drive was generally ok, but it did start raining pretty heavily between Bordertown and Adelaide, and the truck traffic was pretty manic.

The day looked a lot like this.

Darwin by Hybrid - Day One

Today we leave for the top end. More to come.

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Nothing to see here

I've got a cold and I'm tired blah blah blah. Everyone around me seems to be sick as well, so I've run out of concerned faces.

I've had dinner. I've also been to the park. But not much else worth reporting. I'm seriously looking forward to a break.