First off to catch up from my last blog, I did Isa in a day and was in Darwin for two after that. Mt. Isa was fairly disappointing. I woke up super early to get up to the town lookout to see the sunrise. It was mediocre. It was cool to see the transition of how the town looks at night all sleepy and then when the light is on it and everyone starts waking up. The colors of the sunrise were a little bland though. I then got all clean and primped and ready for the day and made my way down to Outback Isa that does underground tours in the mines where they dress you up in mining attire and you go down and get to climb all over real mining machinery in a real mine. So cool! BUT, my primping and preening caused me to just miss the one tour of the mines that day. What sort of place only has one tour a day and it leaves at 815 in the AM? What kind of place is this? So I consoled myself by visiting the fossil factory. Apparently most all the fossils found in Australia were found kinda near Isa but still in the middle of nowhere. They had some interesting displays but the whole thing was geared towards kids with annoying commentary on the exhibits blaring from speakers constantly. Please disembodied voice, just let me read the exhibits and enjoy them in silence. There was a tour of the paleontologist lab by the paleontologist himself which really sold me on the whole shebang. I wasn't impressed by the doctor's presentation. After spending a week learning to give good presentations I felt he was lacking in a number of different areas. I recommend he goes and becomes a divemaster just to further his career in paleontology or just increase his customer satisfaction. So that's Isa.
22 hours on the bus and I am into Darwin. Finally. Checked into Darwin and immediately began research on what to do in Darwin. Do I go up to Kakadu national park? Or Litchfield? Maybe I want to do a dive on one of the shipwrecks they have in the area? What else is there to do in Darwin? Apparently not much? I know I eventually want to make my way out to the West Coast so how am I going to do that? I don't want to go by bus anymore. So I went online and just put all of this paragraph so far into the search bar to see what came up. I eventually redirected myself to the local online message board and found a guy who needed someone to keep him company as he took his campervan from Darwin out to the West Coast and then down to Perth. Which is convenient because I was looking for someone to keep me company as I road in their campervan out to the coast and down to Perth. Unfortunately he wanted to leave in a day so I wouldn't have time to see Kakadu or Litchfield. Alas. Sacrifices for I must see the west in a month so I can go back and see the East with Jesse and Erin in July. Anywho that only left me time to catch the Laker game. Domination Station. Good work Kobe. And then I met up with my new travel buddy Tom at the bars and hang out for awhile to make sure we wouldn't stab the other person in their sleep halfway through our trip down to Perth.
We got along well enough so bright and early the next day we set off for Katherine and then out towards Broome. First stop was lunchtime on the side of the road. Nothing too exciting there. We are budgeting about $8 AUD per day for food for our trip so its a lot of PB&J and Doritos. Then after lunch it was time for me to take the wheel of our Wicked campervan for the first time. That is it was time for me to take the wheel of a motor vehicle for the first time in Australia. Sitting on the wrong side of the car looking for the seatbelt over the wrong shoulder with the stick shift on the wrong side and the turn signal lever also in the wrong place with rear view mirrors all confusing me and how am I going to drive a stick with my left hand when I haven't driven anything in ages and haven't driven a stick in ages plus 2 and it really feels like the door on my right is way way to close to me and is really intruding on my personal space and were the doors so close to me when I drove cars back in the states? Terrifying. But I brought us into Katherine safe and sound for a refuel and a swim in the hot springs there. We drove and drove and slept and drove out to Timber Creek and Gregory National Park and Keep River National Park and numerous walks and hikes and lookouts that are all starting to blend together now after only three days. We made it to Kununnurra a small little town right on the border between the Northern Territory and Western Australia. There were some nice hikes there along with a public pool which was o so refreshing and they had showers so I felt clean if only for an hour or so for the first time in days.
From Kununurra we got out to Wyndham to see a spectacular lookout and did a tour of the Crocodile Farm. We made sure to be at the farm during feeding hours so we saw these prehistoric beasts devour chunks of fleshy meat. So awesome and scary. But I am going to do a whole separate post on that since I have so many pics and videos of that. I don't want to clutter up this post with all that stuff. So now Tom and I are 250km South of Wyndham winding down after our third day of our excellent adventure. We hope to drive a lot tomorrow and make it into Broome where we will chill for a couple days. This trip is getting busy and hectic and is so so so much different from the other legs of the trip in Sydney and Cairns. It's tons of fun to be all self sufficient and on our own out in the middle of nowhere with no schedule. We wake up and have no real idea of what we will do or see that day. Where we will end up. Who knows? It's definitely an experience and I wish I could do a better job of describing the specific things we are seeing and doing but there is so much so quickly. I will just continue to take loads of pictures. Thousands of words apiece. Efficiency. Ok we have to be up with the sun tomorrow so I am to bed. Gnight and love from the middle of nowhere!
Lindy
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Couple of dings in the side of the ole mystery machine, eh?
ReplyDeleteUmmm ya...Those were there when we got it. Actually there are tons and tons of dead animals, mostly kangaroos, on the side of the road. We haven't hit any yet. Just a few birds.
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