True North, Strong and Free

It is with a great big smile on my face that I announce, we have made it to the East Coast! To those back home it doesn’t seem like such an impressive feat, but trust me, it really, really was. We only realized how strenuous the journey would be the day we were hung over and rotting in the air conditioning of a mall in Broome. Bringing up Google maps, we entered Broome to Cairns and clicked ‘Enter.’ This is what loaded up on the screen:

Our jaws dropped. 47 hours from coast to coast! We knew Australia was big, but we had no idea that this stretch across the Northern horizon would take that long! Everyone just started hysterically laughing. What had we gotten ourselves into?! There was nothing to do except start. So eventually, we kicked into gear and cleaned out the van, did a grocery shop (focusing on meals that we didn’t have to use a burner for), and struck out Eastward.

As we drove, the day shrunk and we arrived on our cliff top camping spot just as the sun was setting. Ngumpan Cliff Lookout was a breathtaking way to end the start of our trek.  In the distance, we noticed that the coral haze didn’t die away with the sun. It was an outback bushfire, blazing off in the distance.  ‘Tis the season for wild fires, as we had already seen scorched earth and vegetation along other stretches of driving. We still slept well; being in a safe place should there be a blaze near to us.

We literally woke up on November 2^nd with the dawn. Things had been too hot to handle during these past few days, and the first rays of sun shining into our camper instantly turned it into a toaster oven. We drove all day, only stopping for gas and to a few lookouts. At the Victoria River, we saw ghostly shapes of thousands of jellyfish haunting the waters. We were all baffled at saltwater fish in a freshwater habitat; it was a very weird and wonderful sight to see. Eventually, our time was up and we pulled into Limestone Creek at Vince Connoly Crossing. A few others were camping there – always a good sign of safety. We ended up talking to Brenden, a man travelling by himself, finding out he was a teacher on long service leave. The 4 of us sat around swatting bugs and eating our ‘cold’ meal until it was too buggy and we were too sweaty to do anything but lie in our ‘bunks’ and be still.  

Bad sleeps were catching up to us. We awoke as if in Groundhog Day – more sun, more heat, damp sheets and damp clothes. Now this was the real Australia. This was the kind of impenetrable heat that it’s become famous for. Not for wimps of any kind. Luckily, that day we were close enough to Katherine, and decided to reward ourselves with a big day of fun, and to explore the Northern Territory a little.

Tim, Steve and I did a small hike up to the Katherine Gorge lookout, where two of us decided that renting a kayak and exploring the gorge via its waterways was something we were interested in, and one of us decided they would read War and Peace in the information site’s air conditioned café.  

Steve and I hopped into our banana yellow boat and made way down the river. The gorge walls just got more spectacular as we twisted and turned through its folds. Steve threw a few casts out for Barramundi as we paddled. Finally, we reached the pass, which segued through into the second section of the gorge. We docked our kayak on the small beach, and took a short secluded walk through the bush to a second array of kayaks in a secret bay. We paddled around for a little, but decidedly it was too hot, and we found a great cliff jumping rock to cool off with. After a jump and a quick swim,  we had to tear ourselves away from all of the beauty since Tim was waiting, but we were rewarded with an up close and personal glimpse at a ~2m freshwater crocodile on the kayak back.  

The adventures didn’t stop there. As soon as the three of us were reunited, we sped towards Kakadu National Park with butterflies in our tummies. Earlier, we had called the Ranger at the park to make sure there was enough water at the Gunlom Falls to warrant a visit. She answered that there was indeed enough water, but that the site wouldn’t be open until after midday since they were waiting for a bushfire to snuff out. We drove into the park and reached the dirt road. Testing the waters, we decided the track wasn’t too tough for our Great White, and made slow headway. Turning another corner, the road just got rougher; the wash boarding nearly broke all of our dishes, and shook everything out all over the floor. There was no turning around at this point, though. We had invested too much time and the sun was on a short fuse.

We finally made it to ground zero an hour before sunset and scrambled up the still smoking and ashy-black hillside to the waterfall at the top. The whole struggle was worth it. We were rewarded with a spectacular view of rugged outback landscape, an ochre sunset, and beautiful clean water.  What a strange feeling of solidarity with yourself and each other. Our twilight swim was a short one, since we didn’t bring a flashlight and needed to head back down to the camp. 

Revitalized and now believing there is beauty in the N.T., we spent another hot buggy night cooped up in the camper. What was eerie about our camp that night, was that the air was still pungent with that ‘campfire’ smell. A few logs were glowing with embers, and looking up into the hills, what we thought were flash flights, turned out to be tiny burning fires that hadn’t been extinguished yet. We were literally sleeping in the midst of a dying bush fire. We were surely safe, since everything around us was concrete, or burned, but it was still a surreal realization.

The next morning, I braved a spider-ridden rusty shower just to stroke the sweat and campfire smell off. We once again crawled through the 4WDesque roadway and burst back out into Katherine. After a proper coffee and a fuel-up, we were off again. That day we broke up our driving by stopping at some ‘famous’ Outback pubs. The first one we stopped at was covered in pink paint and aptly named; The Pink Panther.

 I don’t know how the Pink Panther has anything to do with the Outback, but apparently the feline likes to indulge in a XXXX Gold just like the rest of us. The building was also a shrine of antiques and relics from Australian farms and general history– we marveled at the old posters, typewriters and farm equipment. What was most interesting, however, was the ‘zoo.’ 

The P.P. had a menagerie of Australian Outback animals in large cages. We wandered through it, beer cozy in hand.  We shuddered at the

snakes, squawked with the Emus, and finally saw the freshwater croc after it surfaced. (‘Sneaky Sam,’ the saltwater crocodile remained submerged – and I don’t blame him, living in this inferno.) The coolest part for me though, was feeding a kangaroo by hand. He was minding his own business, eating out of his dish, and we decided he might have a go if it was from one of us. I scooped up some of his feed in my palm, and offered it out to him. He reached over and gently ate the food, while licking my fingers and grazing my skin with his teeth. Steve had a go as well with our new furry friend! We drank our beers and moved on quickly after that, since the bloke behind the bar was clearly not concerned with customer service!

We only made it another 100kms down the road, when we found another cool pub – the Daly Waters. This one had bras and undies hanging all over the bar, along with different bills from countries all over the world. We found out that my Dad had likely been there, judging by these clues:

We met another kangaroo friend – this time, we saw the server walk by with a struggling purse. When I asked what she had, she pulled out a baby joey, whose mother had died in an unfortunate tangle with a fence earlier that morning. She was getting an Emergency Kit sent down from Katherine to keep the joey thriving until it could be sent to a rescue center. The lil’ guy was so cute that Steve and I started thinking up ways to adopt one back in Canada. Can kangaroos be litter-trained?

Pushing on, we continued through the Outback, as the sun set around us. Steve and I were lucky enough to see a dingo dash across the road and take safety in the scrub on the shoulders.  Finally, before nightfall, we arrived at our ominous campsite – Attack Creek. Minus the feral cats who watched me pee before bedtime, the spot didn’t end up being scary at all. The best part of this night was when Tim surprised us with a Bundagerg Ginger Beer for dessert that he had been hiding in the cooler all day. You will never know the joy of a cold drink until you travel the outback in a van. Pure bliss. 

The next day we, once again, spent all day driving. The only thing to entertain us were termite people and cyclones. Strangely, we started to notice that  large termite mounds at the side of the road had been dressed as people?! Increasingly, we saw more and more, and they became a part of the landscape. Once and a while, we happened across some small cyclones, twisting up the red dust into the cloudless skies. At first we were scared, but when we saw them dissipate, or drove through them with white-knuckles and came through the other side only slightly bullied, we eased. Eventually we just took to counting how many we would see in a day. Anyhow, we pulled over at dusk again, Oorindi Rest Area and reveled as the night slowly cooled along with our engine. We were slowly, painstakingly making our way across; earning every inch that we traveled.

On November 6^th, we finally made it across the Barkly Highway, and to the East Coast, passing through our first big city in a while – Townsville. Having more than one lane of highway was a little daunting at first, until we all wrapped our heads around civilization again. We haven’t stopped in Townsville yet; we had plans further up North. Sadly, this stretch of driving became akin to driving through a graveyard of kangaroos. We had seen so much of the road kill that we had started a tally at the beginning of the trip, unbeknownst to us, that there would be so many. While making far too many marks on our list, we drove up the right hand side of the map and found shelter just outside of Port Douglas at Palm Grove Caravan park. 

We had made it. We were dusty, dehydrated, sleep deprived, bug-bitten and agitated. Living constantly in the oppressing heat was certainly a challenge – think of doing Bikram yoga all day, every day. For the record, I don’t know how anyone does it for a lifetime, making a living and finding happiness in the sweltering heat waves. I suppose you get used to it. As much as I like to think that I hate the snow and cold of Canadian winters, I guess I’ve gotten used to it in my own way as well. I always brag about loving the heat, and certainly prefer it to a chill under any circumstance. I touted myself as a ‘bad Canadian,’ as someone who has left the True North Strong and Free to travel other lands, dislikes hockey, and hates snow. But, for the first time in my life I was actually too hot. I couldn’t get comfortable and I found myself wishing for home, where everyone is now bundling up in their fall jackets and boots.

I guess I’m not that bad of a bad Canadian after all, eh?