Tag Archives: camp

November 15th: Guthalungra to Benaraby, 691 km

  By | |
Leave a comment

Anders writes:
I woke up at 6 o clock, the sun was up as well as most of my friends (Later that day I found out that I was supposed to have waken up at 5.30). There was breakfast of eggs, sausage and fried potatoes in the making over at the picnic table. At 8 o’clock we set out for another long day of driving. First stop was Big Mango in Bowen, one of many “Big Thing” roadside attractions in Australia (we also visited the Big Winch in Coober Pedy). There was some confusion when we were unable to spot any gigantic fruits or vegetables anywhere in the town of Bowen. Nobody had bothered to check more precisely where the thing was located. It turned out the mango was actually located next to the highway, 4 km south of town.

I can’t remember eating lunch. We may have made some sandwiches in the car. There was some nice views of the ocean. Roadworks and more roadworks. There was no way we could reach Brisbane before midnight. Instead we raced (without speeding) towards Capricorn Caves and arrived just in time to catch the last tour of the day. The guys went spelunking, the girls stayed at the visitors center. The limestone caves were impressive. At the cave entrance we saw a rock-wallaby. The hall called “Cathedral Cave” is sometimes used for weddings and concerts and the acoustics is supposed to be nearly perfect. Emīls sang a song for us! On the way out we went through a very narrow winding passage, naturally created by the erosion of water.

Just before we arrived at our campsite for the night we stopped to look at and take some pictures of the new moon – it was possible to see “earthshine” on the darker portion.

For dinner we had all kinds of leftovers. I got a beer from Rūdolfs but Agnese had convinced him that he shouldn’t drink any beer himself, or his sunburnt legs wouldn’t heal as good. I thought it sounded like nonsense and tried to get him to change his mind but with no success. Reason 1 – Beer 0.

November 11th – we have got till Cairns

  By | |
Leave a comment

Gunta writes:
It’s Lāčplēsis day today. We get up at 5:30 and leave at 7:30. The Sun rises after 5:30. The place where we camped was good. When we arrived last night, there was a warning that there might be crocodiles, but it’s not like that as we are high above river banks. There are 2 big bridges over the river – one railway and the other – auto. There are many vehicles and trailers in the campsite. We meet a man from Switzerland who has been traveling for a long time – since 2007. He says he has caught lots of fish. Ilgonis wants a fish, but there’s nothing to give in return.

We are going to Cairns, beautiful hilly road, cattle is grazing on road sides – cows, calves, horses. It has been burning again on roadsides. We conclude that everything burns down, but the termites survive. The surroundings are changing. The road becomes lonelier, many warnings about road flooding. Sometimes there are empty cars left on roadsides. We are wondering whether those are the ones broken down in flood or left after crashes as a warning for people to not go so fast.

Near Townsville oleanders, rhododendrons and African tulip trees are blooming. We want to get to the sea and are heading towards Toomulla beach [Agnese’s comment – because that’s the closest to the highway]. We park almost on the shore. Short walks. The Saltwater Creek is flowing into the ocean here, it should be fine to go into the water of the creek. It is not fine to go into the ocean water as if the water is calm, there might be the small box jellyfish here, which are deadly. We can see beautiful shells that have been washed out of the sea and broken corals.

There are nice, green fields. We have several ideas, but Anders says – sugar canes. On one side of the road – hills, on the other – beautiful ranch houses with palms.

A stop and a walk at Tyto Wetlands park. The ground is cracked. Emīls realizes that there’s almost no shadow. On palm trunks there are ferns growing, there are tropical plants all around. Trees with interesting fruits, similar to rambutans from Indonesia. We are listening to bird songs. It’s hot, sweating, temperature surely around 35 degrees. In the lake there are ducks swimming and some white waterbirds. Anders and Rūdolfs are seriously observing everything. There are ants nests among bush branches and canes. Then something is rustling in the grass. We are sending Rūdolfs ahead. It seems that someone flees. On our way back – photo with a small wallaby who is fearfully hiding under bushes. Then he gathers courage and makes a mighty jump over the road.

We are going further. The surroundings have changed – rain forests, cultivated fields, plantations with bananas. Local vegetables and fruits are being sold. We buy 2 watermelons – and eat one at once. Very tasty, sweet. Then comes Cairns – green, blooming. We find Andrejs’ house and park in the yard. There are diverse plants here – a cocos palm with coconuts, pineapples, pomelo, flowers, blooming bushes. There are poisonous toads living in the garden.

Then dinner with seafood, rice and wine. Conversations going on, we are checking Andrejs’ photo albums, listening about local birds, plants. Drinking tea with eucalyptus leaves which have been gathered in Zita’s care in the garden. Late we are going to sleep.

November 10th – on the way to civilisation

  By | |
Leave a comment

Agnese writes:
Yesterday we noticed that both our paper maps show 100km stretch of the route along gravel road (or dirt road as it’s being called here). There were 2 similar options – either to continue all the way to the coast and then go up to Cairns, or turn left in Cloncurry and take a parallel road 400km North. We decided to ask at the hostel. The nightguard was very talkative and told us much about flood and other weather conditions. He said the north road is closed sometimes 12 weeks a year due to flood. He hadn’t heard that it might be closed today, but it had rained a bit recently, and if we get till it and it’s closed, we’ll need to come all the 400km back.

I told him I was surprised about the 2m flood meter marks in many places along the road. I just couldn’t believe that the flood can be that high. He said 2 meters are normal. Apparently once a town north from Mt Isa, near the bay (Burketown?) got flooded by 7m of water – the whole town was evacuated.

We woke up at 5:30 as usual – there’s a long way ahead of us again. Quick breakfast with musli an yogurts and off we are. First to a hill in the middle of the town where we can see a nice scenery and many factories. This is a mining town – mines for silver, zinc, copper and lead can be found here and are the largest in Australia.

The road out of Mt Isa is not that boring anymore – ups and downs, winds and besides that road trains going to the opposite direction quite often. The town of Cloncurry holds the heat record of Australia – 53.1 Celsius degrees in shadow. After Cloncurry the road gets worse. Still a sealed road, but with many patches – quite like in Latvia :D

We spot 3 emu on the roadside – live ones! Lunch in a town of Richmond – for some reason it has been decorated with dinosaur pictures and models. Very boring road till the next town. One can notice we are driving towards more civilized part of this country due to petrol prices which get cheaper. Fueling up in Hughenden.

We arrive at our campsite soon after a beautiful sunset. At the entrance there’s a plate with a warning of crocodiles living in the nearby waters. The river is quite close, but it has very high banks, so the campsite is safe. There are toilets and showers here and a picnic table which we reserve for our dinner. Many other campervans are parked here, but the area is big so nobody disturbs others. The camel steak for the dinner is juicy and nice.

We are back in civilisation now – there’s phone coverage in our campsite! There hasn’t been such luck since long time!

There are also many stars, but a couple of clouds as well, so we don’t find everything we have seen previously.

November 5th – to Uluru

  By | |
Leave a comment

Guna writes:
The alarm goes of at 5.30am, but since we had a very restless night and it’s still quite dark, I continue sleeping wondering how are our friends doing in the tent as the wind is still howling, as the storm has seemingly moved on. Luckily the rain has stopped and lightning can be seen only far away near horizon. After half an hour consciousness kicks in and I get up, wake up Gunta and Evija and after a while also Agnese and the others.

At first we decide to make fried eggs but as we all get to assess the situation outside, we opt against any cooking as the wind is so strong that it would classify as storm in Latvia. So the breakfast turn out to be exclusive yoghurt, musli, banana and rock melon. Still the food is flying straight into Emils’ mouth when facing the wind.

Despite the late start we manage to leave our campsite at 8am and a little bit later cross the SA/NA border where the time zone is +9.30 so we have even saved an extra hour.
We decided against going to Kings canyon so that at least one day could be spent in a more leisurely manner. And we were right :)
Finally the day has come when we manage to see real, close-up emus… in a petrol station, in captive…. still some baby emus and grown-ups. Very beautiful and majestic birds though I don’t quite get it, why they are kept there.

We turn to Uluru and after some 240km, false sightings and spotting of the Ayer’s rock… twice… we arrive at the national park, which belongs to the Anangu people. By the way one of the false Uluru mountains is supposed to be the most photographed mountain in Australia after Uluru. Exactly for the same reason. Unfortunately we were not exception and got excited as soon as we saw it. The real Uluru hides behind the national park border. The entrance fee is for whole 3 days which might justify its price – 25$.
First stop in the national park is Mt Olgas [Kata Tjuta] where despite the heat we manage to eat some lunch at the same time as getting 360 degrees view on the mountains.
It’s hot, some 39 degrees in the sun. So it’s cooler than the day before.

We hope the heat would stop as a walk into the Olgas would be quite hot. But we get lucky because the nearby and never ceasing storm is getting nearer and the day becomes pleasantly cloudy.
The mountains and gorge is of course spectacular and enormous (approx 500m high). However probably the best experience is on our leaving when finally a kangaroo (probably the big red one) crosses our way. We’re lucky and everybody is only happily surprised.

The weather worsens and clouds are impenetrable with occasional rain droplets when we arrive at Uluru. We have abandoned any hopes to see Uluru in sunset and settle for information center and drive around the rock. However the weather surprises us again and presents us with almost wonderful sunset which we watch reflected against the Ayer’s red rock.
We are ready to leave the national park and planning to return tomorrow and witness also the sunrise.

Our camp site again is located some place on the way back in the middle of no where but as we approach the place the sky on the horizon is weirdly sunset colors but the direction is wrong. There is again another fire, a much bigger from the looks of it and directly towards the place we need to camp.

We decide to stay on a side of the road but and watch out for the fire. The site is much nicer than the last one with some water proved.
Beef steak with pasta and salads is arranged as very satisfying dinner and at 10 pm we’re ready to go to sleep in order to get up early and see the sunrise over Uluru.

November 4th: around Coober Pedy

  By | |
Leave a comment

Gunta writes:
Waking up at 5:30, the morning is calm. Sunrise at 6:22, the guys are preparing breakfast. The porridge made by Ilgonis is tasty, just one pot gets burnt a bit. Two crows are chatting to each other, looks great, maybe they are discussing pans for the day. Breakfast. Leaving at 7:50, destination for today – Agnes’ creek. The first stop – at a stand with information about railway building from Port Augusta to Alice Springs. Along the road desert plants, the scenery changes from dried grasslands to bush in red soil. Salt bushes and eucalypti are growing here. On the sides of road it looks like there are thrown out some kind of yellow balls in piles. Later we find out that the yellow fruits are camel melons which are poisonous for humans.

We arrive at Coober Pedy. It is very hot. We visit the underground Orthodox church. Then entrance is for donations and some of us are paying. Guna and I put a candle for the living souls. Then we go further to see the Big Winch. The one displayed is a replica because the old one was twisted and broken during a storm. The houses are mostly underground. Next we go to the Old Timer’s Mine opal museum and shop. The exposition is big. The temperature in shade is 39 degrees Celsius. The local shopkeeper says such temperature is usually in February (i.e. in spring). The normal temperature in November is around 20 degrees Celsius or a little bit more.
There are no people outside, only us. Some of us buy some opal jewelry. We eat our lunch in shade. The wind in sun almost burns our feet. We watch the demonstration of rock blower machine and have the opportunity to try it out ourselves – the force is so strong that one can see its skin rippling.
Coober Pedy is small town or a big village with many houses. Everything is sandy and dusty.

Afterwards with one car because of dirt road 4km long we are going to Crocodile Harry. The dwelling looks like a cave at the basis of the mountain, the entrance is at the ground level. There are many rooms – living room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and a small library. Women’s underwear hangs everywhere. The walls are covered with greetings from all over the world, also from Latvia. We find a photo album with a photo taken in Dundaga [town in Latvia] and the little Harry on a donkey in Culture and Leisure park. Next to it is a photo of Harry – all grown up in Coober Pedy – big bearded, long haired man. It is a strange feeling and it evokes thoughts about time and Harry’s destiny.

We are going to the camp site. There’s lightning all the time near horizon. The lightning strikes straight into the ground. Emīls is waiting rain for it to wash the car. Some raindrops occasionally fall on the windshield. There are no kangaroos on the road, not counting the dead ones.

We stop at Marla and some run to the sprinkler to freshen up. We meet travelers from England who are renting campers from the same Spaceship company. So we exchange DVDs, suggestions and impressions with them.
Later on the way we encounter strong wind but not so strong rain, dry spinifex (desert grass) balls are rolling over the road.
A radio conversation occurs between the two cars – [Optimus Prime (the girls’ car)]: how many kilometers are left? [Hawk (the guys’ car)]: we don’t know. [OP]: But you have GPS! [H]: just a minute, we’ll turn it on.

At camp site we prepare dinner – a kangaroo steak and potatoes, plus salads. Very tasty. There’s a bush fire in the distance. Our scouts come back with some good and bad news. The good news is that the fire is not very big, and the bad news is that it is only approximately 2 km away. So we decide to go to the next camp site 35km further. There is also an emergency phone. On the way we find that the bushfire is bigger and also further – around 15 km away.

We stay in our new campsite.There’s storm during night. Rain comes down in huge drops but the average rainfall is small. The car sways and it feels like it will be lifted up by the strong winds. We think how the ones sleeping in tents are feeling and whether they also won’t be blown away into desert.

Greetings to all reading my entry!

Agnese: I should add here that on this day we noticed that the conditioner of the OP car is not working properly. In Coober Pedy we sent an e-mail to Spaceships office and asked to organize us someone to see to that in Alice Springs besides the failed cigarette lighter/electricity pug with a hope that we’ll still be alive by then. Occasionally we are switching the cars so that the others get the coolness of Hawk as well. But I don’t switch – I still have the cough that I got in London, and I don’t want to get cold.

November 1st – The roadtrip has started!

  By | |
Leave a comment

Anders writes:
The roadtrip started! A few hours later than expected, mostly because the process of collecting the cars was very slow. If we had not already visited the city office the day before we would probably have been there the whole day. Anders, Agnese and Evija collected the Cars: “Optimus Prime” for the women and “Hawk” for the men. At the Latvian house the others were waiting with all the groceries.

Next we headed for the blue mountains. The blue colour is believed to come from particles emitted by the many eucalyptus trees. The bedrock consists mostly of orange/yellow sandstone however. In Katoomba we had some very nice views of these mountains. We also counted dead kangaroos by the roadside, final count was 13, none of those killed by Optimus Prime or Hawk.

We found a gorgeous free campsite for the night and feasted on sausages with gravy, potatoes and salad. Those who stayed up late were treated to a fantastic red Moon rising fast on the clear night sky, over the nearby lake.

Anders in Australia: 20th – 28th Oct.

  By | |
Leave a comment

Anders writes:
I had decided to start off a week earlier than the others because I wanted to see as much as possible of the country. I arrived in Melbourne in the morning and used the first two days to walk around the city and arranging for the coming days. Melbourne was a nice city I guess but I wasn’t in the mood for the big city life, instead I wanted to get to the outback.

I got to sample a few beers at least and also found out there was going to be a beer festival in Federation square in a few days, with all local microbreweries participating. I almost decided to come back to that.

My first goal was Wilsons Promontory on the southern tip of the mainland, where there are some very good trails to hike and lots of wildlife and interesting nature. Unfortunately large areas of the park was damaged by bushfires some years ago but there is still plenty to see. I saw a lot of birds and also wombats, wallabys, a Brown snake (one of the most poisonous in the world) and a skink. Lots of nice views of the sea and the beaches also.

Next I wanted to go to the “australian alps” but decided against it because of the weather predictions (snow). Instead i did a long drive along the coast to Mallacoota. I did a cruise on the nearby coastal lakes to watch sea-eagles up close and went for some short hikes. After that I headed for Canberra. Not my first choice of destination but placed not too far from Sydney where I was going too meet the rest of the Eclipse Tour people in just a few days. Also I thought it would be nice to visit the Canberra Deep Space Communication Center.

I found a good campsite in the mountains, had some time to go and visit a nature reserve with lots of kangaroos and headed for the CDSCC and central Canberra the next day. Central Canberra was a strange place with wide streets an no traffic. Visited some interesting exhibitions at the national library.

The day after I went to Honeysuckle creek where the the first television images from the moon landing were received. Did some hiking in the Namagdi NP as well. The surrounding areas of Canberra was beautiful to drive around in, you just had to look out for wildlife and cyclists. I drove to Sydney in the morning the 29th.