Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Litchfield to Kununurra (goodbye NT, hello WA)

Western Australia, here we come!!!

We left Darwin on Friday the 7th. Laurie drove me to Litchfield and I was the most comatose passenger he could have ever wished to have…I had had very late nights in Darwin with 5-star and had gone out a little too hard on the last night (dancing with aborigines at the Casino and at then after at some semi-nightclub-gurl-dancing-club). I woke up with my head somewhere other than on my head…and so, we went to Wangi falls where I had only enough energy to take a dip into the water and swim to the falls and let it pound some life back into me (dear vodka, dear me):


but I did manage to take a great photo of a goanna in full action:




And then we made our way to Tjuwaliyn (Douglas Springs) where we spent the night, and I got to spend the most wonderful morning just soaking in the thermal hot springs that flowed into the Douglas river!!! Oh…I could not have asked for anything more to try and get my body and mind back from the debaucherous behavior in Darwin…



From here, we made it towards Western Australia, leaving the Stuart Highway and beginning our westward journey again:


Somewhere along the way, we crossed paths with the most hard-core traveler: a single Japanese motorcycle-chick with camping gear and spare gas-container strapped to her bike!!! I was completely mesmerized by even the thought of traveling alone on a motorcycle across the OZ outback, with the intention of camping along the way!! THAT’S HARDCORE!!!





And on this drive, we also met Peter, a deutsch relief-teacher/substitute teacher (working in an aboriginal community off the Victoria River in the Gregory National Park). He was super-friendly, approaching us in the dead middle of the scortching day at a rest-stop. I thought was it was so ironic that Laurie meet Peter as Laurie’s students in Yeppoon call him: Mr Happy and Peter calls himself DR SMILES: (Suicide, Mental ILlness and Education). They are both teachers that love their students and pour their heart and souls into inspiring the next generation! What an inspiration in it of itself!!!




We traveled quite a long distance that day (700Km—a long day for us) and we made our way to Timber Creek (where we met some german travelers that we have continuously run into for the last 2 weeks). Here's just the road to:




And along the way, we saw incredible numbers of these really amazing BOAB trees (I will say more about these after we enter into WA):


And finally, we arrived to: WESTERN AUSTRALIA



where you must discard your fruit, honey and vegetables prior to entering:



oh, and I must not forget to tell the story about “how Laurie tried to kill me” that day before we entered WA!!! . As per usual, I left ahead of the van but being that I was still a bit on the tail-end of my recovery-from-a-bad-hangover-after-Darwin, I was going for my real bike-ride…and told Laurie that I was going for about 20Km and that I would meet him around 10am (about 1 hour) and that I wasn’t brining my camel-back—that I was just with 1L of water for this trip. Well, Laurie was just “doing his own thing” and lost track of time. By 10:30am, I was panicking as the sun was seriously beating down on me, I was down to the last dregs of water in my bottle, there was NO SHADE to be found, I was nearing 40Km and terribly worried that if I stopped, I would just get shrivel up and eaten by some unknown beast in the outback!! So when the van showed up at 10:40am, I had a few words to say like: where the f—- have you been and what the f—-are you trying to do to me?

We laugh about it now…but I sure as hell wasn’t too pleased at the time…

So yeah, if you stop hearing from me all together, just check in with laurie, he might just shrug his shoulders and say: I dunno, mate. She just took off one day and never came back?! She left me a camera, a few good CDs, her computer and a whole lot of her junk…have you heard from her on your end?

Yeah, the outback may just be recycling me back to my original form! (Speaking of which, I just picked up Bill Bryson’s: A brief history of everything for A$4—it’s a rather thick paperback that covers everything about everything about science…and, well, quite frankly I was stunned to find it in a tourist office in the middle of NOWHERE! But having heard from Brian&Jenn that it is a most wonderful Bryson read, I’m stoked!!!).

Saturday, October 15, 2005

KAKA-U??? No, mate. It's KAKADU!!!!

After our wonderful day at Nitmiluk, we headed east towards Katherine where we stopped in for a few essentials (food, alcohol, camping gear, internet, civilization???) and again, we began our journey northward. Our next destination was Kakadu National Park (200Km east of Darwin) and I was incredibly stoked to experience this park as soooo many people I had met so far on my travels, had spoken about it with high regards. But truthfully, I wasn’t sure what to expect other than the great aboriginal rock-art (yay!!! I love EVERYTHING aborigine!!!!).

Plus, from a completely different perspective of appreciation for a National Park, I had it in my head (or in my legs) that I was going to cycle a great deal through this park if the hills didn’t kill me first…and it turns out, it was the GREATEST place on earth to cycle as it was flat-as-flat-can-be (with a few bouts with head-winds but nothing to keep me from moving forward, albeit slowly)!! So during the 3 days we spent in the park, I cycled about 30-40Km every morning between the hours of 7-10am (the increasing temperatures as we moved further and further north, were really starting to dictate our traveling/activity schedules)…and I was LOVING IT!!!

[on a side note: for a brief 7 days, I was having the worst of luck with my bike and my clip-in shoes. I fell 4 days in a row, three times at a stand-still while one-shoe was still half-clipped in and once I seriously crashed into a curb because I was completely sleep-deprived and not paying attention to the nonsensical curb right before a round-about and ended up breaking my head-light, scratching up the bike, flying over the handle-bars and landing somehow on my two-hands and two feet??!?! and soon-thereafter, with an ENORMOUS bruise on my thigh that lasted almost a full-week and looked like I was getting a “good-beating back at the house”!! So then for a few days, Laurie and I were on a no-fall-for-FUJ campaign which seems to have taken effect quite nicely—knock on ROCK???]

In any case, this blog is going to consist mostly of photos as I have soooooo many to share of KAKADU NATIONAL PARK. The first series will be of overall picturesque and note-worthy photos: HIGHLIGHTS, the second will be of aboriginal rock-art (as I am totally fascinated by rock-art and the whole aboriginal culture): Dreamtime, and finally, the last series will be of sunset at Ubirr—an incredible section of the park which is impassable after the wet-season begins as all the road flood (most of Northern Australia is impassable after the “build-up” and all the torrential rainfall): sunset at Ubirr.

But before I begin, I’d just like to give a little more meaning to some of the photos by sharing some of my understandings of the aboriginal core belief-systems and their history. Kakadu National Park has been named a World Heritage area for its outstanding cultural and natural treasures. The name Kakadu is based on the Gagadju aboriginal language that is commonly spoken by the area aborigines who own the land and lease it back to the Government for National Park use. The park itself includes one of the finest and most extensive collections of rock art in the world, attesting to the Aboriginal people’s long association with the land. It embraces some amazing scenery from rugged sandstone escarpments, to woodlands, to vast wetlands, a large tropical river and some really incredible examples of the diverse habitats that allow for the amazing wild life that abounds in the “Top End” of this continent. Aside from the beauty of the park itself, what is most striking about the rock-art that is found in so many places around the park, is that some of it is over 6-7 thousand years old and yet still remains clearly visible on the walls of some of these rock-walls. The art depicts aboriginal history, storytelling, philosophies and a clear record of life and life-style as written language has mostly been non-existent in this culture.
What I find so intriguing about the richness of their history and belief-system, although it varies of course between tribes and across regions and there is no one single-belief-system whatsoever, but that there is a pervasive theme across the aboriginal cultures which accepts a story about “life” and how it cycles and that there is something called the dreamtime which depicts a “way in which the world came about” and how humans have a part in this dreamtime and that there is good and not-so-good behavior that affects the rhythm and dynamics of the dreamtime. And though I am only giving you a very rough sketch of this “story” as I understand it (so very little still), it really paints a beautiful picture which begins with the Rainbow Serpent—one of the most powerful ancestors of the Dreamtime that first visited the world after the “First people” created the landscape and all that it contains.
In the enormous numbers of rock-art that I saw (and took photos of), there were countless representations of the Rainbow Serpent as well as other significant spirits that played a part in the aboriginal way-of-life, from “laws” of the dreamtime to daily activities, to successful-hunts, to food menus, to celebrations, to erotic art and animals and dancing…the rock-art was beautiful and stunning!!! And on many levels, a much better way to communicate amongst themselves and between tribes rather than through the use of written language where there always comes a point of debate based on semantics or proper use of words and/or style. Here, things just are, and that’s how it was…

Enjoy!!

Highlights:



Beware of the Crocodile…





Anbangbang (also known as Nourlangie Rock)






Termite mounds speckling graveyard fields


Kakadu landscape (with controlled bush-fires at a distance):





ROCK ART:

The rainbow serpent:





Here are the aboriginal laws:






They love their wallabies (and they eat them too!):




Here fishies fishies fishies fishies:




They love their fish: Barramundi art





Erotic Art:





They love to dance!!!



Nabulwinjbulwinj:



The lightning man:



SUNSET OVER UBIRR:



On this particular day, controlled bush-fires were being conducted and so the sunset was particularly stunning for its unusual colors and filtering of the sun as it set over the horizon…






A beautiful landscape captured a most unique end-of-the-day scenery:




Stunning…absolutely stunning!!!





And finally, the grande finale for my pictures of KAKADU!!! How amazing is this photo??? I can’t even think of it being taken here on this planet!!!

***********************I********M*********F*******U*******J***********************

Karlukarlu to Nitmiluk

From Karlukarlu, we shot straight north up the Stuart highway through Tennant Creek, Three-ways, to Mataranka where we stayed overnight at a wonderful campsite with beautiful thermal pools. Before even the crack of dawn the following day, I was awoken and soon to witness a most amazing flying-red-fox (bats) pre-dawn-cacophony-of-frenzied activity (the picture cannot even capture this amazing sight of hundred-of-thousands of bats streaming through the sky at incredible speeds, just as the day broke…IT WAS INCREDIBLE!! I’ve never seen or heard anything like it!






After the sun fully started her long-day, Laurie and I went for a quick canoe along the river where we again spotted huge numbers of these flying red foxes, just hanging-out:


Laurie, the engine


Wanna hang-out?






From mataranka, we headed towards Katherine where we were planning to stay at the Nitmiluk Gorge. On the way, we stopped at Cuttacutta Caves where aside from the amazing caves and display of stalagmites/tites, I got to see my first live Aussie

snake!!!

The Red-banded tree snake:




Amazing ceilings and floors of stalagmites and stalagtites:









And finally, we finished our tour with the sight of a gorgeous green-spotted moth:




Our destination this day was the Nitmiluk Gorge where we were to go on a beautiful gorge-boat-tour…but first, we had to dash in for a quick beer-stop at the Daly Waters Pub (one of Laurie favorite spots and one of the oldest, with quite the “wildest” pub reputations on the Stuart Highway):




and during the peak-heat of the day, we made it to Nitmiluk where my close-encounters with true Aussie wild-life was just about to begin!!!

A blue-eyed Honeyeater, the peskiest bird EVER!, kept trying to steal our trash and even was ballsy enough to eat Laurie’s bread right through the plastic IN the campervan while Laurie was napping that afternoon!!! I fought and fought and fought with this bird until, of course, I gave up and he (the king of his domain) won the battle:





As we waited for our tour to begin, we watched a most graphic nature-show-in-the-raw as a golden-tree-snake devoured a little frog:





The gorge consisted of three gorges and because we are at the end of the dry-season, the water levels were quite low, requiring us to get on and off three different boats.



The second gorge:




where we also go to see (more) aboriginal rock-art (I LOVE IT!!!). From what the guide told us, this is art is 7 thousand years old!?!?! (though I don’t believe OZ had rabbits back them as they were an introduced species—so I’m guessing I was having auditory-hallucinations at that point, as it was HOOOOOOOOTTTT!!!):






This is the famous view of the third gorge:





And here is just a token photo of me on the boat after I singed the skin off my arse from sitting down on that aluminum step thinking it would be a great place to sit-my-arse-down-for-a-photo! The boat had only been baking in the sun for the last 4 hours!!! Ahhhh…silly me!!!


A side note: my friend KIM in portland has started a great FREE clothing exchange for petite women, please check out her site if you have the time or if you are in the OR area as you might find yourself some great clothes-->http://pdxpetite.com/

cheers, FUJ
I am only laughing because 40 pairs of eyes were staring at me as I jumped up with the most pained look on my face, unable to hold back a: sssshiiiiittt that’s HOT!



Tuesday, October 11, 2005

From sun to marbles--the outback is full of wonders

So we left Alice Springs (for the last time) and began our journey northbound on the Stuart Highway…passing the Tropic of Capricorn (my 3rd time over this line since being in OZ):

Tropic of Capricorn:



and on this road, we were privy to the world’s largest solar-powered car race!!! SO COOL!!! (and so hard to take pictures of when both vehicles are moving in opposite directions!!)









and if anyone has tried to scare you into not driving on the highways in Australia, it is most likely because of one of these: the road-train. A three-freight-massive-freakin’-truck that measures exactly 53.5 meters long. YAH, just imagine passing one of these babeys!! The wind-tunnel as you “overtake” them, is INCREDIBLE!!!

Road Train Babey:




And as our luck goes throughout this whole entire trip, Laurie and I stayed at the Wachope Caravan Park that night (on the recommendation of Ellen&Peter again!!) where we ended up sharing quarters with the French Solar-powered car team! How PSYCHED was I!!!


Le CAR (Jules Vernes):



L’equipe (The Team):

7 students, 1 professor (from an engineering school in Amiens) and 1 journalist/observer




The next morning, I awoke to a beautiful sunrise…



And the car rose to the occasion as well, as it needed to be “charged” as soon as the sun began to show its powerful rays:




I then took off that morning on a 10Km bike ride to Karlukarlu (Devil’s Marbles): an unusual and isolated formation of boulders that are believed by the Aboriginals to be the eggs of the rainbow serpent.


Karlukarlu against the Outback:



Have you lost your marbles?





There are a few extra marbles in this area, feel free to come and look for yours if you are in the area…






I particularly liked this marble and thought perhaps this was the one I’ve been looking for all along: I call it the Zen-marble




and so the journey still keep going, my friends.

If there is anything I can add to these last few blogs that I have been able to jot down in the last few hours…it’s that I am beginning to LOVE saying: no worries, mate! It seems like such an appropriate thing to say to everything these days…

And well…there’s no sense in me making out that my trip isn’t still INCREDIBLE, UNBELIEVABLE and, and, and…well…just OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD!!!

I am far, far, far behind on my blogs, emails, phone-calls and what-have-you-s. Absorbed in the experience rather than the recounting of the journey, I have been neglecting my connection to most of you lately and I do sincerely apologize!!! If there are any excuses, technology certainly has been sparse these days, but in its place, I have found many, many peaceful moments to meditate, cycle, take unbelievable photos, build fires, scratch my head, stare at cloud-formations, dig deep into myself and introspect even further than I had ever imagined myself finding the time and space while traveling. I am blessed!!!

Peacefully yours, FUJ

latest update: I am currently in Western Australia (the time difference is now 12 hours with the EST). we arrived 2 days ago and are on our way to Broome in the next few days. The Northern Territories were FABULOUS though very very buggy and i have to say it's really nice to be in the tropical heat without the freakin' bugs--it's kinda like CALIFORNIA! we are going back onto the coast in a few days (this time, the west-side) and as much as i have enjoyed the OUTBACK, i can't wait to stick my feet back in the ocean!! we will be traveling down the west coast for the next 4 weeks until we arrive to Perth. So here come the beautiful ocean-photos again!!! LOVE YOU ALL!!! i'll be posting a bit more regularly from hereon, i reckon (aussie saying right there!!!).