the general idea

Well we drove up through the center of Australia with no air conditioning and no radio. By the end of it we were covered in red dirt and crazy eyed but we've seen some beautiful things along the way.

We camped out in the bush the whole way through the center, saw the most amazing stars of my life. There's no light pollution at all. Spent a night camping UNDERGROUND in Coober Pedy, the whole town is underground! Well a lot of it is anyway, it's the opal mining capital of the world and people just burrow underground and live like little rabbits. They come up in the evening when it starts to cool down. That was pretty cool.

We hiked around Ayers Rock but didn't climb it as rain was forcasted. That rock is giant! Almost 10 k around the base, took us a couple hours. We also did some hiking in King's Canyon which is just a bit northeast and that was beautiful country. It had been raining quite a bit and we forded a couple of rivers to get in there. I thought I was going to die in our toy car, the water was about 10 inches deep! Very sketch. After King's Canyon we drove north to the Mcdonnel Ranges and spent a couple nights there. We camped on top of this hill and you could see for miles and miles. It was a good spot.

After all that time in the bush we went into Alice Springs, the only big city in the center and attended the camel races. It was awesome! I will tell you what, watching those camels lope along was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. They are hilarious animals.

From Alice we kept driving north and then east to Cloncurry. We spent about a week camped out at a dam where we met Larry, the ranger who looks after the area. We quickly made good friends with him and eventually his family too. During our week in Cloncurry there was a big event going on called the Stockman's Challenge that we would go and watch in the afternoons. I would wake up, have a run, have a swim, lay around for a while, read some, then head into town and watch some steers get herded around and then go to Larry's for dinner or back to the campsite to cook over our fire. It was a wonderful week.

Now we are on a cattle station about an hour and a half north of Cloncurry called Melinda Downs. We're helping our hosts, Danny and Tara, out mustering and drafting the cattle and also with Emma (16 months) and Matthew (2 weeks) at the house. We went to the Quamby rodeo last weekend with them and watched some bullriding and bronc riding which was very exciting. I'm becoming more and more convinced that maybe I should come back to the area and work on a cattle station. We'll see :)

Next we're off to the Great Barrier Reef to have a look around and then in three weeks or so I'll be home.