Remi's guide to the galaxy... Vol2

day 28: Back Home !

That's it ! After 12072Km, 27 days, I am back to the starting point.
Looking back, it was an awesome trip, punctuated with moments by myself, moments shared with colourful and beautiful people, superb images from our planet. Some people asked me if I really was an astronaut. I'll return this question: aren't we all astronauts? ... We cross the Universe, make our path through space and time, our beautiful spacecraft is called Earth.

Thanks for reading and thanks for your support when I was getting getting back to some civilization out from nowhere, it was good to hear you guys on the phone, get a SMS, read your comment on the blog, read your e-mails...
From the 1st journey draft, this is where it came to ...

day 27: Leaving Sydney

Woke up this morning, packed my things, prepared to return home. I feel happy and nostalgic: happy to go back home after being away for a month, nostalgic when thinking how rich was my trip.
Thanks Lody, Ben & Nico for your welcoming and I hope to see you guys in Melbourne so I can kick your asses again on a poker game ;-)
Left Avalon and stopped by the Sydney Harbour for the ritual tourist pictures ;-)
Still, love the architecture of Sydney Opera House...

day 26: Bondi Beach & NP

Today, I joined Benoit to the city when we would meet one of his friend from Tasmania. We went to eat a (small) salmon salad at Bondi Beach. The place is a little overrated to me and people are packed on the beach... sounds like "la Cote d'Azur", in a little less crowded-way, with a little bit of US, like these body builders having their training space out in the open in front of the beach... The Life Saver's Club, their tent and the safety flags on the beach, felt like in "Baywatch" sponsored by DHL without Hoff and Pamela Anderson...

We dropped Ben's friend to the Train station in the city and joined Lod & Nico for a nice walk in a National Park North of Sydney. This place is a nice patch of Nature near the city. As the day is hot, we aimed for the ocean... a 1-hour walk, walking like tourists in the sun, wearing thongs, without water... was a lot of fun :)

Lod, King of the Mountain

Well, as Lody and Nico had the surfer's reflexes to put all boards in the van, it seemed like a natural thing to finish the day surfing nearby. Awesome session until very dark, dark enough for trigerring the stupid question : aren't sharks supposed to go out at night ?

Went back to the house, pasta, jam (music), poker...

Lod at the Guitar, Ben blowing his lungs out in the Didj

day 21: Bowen Terrace, Brisbane 27°27'56.01"S 153° 2'30.34"E Km 10035

a quick hello from Noosa to tell you I had my 1st surf session today: it was great !!!
small waves with offshore wind and here is the best: in Noosa, no need for wetsuit as in Victoria. I gotta put my lycra top though, not because it was cold, just to protect my back from the sun.... maybe after my siesta, I'll return for another session...

Update: well the afternoon seabreeze came in with around 20 knots and 6ft waves !!! this was my 1st Kiteboarding session at the ocean: it was just great !!! feeling the wave breaking behind you while starting surfing the wave was just awesome...

6pm: driving down to Brisbane, checked in at the Bowen Terrace, a nice backpacker under renovation in the New Farm neighbourhood. Temperature is still around 30°C at night. Well, just good enough for going out for a beer on Brunswick St.

day 20: Magnum Backpackers, Airlie Beach 20°16'8.10"S 148°43'7.40"E Km 8822

Well, today was one of those you-do-not-want-to-remember day...
Leaving Cairns heading South towards Townsville, it was night, pretty rainy when I saw what I firstly considered as a bright thunder lighting but oddly without noise... He m!#$%^&! I just got flashed by a speed camera. I made a Uie "pour en avoir le coeur net" and indeed, a police car was parked on the side of the road in the dark, no lights. Well, I expect a nice "prune" written by my dear friend Officer Sergeant Ritchie back home in Melbourne (as a funny thing, in Australia [or maybe just Victoria], all traffic tickets are issued by Officer Sergeant Ritchie).
Then, to end up the evening "en beaute", as I started to get sleepy while driving, I decided to spend the night in the car on a rest area (these moments when you realise how comfortable is your bed back home...). As it was raining pretty hard (the local newspaper I had a read at while eating a Double Whopper with Cheese at Hungry Jack was forecasting a potential cyclone named "Jim" right in the area I was in...), as I attached my surfboard on the roof with the straps' ends inside the car with the door closed over, I woke up this morning being the witness of this physical phenomenon known as "water capillarity": water dripped all night in the car, more precisely on the plastic-blue Ikea bag I used to put my clean and dry laundry from the day before. Another physical phenomenon occurred: dyeing or more precisely nice blue-coloured transfer from the Ikea bag (awesome Swedish people with their blue plastic made-in-China bags...) onto my clothes.
I was good to go and find the nearest Laundromat in Townsville.
Arrived at the Laundromat,I put my wet and half-blue clothes in the washing machine and selected "Regular" & "Warm". That gave me 32 minutes of reading into my circumstance book "Merde, Actually".
Well, 32 minutes, later the blue colour stains were still on my clothes.
I inserted the 2nd set of 3x1 $ coins and set up the cycle to "Regular" & "Hot" telling myself, the hotter, the easier the dye would go off.
32 minutes later and 25 pages later, opening the lid and having a look at my clothes put me in this I-want-to-kick-this-"censored"-washing-machine state of mind: all my former white clothes turned fully to a nice vivid purple colour...
Showing no external signs of stress and frustration, I went next door and bought a bottle of "White King" bleach, inserted the 3rd set of 3x1 $ coins, waited for the water to fill in and poured frenetically a good dose of bleach in the washing machine, with the hope this could drown the washing machine...
Well, after a 4th set of 3x1 $ coins for the dryer and 24 more minutes, the result was there! Back to dry and white. If I met at this moment Will Smith from "Men in Black", I would ask him to use his flashy-tiny-pen in order to delete the last 12 hours off my memory...
I hit the road again towards Airlie Beach where I checked in Magnum Backpackers. The place is nice and arranged in a tropical fashion. Plenty of people as well !

Update: find above the nice ticket... Wow ! Nice picture of my car ;-)

day 18: Damian & flatmate’s place, Cairns 16 54’17.7” S 145 44’02.3” E

Today, farniente & eventually going to Cairns. I like the “eventually” you can use with no restriction during holidays where no plan is to be followed… After a couple of Jack Johnson songs on the guitar, we went for a walk around Cape Tribulation and its lookout.
Damian took us to a nice little swimming spot protected from tourists called the “blue hole”. Crystaline blue fresh water: a little corner of paradise.
We then hit the road to Cairns to Damian’s place and to some pubs in town for the evening. Coni & Sofia continued their journey by bus to the Withsundays Islands. Damian proposed me to stay at the house he shares with his flatmates. Thanks guys for your welcoming ! I could take the road again tomorrow.

The one-of-a-kind "Chile" girl

Our super guide

Coni

day 17: PK’s Jungle Village, Cape Tribulation

Today’s rule: no driving, farniente. I took a good chair, a nice book (“Merde Actually”), a raincoat, the camera to squat on the beach in front of the village. It was raining and that was nice cos’ the beach was just for myself alone. Put the chair up, cover up with the raincoat and found the right position not to have the camera and book wet. After a couple of hours, back to the village to play a little bit of guitar finding chords for Benabar’s song “Paresseuse”:

Certains matins elle révise son emploi du temps
Imagine ce qu'elle doit faire et se dit... et puis non
Elle paresse
Au ralenti elle glisse de la cafetière à la fenêtre
Elle aimerait entendre un disque mais il faudrait le mettre
Et rien ne presse
Mademoiselle paresse à Paris
Elle traîne, elle pérégrine
Son altesse caresse aujourd'hui
L'idée d'aller à la piscine
Elle descend dans la rue, il est 16h, elle marche lentement
S'assoit sur un banc pour étudier le chemin le plus long
Le transport le plus lent
Le métro pourquoi pas mais y'a pas de grève en ce moment
Quant au bus il est trop tôt pour être bloqué dans les bouchons
Alors à quoi bon
Le transport qu'elle préfère c'est la balançoire
On bouge d'avant en arrière en prenant du retard
Elle rallonge par le square
C'est la fermeture quand elle arrive au guichet
Elle s'en veut de rater de si peu, à quelques minutes près
Un peu plus elle rentrait
Faut pas compter sur la chance, alors demain elle jure
D'évaluer mieux les distances pour être bien sûr
D'arriver en retard
Sans rien devoir au hasard.

Then, came naptime until my stomach went crying for food. The pub was serving Barramundie & Chips. Good on my stomach and mood… As it was Australia Day, the party was getting going with a nice reggae band coming from Samoa Islands. Made some friends there:
-Coni & Sofia from Chile.
-Damian, Xenek & Kania living in Cairns.

Found a nice big Rhinoceros beetle to challenge Sofia to hold… She bravely made it!

day 16: PK’s Jungle Village, Cape Tribulation 16 05’13.4” S 145 27’ 48.0” E Km 7990

Wet long drive today with Cape tribulation as the target destination for today. Arriving between Mount Surprise & Mossman, the road was flooded with a depth indicator at 60cm high. A woman who was crossing by foot told me I should not rely on the signs… yeah right! After a couple of real 4x4 Pajero got through, I decided to give it a try. As it was night, I put my headlights on, and started to cross the flooded road following the white central line. Bad sign, the more I kept going, the less visible the line was becoming until it became invisible. As I was progressing, the car started coughing; I had to play with the clutch not to have the engine to stall. That was a bad idea as the car was now making wave in front and the headlights were starting to get covering by water. That is the moment when you hope the rubber seal around the doors and trunk are good enough so your car does not turn into a mud bathtub with all your packed stuff acting as plastic duck toys floating around. The more I was progressing, the more it was deepening and didn’t seem go the right way until I felt the engine really wanting to stall despite my play with the clutch… That was it, I decided to go backwards. The trick was to change gear without having the water entering the exhaust pipe (full Rev). As I drove backwards, the water line was coming to a safe level… Well, it was not the clever idea of the day. Back at the starting point, I talked with a guy who was familiar with this road. He was waiting for the water level to decrease. I thought this was the good thing to do. 30 minutes later, I decided to give it another go: a little sweat on my hands, same procedure: Clutch 1st, follow the white line, pray for Mr “Rubber Seal” to do its job, start driving, the white line disappeared, holding my breath waiting for reaching the low point. Cool, that was it! The water level started to decrease.

I took the road again reaching Cape tribulation via a ferry. The road from the ferry is awesome even at night with rain, fog & Xavier Rudd in the background.
Stopped at PK’s Village Jungle: A very nice backpacker with very friendly staff. It parties hard up here!

Mangrove leading to the beach

day 15: Sunset Tavern 17 27’38.7”S 140 49’38.8” E , Karumba Km 7121

Heavy tropical storms were hitting the region I was driving through to reach Normanton and Karumba (aka the outback by the sea) which is actually across a huge swamp plenty of nasty mosquitoes that frenetically dig through my t-shirt to get to my back… There is a nice bar/restaurant/pub across the camping: the Sunset tavern where a storm was crossing the Timor Sea.

On the road from Mt Isa to Normanton

View from the Sunset Tavern

day 14: Mount Isa 20 43’ 29.5” S 139 30’ 36.0” E

day of dull driving arriving in the mining city of Mount Isa. Felt depressed learning my camping neighbours stays at the Caravan park for a week holidaying in Mount Isa… Middle of nowhere… It reminded me of this mining city in Sweden (Kiruna) except that the snow is replaced by the bush desert…

day 13: Renner Springs Desert Pub 18 19’07.3” S 133 47’42.4” E Km 5746

Leaving Katherine and drive South as far as possible. I start to get a good knowledge of Benabar discography…

Mataranka Bitter Springs

day 12: Coco’s Didj backpacker, Katherine

Went for a walk around the Wangi falls and feel proud that I survive the numerous web orb spiders (apparently not dangerous, but quite impressive when your face gets stuck in their web while crossing the dark monsoonal paths in the forest), the blood sucking leech that got stuck to my ankle. Note for the one who says you should let it suck your blood until it’s not hungry anymore: b…shit ! I could not stand this little black wormy thing that got a bite at me and was moving frenetically all excited by the idea of sucking me blood… I just grabbed it with my nails as fast as I could and pulled it out… phew… Nature is hostile sometimes…
Been driving back to Katherine to Coco’s Didj where I found the didj boys again. Gotta try the Custom didj from Bilbo and after 20 minutes blowing out my lungs in several didj, found out the didj I tried 3 days ago was the “One” with the grunt you want from it. That would be the one I would go for.

day 11: Litchfield National Park

Darwin in the morning, Rain, Rain & Rain… been to a didj shop and could not help getting a didj in Do… Nice aboriginal art gallery on Mitchell St.
Heading for the Litchfield National park which was indeed far more enjoyable during the wet: all waterfall open except Wangi falls due to “Mr Saltie”.
I decided to camp at Wangi falls and enjoyed a nice fire camp with some Didgeridoo playing.

Magnetic termite moulds

Walk around Wangi Falls

Definitely the Wet season...

day 10: Darwin Km 4700

Exit the Kakadu national park, reaching Darwin at night for the Chili’s Backpacker with a unusual concept of unisex toilets and bathroom.

day 9: Kakadu National Park

Well, definitely not the good season to go there: most waterfalls are closed (tracks are flooded), crocs everywhere so no swim… During the Wet season, most billabongs, rivers get connected so crocs can move more inland. During the Dry, billabongs get isolated and the rangers traps the Salties and move them downstream in order to open the waterfalls to the public.
There are 2 kinds of crocs:
-The Saltwater Croc (Saltie) is the mean and dangerous one that you find in river as well as in the sea (so no swim everywhere…)
-The Freshwater Croc is the shy and “ok to swim with”

Crocs below...

Boulder Creek Waterfall

Yellow Waters

Bird on Yellow Waters

Alone...

These ants taste like lemon

Strange roots...

I know... tourist picture...

day 8: Coco’s Didj backpacker Katherine

My resolution of the day was to find a didj in Katherine, as Bilbo & Rico gave me good advice. Along with the conversation, Bilbo proposed me to have a customized Didj. After trying all the Didjs they made, I fell for one Didj in Do which is a very low key, full of bass so that your lungs enter resonance when playing: "I want the same one!" Bilbo would try to customize a didj in the next following 3 days, the time for me to visit the National Parks around.
As they were heading for the bush to find some the right Eucalyptus trees in order to make some "bombs" as they called they super-didjs, I decided to follow them to see how they were choosing the hollow trees eaten by termites. We stopped around at a "secret" location, walked in the bush to spot good trees. Humm, the bush seems to be a paradise for @!#$%% sandflies which had my legs for dinner…
Find here a pic of Rico cutting what he would call later the "dragon" a very bizarre shape Didj. Bringing back the trees to the van, we got caught by the night…

day 7 Coco’s Didj backpacker 14 27’48.6 S 132 15’ 47.9” E Katherine

Leaving the Devil's Marbles, heading for Katherine where I decided to stay for the night at Coco's Didj Backpackers. Not a "glamorous" place as Tony the manager says, but it got an artistic mood: came in the lounge, I met Bilbo, Rico & David. They were doing their own Didgeridoos. It took about 30 seconds before Rico detected my French accent and we realised that we were French. Well, it appears Rico & Bilbo are from Brittany and are didj' passionate makers that came to Australia in order to make their own didjs. I heard David's accent as to be Scottish: spot on! He talks like Murray Buchanan, a good lad from work.
After a good meal prepared by Rico, the unofficial cook of the gang, we played didj & guitar until late night.

day 6: Devil's Marbles Km 3062

Went to try to find a swag: this is a typical Australian sleeping bag/mattress/tent all in one cause I am fed up with putting up & down my tent: it takes 20 minutes to put up, 15 to put down. The swag is a 1 minute-up-&-down stuff... Practical when I have to do that almost every night!
Well, I did not realize it was Sunday and all the camping shops are closed today... so I decided to take the road heading North.

On the way, there are the Devil's Marble: For the non interested-rocky related stuff, skip the boring reading (usually, I skip it, myself...): Nice little rock formations that I will try to explain with my limited geology-newbie-knowledge: a long, long time ago, there was a very big rock (granite) underground that started to have cracks that got wider due to infiltrating rain water. This big granite rock was therefore split into small ones (parallelepiped shape). With geological rock moves, these small blocks came up in the open air and stated to get eroded by wind/rain. Today, these have turned into what you can see on the pictures...

After having taken a few pictures, heading back for the car, I realised that I lost my car keys... I was already seeing myself stuck there for the night... Well, I went back on my steps a couple of time (30-meter circle around the Marbles), Just could not find them! That was when I asked these 2 guys, like in case they would see my keys... Well they happen to be Swiss French-speaking. Very helpfully, they stared looking for the key that we found half an hour later 2 meter-away from the car. As it started to get dark, I decided to camp there.
Thanks again Xavier & Vincent!

Sunset at the Devil's Marbles

Devil's Peebles

Fuel pump in a ghost city

day 5: Alice Springs, Annie's place 23°42'13.23"S 133°52'45.36"E Km 2622

The sky is blue this morning with some quite humid and heavy air from last night's rain. Driving to the track signs, I feel relieved to learn that all tracks are open!!! I am leaving Oodnadatta !
Driving on the track does not make this dirt cloud behind you cause it's all wet. Here came the fun: passing creeks or floodways: well, no water or very little BUT 5 to 10cm of fresh mud !!! It's fun driving on it, I like to make my own trace in the mud, a little like going in fresh snow in snowboard...
Been through the Painted Desert: nice colourful hills!
And that was it, I reached the end of the track, back on the bitumen. It feels weird at first to be back on a smooth surface after 600kms of dirt/rocks...
After song #156 out of 2173 in shuffle mode, I arrived in Alice Springs where I checked in a very nice backpacker: Annie's Place. It is a backpacker/bar lounge, very friendly and welcoming. I definitely recommend that place!

Pics of the day:

Hills on the Painted Desert track

Painted Desert

On the Road again...

day 4: Oodnadatta 27 32'58.4"S 135 26'51.5"E

3:00am bloody heat at night (thirties), needed to get some water from the car, got out of the tent, put the torch on: big mistake!!! I just woke up a couple of hundreds parrots that just took off and were trying to get to the trees nearby that were already "booked" by others parrots... The last ones were shouting back at them "the place is already taken, piss off!" That was it, I had to use the ultimate solution again: earplugs...
Well as I was awake, this was the occasion to take pictures of the beautiful stars lying above my head...

Woke up with the nature and friends: parrots & flies... pack up, have a last dip in the natural spa and go. Heading for Oodnadatta, will see if I stay there one night or head back to the Stuart Highway. Along the track, nice landscapes changing from stony to sandy with different colours: very beautiful.

Arrived in Oodnadatta with its sole attraction: the pink roadhouse. Booked an aircon room for 38$ (After 3 rough camp nights with earplugs, I deserved it, no?). Went at the local pub, took a seat at the counter: I met one aboriginal guy with his whole family, one after the other ordering drinks at the counter: brother, nephew, wife, dog... They all look a little bit drunk except for the dog.
Headed back to the roadhouse, nice clouds in the sky, heavy atmosphere, a little bit of thunder far away... Well, as they say here, it is so hot during summer, that when it rains, the rain does not have time to touch the ground, it evaporates before doing so... hope that's true cause when it rains here, the tracks can become impassable with water filling creeks up to 2 meters...
Back in my room, I am writing this post and preparing tomorrow trip: heading out of the track through the Painted Desert and heading for Alice Springs... the sandman takes me away... (French expression, forgot the English one...)

2:00 am. Ooopsie! Woken up in the night by some noise on the metallic roof: S#$%%*! It is raining as hell outside! I think I should have departed directly to the Highway!!! I'll check the rain damage tomorrow at the local police. Going back to sleep, hoping that the rain will not affect the track conditions... don't like the idea of getting stuck here for 2~3 days or even more... I just remembered the weather forecast on TV at the pub in between the bribes of conversation with my drunken fellows. They were saying that there were some disturbances due to the cyclone that just went over the North of Australia and that we are now seeing the repercussion in the Southern states as well...

Below pics from the day: