Out There and Back

When travelling you have much time to ponder and time is the theme of this first part as I have realised that no matter how bad or boring the places seem I know that once that moment is gone it is gone forever and looking back at that time I always wish I could be back there I guess you only remember the good parts of a trip and not the bad, it has been over 7 months since I have started travelling and the time for me has completely flown by but how is it for you have you all missed me or have I become just a distant memory of long ago much like swine flu?. In the 7 months I have travelled thousands of miles across earth have driven over 7500 km for a total of 68 hours added 145 more friends spent over £10,000 (car was £2000) been to 8 countries created one road kill and drank countless beers of all types and I never want this to end so I am seriously considering creating a registered charity to fund my trip!

I am putting a picture of me circa 2009 b.t (before travelling) and a recent picture of me to show that travelling has aged me and I think for the better, I am slowly making the transformation into traveller the long hair is coming along with it even getting in my eyes now although it does look like someone has frisbee’d road kill on my head only will I cut it when someone asks what kind of marsupial is on my head, the beard is getting bushier my wrist is full of beads and bracelets and im even contemplating getting rid of my trainers for walking boots, when I come back I may even just sell the big issue as I suspect I will look the part.

Now that is over I will tell you what I have been up to…..the good thing about having a car is that it gives me more freedom and a bigger space for stuff but it can also cause some problems as it poses the question when you get to somewhere ‘To tour or not to tour’ I could probably have done Uluru national park in my car and that would of made it cheaper and I would have had more control over my itiniery but then you don’t get to meet different people and have the knowledge of the tour guide explaining everything of how it was formed and what the art means so paid our $300 and joined the tour which was 2 nights camping and 3 days we were joined by mostly people from Switzerland and Germany with some South Korea and Slovenia thrown in for good measure overall the group was ok the Germans can be quite hit or miss and the Koreans normally keep to themselves and another problem when you have a group of people who can all speak the same language they will speak that even though you are the only person sitting at the table not understanding a single word. I am not sure whether I am blessed or unlucky as I forgot to tell you that the ‘Red Centre’ is not so red at the moment we may be one in ten thousand people who will get to see the centre as it is at the moment as we have arrived after the most amount of rain in 50 years so much so that they have enough water for the next 5 years so the area is lush with vegetation making it more the ‘Green Centre’ so I cant work out if I feel cheated out of seeing the redness of the outback or blessed for seeing something not a lot of other people have not seen.

The Kings Canyon was the first place we visited and it was a big canyon and we swam in a billabong yep that’s it it was pretty and a hard walk but that is all there is to say about that one, after that we headed to our camp collecting fire wood along the way and camped beside a raging fire as the nights in the centre are freezing with the days being scorching. When camping in the outback the first thing you notice at night is the sky full of stars like you have never seen before it is a wondrous moment to actually see the milky way not the chocolate bar but the galaxy. Due to the lack of artificial light shooting stars are also very easy to see just look at the same spot for 5 mins or so. Up at 0500 so we can see the sunrise at Uluru as you can imagine it was freezing and we were all really tired but the views were spectacular we could also see a lesser known rock which is actually bigger than Uluru Mount Connor resembles a red Table Mountain but as it is not as pretty as Uluru it does not get any of the adulation. Uluru was as you can imagine it was an awe inspiring symbol that cries out Australia watching it from sun set to sun down seeing all the colours changing every 5 minutes was as close to pure magnificence as you can get. The next day we had the chance to climb the rock if it was open and considering it is only open to climb around 30-50 days per year we were bang out of luck as the winds at the summit were too strong so our other plan was to walk 10km around the base whilst the sun was rising which to be fair was ok at best as at the base you can not distinguish that it is Uluru from the base but one good moment at the base was looking into the rock and it seems like it throbs moving back and forth not sure if this is due to the early start lack of breakfast sugar or all three! Valley of the wind was one of my favourite places it was a 3 hour walk through the valley with many red rocks either side and the end result was the ‘million dollar lookout’ which due to the rain season was amazing.







Our guide told us all the stories of the aboriginal people who settled by the rock and how there are mens areas and women’s areas and how a evil dingo spirit was summoned by the neighbouring tribe because they were put down by the other tribe and how when the dingo spirit entered the men’s areas 4 men dropped down dead, now I for one am more like Scully than Mulder and I need proof so I asked:
“Well we know its not an evil spirit so was it just another man from the other tribe or something that we can believe” No, according to the guide it was an evil dingo spirit still so I guess that is another X Files opened.






On the way home this should have been the most uneventful part but it was full of fun as we all heard one of the Swiss girls scream some incoherent words that no one even her husband could not recognise and after a few seconds she told us we lost a wheel on the trailer so pulling over we saw it was running on the rim and so we all got to work as we didn’t have the tools to fully repair it so we had to find a large log and put it under the wheel and drive the trailer forward to get it raised and then flag down some people who had the right sized equipment and jack to lift the trailer lucky for us in Australia people are ready and willing to help and in the end we had 4 people pulled over helping out or just talking to us, its funny when being in one of these situations I forgot to fill up my water bottle and subconsciously you start thinking who you would eat first if it came to it………….I decided the rude Germans kill two birds and all that. We got back ok just a bit late but still had time for our after party which would have been better had the music not been a local Baltic band which to me sounded like I was at a Jewish wedding. We drover out latter the next day as we went back to the Devil’s Marbles for the sunset which meant we had to stop off in Tenant Creek where again we were told not to walk around at night as we would probably be stabbed so it was a nice reminder of London and it was good advice as someone had to be air lifted out as they were stabbed in the throat.

When you have new people in the car you can re-use your old jokes as if they are new but before that can happen you have to gauge whether they can handle said jokes or revise them because of your audience and straight off the bat I had to cut out short jokes (Lotte), Ginger jokes (Nina), women jokes (all), Canadian jokes (Jess) and German jokes (Nina also) so there goes like half of my best stuff but sometimes there are just times when something is too good to let go……..like explaining to Nina that a Boomerang is just a Frisbee for ginger people BA DUM BOOM! To be fair she didn’t quite understand it and thus had to explain that they don’t have friends and have to play Frisbee on their own which took the sting out of the joke. A big difference travelling with girls is that when we arrive at a place instead of taking everything in one trip everything you will need I literally get hounded every hour as they want something else from the car they are also much more untidy than men even with Oli in the car.

So now up to Darwin am only 3 hours away as of writing this and need to get a job but so is every backpacker so I have a feeling it may be like a white man trying to get a farm job in Zimbabwe. Wish me luck.