All, Learn
“I must get to the other side. This is my quest, he waits for me”… a bearded armadillo stuck to a Nevada highway by his squashes, tire-marked midsection tells a perplexed chameleon anti-hero Rango. “The Spirit of the West, amigo. Enlightenment! Without it, we are NOTHING.”
To pretend our encounters with wildlife traffic casualties in various states of flattening and decay had been even half as philosophical as Verbinski’s Oscar winning masterpiece of animated filmmaking would be a lie. But on our 9860km Mighty road trip, we did see quite a few, in some areas so many dead kangaroos that it a) put us completely off driving at dusk & night and b) made us think.
In Australia alone, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an animal is hit and killed by a motor vehicle every second. The number of animals killed by cars in the United States is estimated to be around a million a day.
This of course takes into account smaller animals like mice, rabbits and cane toads (notoriously targeted on purpose by some Aussie drivers – studies using decoys have proven this!) but not millions of insects who end up on people’s windshields a la Men in Black. Yes, insects have feelings, too. Haven’t you seen Pixar’s “Antz”?
But apart from being a bit disgusting, undoubtedly sad and sometimes dangerous, there’s a lot of fun things you can do with road kill.
1) *Sizzle*, *squirt*, “’ere ya go, napkins are over there”
There is a quite prominent group of enthusiasts who enjoy eating your newly quashed squirrel, possum or moose. And not just Texas Tucker and his redneck family – small but established communities in the US, Southern Canada, the UK, Australia and other Western countries prize the freshness, organic status, low cost, high nutrient value and lack of chemical or hormonal agricultural additives “flat meat” (or, depending on where you are, “highway pizza”) offers.
The meat needs to be evaluated: “How fresh is it? How flat is it? Is it NOT a rat?” is a common eligibility test. If thoroughly cooked, it is no different than that obtained through hunting and the practice of preparing road kill for dinner is legal and even encouraged in some states.
In Canada, bears killed by accident may be donated to needy people for their meat, and in Alaska, whilst big game road kill – usually caribou or moose – are considered property of the state, troopers will allow volunteers to butcher a hit animal to donate to churches, needy families and soup kitchens on the condition that “it’s not too smooshed” (official technical term). Around 820 moose are donated each year.
Once you get over the ‘pancake with a tail’ factor, eating road kill makes a lot of sense. Even if establishments such as the annual Marlington West Virginia Cook-off and the Roadkill Café at Mindil beach’s Sunset Market in Darwin serve hunted animals, the variety of different meats encourages a huge diversification of the palette. It’s fun, social and encourages people to realize there are plenty of tasty and healthy alternatives to just eating environmentally hazardous steak. “You kill it, we grill it” and “From your grill to ours” – indeed.
There are a wide variety of road kill cookbooks available to try it out at home. In the UK, where traffic accidents are the number-one killer of badgers, ‘The Roadkill Chef’ Fergus Drennan pioneers foraging cuisine as environmentally responsible. There are few things he avoids, but not because he has “a problem with cats or dogs, …[but they’ve]… always got name tags on their collars” and he can’t quite agree eating them with having two cats of his own.
2) “Hey, Mindy, pull over a sec, there’s a BEAUTY!”
You don’t need to want to actual eat squashed animals if you’re after a bit of fun. Until recently you could buy Kraft Foods “Trolli” brand gummies – “US Road Kill edition” and feast on sweats shaped as partly flattened chickens, squirrels and snakes. They’ve been discontinued but the internet is a treasure chest for that kind of thing.
But if even that’s a little on the insensitive side for you, why not join marine scientist Len Zell on his road trips around Australia with the pure purpose of finding out a huge amount about a regions biodiversity from what ends up at the side of the road.
Rumble strips, which are installed to warn drivers when they drift off the centre of a road are elevated off the tarmac to cause the noise that alerts drivers. They also accumulate road salt which small and large wildlife in search of salt licks will stop at oblivious of the risk of being hit. Roads in Oz are built to have storm rainwater run off them, meaning that the sides of roads often get the best water supply away from creeks and vegetation attracts animals that feed on it.
You can tell a lot about an area’s local species numbers, their general health and even changes in a species makeup. American cliff swallows, as the name suggests, swallow their insect pray whole. They also like cliffs, whether naturally formed or artificial in the shape of bridge pylons.
A pair of scientists from the University of Tulsa have been studying cliff swallows dating back 30 years with the help of their relatively high death rate due to the proximity of the highway to their nesting grounds. They have found that an un-proportionately high amount of killed swallows has longer and slower wings, meaning that shorter-winged birds are now in the clear majority when nesting under bridges.
Interestingly over the 30 year study period, the amount of birds killed has gone down whilst the overall population has increased. That’s evolution for you right there, nut shelled into 30 years. Darwin would be proud of our Dragon’s favorite bird.
3) “3am emergency callout boys and girls, let’s go get stuffed!”
Almost as secretive as the illuminati, and as skilled as lumberjack ninjas, a group of highly reactive and collectively minded people are getting kicks out of hearing about our furry forest friends getting bulldozed. The occupation of this sophisticated group of snatch-n-grabbers? Taxidermists.
Now being adopted by the o-so-amazeballs hipster enclave, Taxidermy has been around a long time and its need for fresh animal bodies is fed by hunting, foraging and picking up unfortunate critters from the nation’s highways. What may sound macabre can be a genuinely beautiful art, lately with increasing numbers of women involved.
Artist Kimberly Witham has had some interesting run ins with the police as she explains the contents of her car’s boot: “a pair of running shoes, 10 jars of pickle, a case of Leinenkugel’s Red Lager, a dead mallard, stuffed fox, dead pheasant, bag of deer antlers and a kit equipped for a serial killer”.
Roadkill can also be the only chance for avid stuffers to get hold of endangered species that you can’t hunt and kill. Some countries such as Germany require you to report and register every hit animal with the local forestry department but getting to a carcass and registering before others do is a great opportunity to stuff something unusual. For bigger animals, trucks and strength in numbers are needed, so niche networks have formed across regions who help each other find and collect exciting specimen.
4) “Kaaaa-ching and sing, sing, sing”
Finally, if you’re hard up for cash, you can do the environment, wildlife and council a favour by adopting the rather unglamorous job of road kill collector. Whilst you’re on call 24/7 and especially active at night when most accidents happen, you can rest assured that you’re clearing the roads from hazards for other drivers and making sure scavenging animals (such as possums or birds of prey) eat the carcasses in the safety of a nearby forest as opposed to on the centre strip.
And when you get tired of scraping furry pancakes off tarmac in the rain at 3am, make sure you’re in Pennsylvania as you’ll get paid around $40 per deer, and as an average of 1800 deer are hit every year, you’ll be pocketing a salary of $72000. Not bad at all.
If all else fails, why not be creative and write a song along the lines of Louden Wainwright The Third’s 1972 smash hit “Dead skunk in the middle of the road, stinkin’ to high Heaven!” You’ll end up entertaining the nation way better than X Factor ever could.
Interesting fact of the day: it has emerged after the writing of this blog post that our Rat’s mum has met Mr Wainwright and enjoyed a live rendition, so make sure to add it to your next BBQ playlist. To find out all about cute critters they’re still alive, check out our definitive guide to Australia’s batshit crazy animals.
All, Inspire
It wasn’t the off-his-face, chanting, gesticulating, bare-chested backpacker in the middle of the road holding up central Darwin traffic and our taxi outside Shenanigans Pub. It also wasn’t having to cough up 30 bucks for 300mb of very limited mobile phone internet where we’d been previously charging up our various unlimited international SIM cards across 18 counties for peanuts.
It was walking into Coles supermarket on our first night in Australia that simply blew us away leaving a lasting feeling similar to the one you get when visiting your former high school. Everything felt so familiar yet completely alien at the same time.
It’s well known that travel opens your mind, even if you bypass Thailand’s mushroom shake-fuelled full moon parties. Depending on your preferred level of adventure, your life’s frame of reference will either be nudged, bent or completely torn apart. Which is a great thing for those who feel life has more to offer and want to challenge themselves, or disastrous for those who need structure to thrive. Cue joining a Tibetan mountaintop monastery for months of silent meditation or dedicating your life to Sea Shepherd and increased narcissistic Facebook posts about how, out of all of your investment banker friends, you’re the only one making a difference, man.
Blasting apart everything your subconscious relies on to make sense of the world results in what the experts frequently refer to as culture shock – just like jumping into a hole hacked into a frozen lake at new years eve in Sweden, your brain goes into overdrive whilst you adjust to your new surroundings. What is not so well discussed is an even weirder phenomenon: reverse culture shock.
We had spent the last two weeks in historically war torn Timor, which we arrived at following a three day public ferry trip tracking young David Attenborough’s steps through Indonesia’s eastern islands accompanied by around 5000 locals sleeping on cardboard on deck. Getting around town in shared micro-busses blaring out trashy techno and eating hand made meals at the side of dusty roads brought us in constant contact to Timor’s lovely, crazy, scarred and sometimes somewhat feral locals and made us appreciate whatever the world threw at us. Not that it was a conscious choice: if you don’t chill out, you go crazy or you go home.
When people only have scraps, they create their houses, pleasures, and lives from scratch, which makes everything unique. Experiences were sometimes wonderful, sometimes infuriating. Meals were sometimes breathtaking, and sometimes they gave you Typhoid (hint, hint: historic #WTFFriday still up for grabs!). Walking into a supermarket for the first time in 3 months was strange, as there seemed to be so much choice/excess, so much assurance you won’t get sick/sanitisation and homogenisation of animals, plants and life. Everything was so familiar (YEY Tim Tams!), yet everything seemed so soulless.
But hang on, dear reader, we’re not out to poo-poo one side and glorify another. In fact experiencing these opposing forces has influenced our experience on Leg 5 of the Epic Journey so profoundly it has shaken up our own understanding of travel and it’s impact it can have on life. It has confronted us directly with such opposing facts and feelings that can only work together, which has taught us a very important thing: you can judge and opinionate about absolutely everything. Or you can see things for what they are and appreciate things on a more rounded level without having to agree 100% all the time.
Of course, most people would like to see war, life-threatening diseases, and dire social injustice eradicated. Imagine all the people, living life in peace and so on, you know the drill. But most other topics of conversation over the last 8 months have come down to opinion and taste.
It’s rather fashionable these days to travel where nobody else has. The words “off the beaten track” are regularly used as a necessary mark of authenticity of a backpacker and assurance of quality for trips. It seems the beaten track is nowadays populated by one single gecko, clinging desperately to a piece of tumbleweed blowing in the breeze.
When you book your newest adventure to be taken seriously on Facebook about, you’re going to be heading off to a Peruvian hill tribe camp, an orphanage in Calcutta or climbing Indonesia’s blue flaming Ijen volcano. But how many Aussies have been to Uluru or Kroombit? How many Brits have been to the Lake District or Scotland? Everyone wants to get a photo eating scorpions in some exotic night market, but very few see the ‘travel moment’ merit in a decent roadhouse burger.
We’re tending to measure ourselves against the intensity of our own and our audience’s culture shock potential. What we have found on Leg 5 though, is not the problem with this ‘spiritual, cultural, political, Gap-Yah’ type of travel, but the under-appreciation for any other type.
Arriving back in the well-travelled first world environment of Australia, we were amazed at the most banal things. The bus the helpful dude on the street told you about actually exists. You can throw toilet paper into the loo. There is toilet paper. You can find out what meat’s in your food. You can’t get fresh fish grilled on the beach at 11pm. You have to pay for parking. You can’t get unlimited internet on your phone.
Australia, so familiar an environment had suddenly become this new world to discover for the sake of it, not just a place to get drunk with a huge amount of German and French backpackers who regularly complained that they’ve actually never met Australians. Granted, we did have 10000km of roads to explore, but we did so with an open mind, without constantly thinking: “oh, yes, we’ve seen this before, we grew up with this, this is normal life, this is not exotic enough for a real travel destination to talk about”.
On our final leg, thanks to all of the experiences on our way to Australia, we were able to enjoy the wonders, incredible landscapes, crazy and eccentric and very ordinary Australians on our journey (read all about it!), that for some, are part of their day-to-day lives. But so are the Dili fish markets, Malaysian street food stalls, Vietnamese dilapidated colonial buildings, Chinese bamboo skyscraper scaffolding and Siberian dog sleds. These are other people’s banal, day-to-day sights.
There are wonders to be experiences when you leave your front doorstep to fly off to a far off country who’s capital you can’t pronounce. But there are also wonders to be experiences just behind your back garden. Don’t measure the value of your trip by your culture shock, but experience the world in its entirety, and the fantastic people you will meet absolutely everywhere. Even in Scotland.
All, Learn
CCRAAAASHHHHHHHHH, SLAM, Bang bang bang bang… “Oh crap, I think I left one of the draws open”. We stop at the side of the road and the living, eating and sleeping space behind our drivers cabin is full of tshirts, notepads, plactic plates, muesli bars, knickers and an Aussie flag towel.
Never before have I had to be so careful where I put my stuff. Even on a boat, where all loose items have to be secured at all times it’s a lot easier to remember to do so if you’re rocking around 24/7. But being the campervan novices that we were when we hit Australia, we had a month’s worth of learning ahead of us. Sometimes frustrating, sometimes hilarious but always exciting, we soon found out how well thought out this little Rhino camper of ours really is.
With all the things we had never even imagined would be important on a massive 10,000km road trip across an entire continent, we want to share the love and spare a few headaches with our beginner’s guide to camper-vaning (yes, this is a verb. we think.):
1) Seeing stuff
The whole point of going on a road trip is to have a real independent adventure with the wind in your hair and the open road ahead. If you’ve been so caught up in organizing which tie-dye-dream-catcher hippy hat and aviator combo you’re going to wear and turning your bedroom upside down in the search for your driving license, fret not.
The best way to find the hottest secret treasures you can see along the way is by asking people local to the area you’re visiting. Tourist info places are great as it is their job to know about the local attractions and they often have free booklets, maps and discount deals. They can also point you in the direction of National Parks, where you can camp and get to awesome waterfalls, trekking trails and viewpoints way before the crowds arrive. If you’re planning to hit Oz, check out the places we saw on our way from Darwin to Sydney, via Uluru and Cairns.
Take your time when you pick up your van as you want to be able to get used to driving it and get a good tour of all its features by the experts who you’re hiring it off. Said experts (we got our Mighty van from THL) also have a really good idea of places in their area that are off the main tourist radar but just as awesome as (if not even more awesome than) the Lonely Planet highlights. And as camping is so social – you’re pulling up next to someone new every night – sound out what other people have seen, what they thought was worth a visit (and what wasn’t) and be open to changing your plans if a rare opportunity arises. One-in-a-lifetime super-moon rise in the desert, anyone?
2) Sleeping
Most places with a thriving campervan industry will have loads of places to stay. National Parks have various camping options from wild camping, low-cost, no frills places to fully serviced campsites with electricity and water points where you can connect your van costing between $20 and $50 a night (remember to disconnect your electricity and water supply BEFORE moving your van. #justsayin’).
Most of the land outside the parks is owned by someone, and certain areas inside the parks are off limits (the Uluru area is particularly restrictive, you CAN’T stay overnight close to the rock) so always check that it’s legal for you to stay in the place you’ve found.
If you’re more chilled knowing you have somewhere to stay that night, get yourself a local SIM for mobile phone access (Telstra is the way to go in the outback) and book ahead that night and make sure to over-estimate driving times. No matter what Google says, add another 20%, an hour for lunch and an hour for activities as many campsites in the Red Centre close at 6pm (!), when night falls and driving becomes dangerous ‘cause silly Skippy (i.e. the kangaroo) gets active. Other countries may have other considerations, so ask the hirers for any local quirks so you’re not left stranded at locked gates.
Campers are notoriously exposed to the weather, which is a big part of the fun. Oh, those childhood memories of digging a trench in a thunderstorm around the collapsing tent in Dorset… But the desert has its own set of climate clinches. Yes, it’s friggin hot during the day, but also friggin cold at night, so ask your hirer if they have extra blankets if you’re prone to getting cold. Deserts also flood – check the best time of year for your planned trip, flash floods ain’t fun unless you’re that bearded Noah dude.
Getting away from the city is also a big bonus, but hold your horses until you’ve stocked up on food, as bigger cities have way more variety and much lower prices than that tiny hut owned by that sideburned Emu farmer 5 hours from the nearest neighbour in the middle of the outback. The same goes for petrol – if you have a chance to fill up, DO SO. Some days we re-fuelled 3 times to be able to make the distances we covered. You don’t want to get stuck in the middle of said nowhere where cars pass on average once a week. We’ve all seen Wolf Creek. And if you haven’t – it ain’t pretty.
3) Eating
On the note of food, our kitchen was really awesome – we cooked most of our meals in it, and they were GOOD. Lamb chop on a bed of haricot vertes with mango salsa? Done. Char grilled peppers stuffed with goats cheese and couscous confit? Done. Go as painfully middle class as you like, and pack leftover quinoa and goose liver pate in ziplock bags to save space in the pod-sized fridge.
Our van had nifty draws that you could lock closed with a push of a button, you’ll learn to do that quickly as leaving them open results in the chaos of spilled wild rice and organic muesli bars. Same goes with driving off and leaving windows and doors open. Just don’t do it. If you pick up your van first, you’ll not have to carry food across town, just trolley it to your van, and you’ll know what fits and what doesn’t. Maybe give that giant fresh Tuscan salami a miss.
4) And finally…..Driving
When hiring a campervan, driving is kind of a big deal. You may need an international driving license (we didn’t). You may need to drive on the opposite side of the road than you’re used to. You may mix up indicators with windscreen wipers. You can only take as many people as fit in the front cabin, each on one seat with one seatbelt. No imitating Priscilla, Queen of the Desert then. For better or for worse, thanks to Health & Safety those days are over.
A camper is roughly double the height and length of a car, and whilst we had to look out for trees when parking, we loved the high-seated view and found Rhino surprisingly easy to drive. If you’re not confident, and always want your travel buddy to drive, why not try out driving a van on a safe, quiet road in the middle of nowhere? Best place to try and you’re guaranteed to surprise yourself.
Finally, we can’t stress enough to not underestimate distances (see above). Don’t drive at dusk or night as all the cute fluffy animals you’ve been feeding in the wildlife parks will be on the road and drawn to the headlights of your car like moths to a candle. They really are that suicidal, and we stopped counting the road kill at the side of the Stuart Highway on day 3. Crashing the van into a massive boxing roo or (like one of the couples we met) hitting a rare eagle that was chomping away at a recently squashed Wallaby in the centre line just isn’t worth it.
Exploring a country by camper is fantastic. It’s a real adventure and the possibilities of being in control of your own home, kitchen and transport is incredibly liberating. If you’re planning on Oz, check out our route for inspiration. If not, let us know where you went in the comments, we’d love to hear from you.
Wherever you end up, have fun and drive safe. Oh, and seriously, don’t forget to fuel up!
Alternatively, check out our handy guide in film format!
All, Destinations
Part 2: Cairns – Sydney
(see also Part 1: Darwin – Cairns)
The East Coast. Australia’s string of endless backpacker hotspots, and we find ourselves standing right at the northern end of it, in Port Douglas. There are an incredible amount of things to do and see, so take this as a starting point.
We’ve spent the last 2 weeks driving through Australia’s Red Centre with our trusty Mighty Camper Rhino, filming for THL. 2000km from Northern croc-crazy town Darwin to the heart of the continent at Uluru we backtracked 1000km up the Stuart Highway where we took the only right turn in days and cut 2000km across Western Queensland. We hit the Pacific Ocean, could go no further East, and now saw the windy ribbon of the aptly named Bruce Highway disappear into the horizon.
Leg 3: Cairns to Brisbane
Delving straight into some local aboriginal culture, Juan Walker took us on a bush tucker walk through the mangrove forests, low tide beaches and to a spectacular swimming rock pool in Mossman Gorge. “I’ve come here since I was a kid. These leaves are great for insect bites. These ants taste of sherbet”. We try them, and to our delight, they do. We have some more.
“Oh, look, a mudcrab! Let’s catch it, it’s tasty.” Down goes the bamboo spear narrowly missing his feet and with one stab Juan pulls an enormous buck out of the sea (he’s done this before!). Cooking it up with incredible, chorizo-tasting mussels and snails we collected later, we find out he’s spot on. Tasty doesn’t even start to describe this mouthwatering meal.
Cairns is our next stop, and with its established backpacker culture we feel right at home as we join the Tusa team on a scuba diving trip on the infamous Great Barrier Reef. Marveling at an array of multi coloured fish, turtles and coral was perfectly topped off with an evening’s BBQ at Holloways Beach (just south of Yorkeys Knob. Yep, Knob.) with a bunch of new camper friends. Oh, the carefree life.
About 3 hours drive south of Cairns, the small sugar cane town of Tully has laid its mark on the map by erecting a giant, golden, 8m high gumboot, frog and all, to mark the record rainfall for Tully in 1950. Climb to the top using the inbuilt spiral staircase, enjoy the view of the sugar cane refinery and count yourself lucky to have witnessed the marvel of one of Australia’s famous ‘Big Things’. We did – it was special.
Also in Tully, locals Caroline and Doug took us on a Kayaking trip down Bulgan Creek which was an incredibly enjoyable way to find out all about the local indigenous culture and their connection to the region’s stunning jungle environment and endangered crazy animal Cassowary. Don’t know what it is? Read this.
Further down the Bruce highway we came face to face with these incredible creatures at the Billabong Sanctuary in Townsville whilst furry wild kangaroos and wallabies crowded around us waiting to be hand fed. A short ferry ride over to stunningly beautiful Magnetic Island meant we got to stay at the only van camping ground on the island – Koala Village. And it gets even better as Koala Village is one of the very few places in Australia you can personally hug a real live fluffy Koala – if you promise to pretend to be a tree.
Thanks to the Curlews keeping us up all night with their spooky wailing cries, we woke bleary eyed to a gorgeous sunrise and headed off without breakfast on the next stretch of Bruce. A big adventure lay ahead as the very next morning, we boarded the Derwent Hunter, a 1946 Tasmanian Tall Ship, to sail, snorkel and film the passengers and awesome crew in the famous Whitsundays.
Turtle spotting, lounging on coral cays and jumping off deck, we soaked up as much water as we could, as we were also preparing for our next stop, which was to be entirely different.
In the heart of the Kroombit Tops National Park, about 4 hours drive inland from Rockhampton, we left the beach, big roads and bustle behind to get deep into Queensland’s cattle territory. Owned and run by wonderful couple Alan and Carol with their (grown up) children Brent, Kerry and son-in-law Andrew, the functioning cattle station welcomes campers, backpackers, families and those in desperate need of an anti-rat-race holiday. We helped muster Queensland’s cutes… we mean WILDEST goats, learned to lasso, shoot and square dance and took a wonderful horseback ride around the stunningly beautiful countryside.
With meals cooked over an open fire and billy tea on demand all day we could have easily stayed here longer, but this production is on a tight schedule so we begrudgingly said our goodbyes and headed for Brisbane. Who would have thought a place could have such a great impact after such a short amount of time? We’ll be back.
Brisbane – our first big city! We couldn’t believe our eyes as we drove through the towering skyscrapers, public transport network and people in suits everywhere. People with mortgages, dental plans and proper jobs. We certainly hadn’t seen this since Jakarta, and that was a very different type of metropolis.
Even more surprising than the forgotten-but-familiar city-feel was how close everything was to a huge amount of outdoor activities, from abseiling down Kangaroo Point cliffs in the heart of the business district to kayaking past the skyscrapers and under Story Bridge with our guide James.
Moreton Island, the world’s third biggest sand island, is also only an hour away by boat. Whilst the clockwork-run Tangalooma resort may not be everyone’s cup of tea, they provide great facilities and access to 6 minute helicopter rides and sand boarding on the 200m high sand dunes that are comparable in size to dunes in Iran. And if that wasn’t thrilling enough, you could snorkel around a row of shipwrecks and hand-feed wild dolphins in a thunderstorm. Yes, it was that spectacular.
Leg 4: Brisbane to Sydney
Get your fake tan on, then wash it off. Get your tie die pants on. Then get your pants off completely and moon someone. Basically, do the Gold Coast-Byron-Spot X Surf Camp dance.
So close yet so culturally different and all three completely obsessed with surfing, we swam through the haze of ‘it’ girls, veneers and six packs to hippy heaven and beyond to the east coast’s quintessential surfers dream. The Gold Coast welcomed us with Miami-style shiny high-rise flats and Ibiza style nightlife along an endless beach where we shot for an afternoon and fuelled up on fish & chips whilst fending off a bunch of rogue ibis.
The next day brought the polar opposite in the place everyone seems to get stuck nowadays. We were in hippy enclave Byron Bay, where we couldn’t move without stumbling over either an organic, fairtrade, profit-share hemp café or a group of tousle-haired, guitar strumming fisherman-pant sporting 55-year-old ex-university lecturers and fresh-faced backpackers. We soaked up the incredible views from Byron’s Lighthouse (interestingly mainland Australia’s most Eastern point) as hump back whales cruised past slapping their pectoral fins. No wonder people do yoga here at sunrise.
Spot X, or Arrawarra as outnumbered non-Mojo-ites call it, brought us only 1 day’s drive from our final destination Sydney. Set on a creek mouth, the camp is anything an aspiring or laid back surfer could wish for. Empty mile-long beach, the availability of lessons for those who want to learn from scratch or improve, social dorm accommodation and at least 3 parties a week (if you’re good at inspiring them).
And then it hit us – in a couple of days we would arrive. At the end of not only the Mighty Road Trip, but our entire overland Epic Journey from London to Sydney. As we swung by Port Stephens for some somewhat rushed sand dune quad biking and later that day drove up the windy roads to the Blue Mountains, we found ourselves feeling both excited and daunted by the prospect of arriving and completing such an immense project.
Sunrise at Echo Point overlooking the gorge and Three Sisters rock formation made us inhale deeply, and contemplate the 40,000km of the surface of this earth that we’d covered over the last 9 months. Walking around Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House with Kalkani and Margret hearing all about the aboriginal heritage in the area added yet another layer to the scene we’d seen on thousands of post cards.
We were finally here. It was an incredible ending to an incredible journey. To top it off, Saxon jumped out of a perfectly good plane on his first ever skydive. But it’s not over yet. Keep your eyes peeled for our final Epic Journey post, coming soon. Off to Surry Hills, time for a well deserved beer.
Leg 2: Cairns to Brisbane
Leg 3: Brisbane to Sydney
All, Destinations
Part 1: Darwin – Cairns
40000km into the Epic Journey and we are looking at our last of 19 countries as its enormous expanse hits the horizon and continues for thousands of miles beyond. We have made it to Australia. And if we weren’t excited enough already, we are also admiring the silhouette of our newest travel buddy as he stands against the sunrise. Let us introduce Rhino, our Mighty Campervan, who we will be shooting, driving, cooking and sleeping in for the next month all in a mission to capture Australia’s incredible destinations in a suite of seven films for THL. Filled with incredible destinations, awesome people and whacky animals, Australia has some of the world’s most unique experiences to offer. So without further ado, let’s jump right in.
Leg 1: Darwin to Alice Springs
To say that the Mighty Australian Road Trip started with a bang would be an understatement. Suspended in mid water, with only a thin piece of Perspex between herself and a cold-blooded killing machine, a brave backpacker stares transfixed. Face to face with Chopper, a 6 meter long, human-eating Salt Water Crocodile, she hardly manages to suppress the screams as Chopper snaps his enormous jaws tearing apart his lunch just centimetres from where she’s floating, adding some intimidating scratch marks to the plastic human cage.
This is Crocosaurus Cove, slap bang in the centre of Darwin, capital of the Northern Territory, where the brave and reckless enjoy the ultimate inner-city thrill ride by getting close and personal with Northern Australia’s apex predator. Crocosaurus Cove also gave spectators a unique opportunity to have a really good long look at a few really massive crocs, from above and below thanks to huge viewing windows in the sides of the pools, as well as marvelling at how streamline these enormous beasts move through the water, and how big their tails are (!).
If, just like our Rat, you can’t quite believe that these are real live animals, not some incredibly intricate animatronics masterpiece from the latest Godzilla blockbuster, all you need to do is head out about 2 hours from town and meet up with Morgan and Harry Bowman, who were recently published in the NT News as being two of the 50 most interesting people in the state.
The true blue local pair run daily cruises on Adelaide River, ferrying unsuspecting groups out on a small boat with a chest high wire fence around it just to have real life wild crocs spectacularly jump all the way out of the water to grab chunks of meat dangled by Morgan. Ranging from 1.5 meter nipper Bullet, who did his name proud, to 5.5 meter three legged, shark eating celebrity croc Brutus, the river is also home to stunning bird life, which we learned all about whilst Morgan fed a wild kite and kept everyone safe and happy.
We headed on to Lichfield national park with its beautiful waterfalls and impressive termite mounds, which form eerie fields reminiscent of endless grave yards, especially when you see the towering structures clothed with old t-shirts and hats, peaking through the bush at you like patiently watching spirits. In the US, the hills may have eyes, here it’s the termite mounds who are definitely seeing what you’re up to.
An altogether different magical experience awaited us early one morning at Mataranka. Ask a kid to draw a perfect fairy pool in the middle of the outback, and this is the place we arrived at before sunrise to swim in the crystal clear, hot, calmly steaming, thermal pool of Bitter Springs. Another 1000km and 8 hours down the road, we captured Devil’s Marbles at sunset – huge, round, ochre-red geographical rock formations bathed in golden light, and just 10 minutes drive from Wycliffe Well, Australia’s official UFO capital. All those abduction newspaper clippings can’t be made up…
Our final stretch took us to the huge aboriginal statues of a man and a woman, child and goanna at Aileron, Alice Springs and world famous Uluru, or Ayres Rock if you don’t know the original Aboriginal name for this incredible place at the centre of Australia. Learning some of the stories surrounding the rock on the Mala walk along the base of Uluru put this astounding geographical formation into historical, cultural and spiritual context which added hugely to our appreciation of the best known icon of the Red Centre.
Leg 2: Uluru to Cairns
With no trip to film per se, Rat, Dragon and Rhino re-traced our steps 1000km through the desert along the Stuart Highway to Three Ways, where a lonely roadhouse with great burgers marked the only westward turn off from an otherwise empty north-south running strip of tarmac. Darwin to Alice is a relatively peaceful drive with little traffic, but we were nevertheless greeted with waves by fellow campers and road trains at least 5 times a day. The turn-off at Three Ways marked the beginning of a real desolate stretch of road, and spectacular scenery to accompany us.
Our first stop was Camooweal on the Queensland boarder, which proudly proclaimed to be 231m above sea level with a population of 310 on a painted plaque outside the town perimeters. The road house that hosted us for the night confirmed this was on a good day, usually there are around 170 fixed residents. Heading further west we followed instructions from Camooweal’s petrol station and set our clocks 1 hour and 5 years forward, as we were now in Queensland.
Through wide open prairies and hilly mine country we arrived in Julia Creek, staying at what was possibly Australia’s friendliest campsite in what is definitely Australia’s friendliest outback town. Just down the road in Richmond, we marvelled at the local collection of dinosaur fossils including an incredibly well preserved Kronosaurus Queenslandicus, one of the largest marine reptiles in the world and with 30cm teeth a definite contender for Australia’s most crazy animal list.
And then, after 5000km of driving from Australia’s most northern city, through the heart of the Red Centre outback and west Queensland’s vast prairies and mining landscapes, our journey westwards comes to an end as we hit the immensity of the big blue Pacific Ocean.
We have seen some incredible places already, and were only half way! Keep your eyes peeled for Part 2 of the great Mighty Road Trip adventure. In the words of Monty Python: “Australia, Australia, Australia. We love you. Amen.”
The Mighty Road Trip Hero
Leg 1: Darwin to Alice Springs
