Journey Through the Red Center of Australia

I've been back from my trip up through the center of Australia for about two weeks now, and I'm still coming down from the excitement and energy that trip gave me. I can honestly say the road trip will go down as one of the best I've ever taken. The scenery was incredible, the people I traveled with were fun and adventurous, and the tour companies we used were top notch. In fifteen days, we traveled nearly 4,000 km (2,500 miles) across the continent starting in Adelaide and ending in Darwin. To talk about all the incredible parts of the trip would take ages and volumes, so I won't even try. I would upload some pictures, but I'm having trouble figuring that out at the moment. Instead, a few interesting tid bits:

I saw more camels in the Outback than kangaroos. Apparently, when they were building the Gahn railway that runs north-south, they used camels and then let them run wild. They've thrived in the desert that is most of Australia and are so numerous they are set to sell camel meat in the Australian supermarkets soon.

A town we stayed at in the middle of South Australia called Coober Pedy began as a settlement of miners who were looking for opal. The town still exists today with most residents living underground or in the sides of huge earthen mounds. This type of living keeps the home a steady temperature in the hot desert, but makes for a very bleak looking town - no grass, red dirt everywhere, and not much else going on. Coober Pedy (pronounced pee-dee) means "white man's burrow" in one of the Aborignal languages of the area.

Uluru (Ayer's Rock) is the largest monolith in the world and was a difficult climb. There's controversy surrounding if we should be climbing it or not. The Aboriginal people of the area would rather people not simply to keep them safe from falling to their deaths. I debated not climbing it, but couldn't pass up the opportunity.

Sleeping outside every night in a swag on the ground, staring at the clearest starry sky you've ever seen is the only way to spend your time traveling the Outback. I saw the Southern Cross and gases of the Milky Way galaxy it was so dark. Sunrise and sunsets out there can not be matched either.

Once you cross the Tropic of Capricorn, termite mounds begin to show up as you exit the desert and enter more forested areas. The more north you travel the taller they get. Just outside of Alice Springs they were no higher than my shins. In Darwin, they towered over me at just about 10 or 12 feet high. The termites themselves are no bigger than a poppy seed.

In the Northern Territory, there are snakes, spiders, termites, cane toads, and most important crocodiles. The fresh water crocs are pretty harmless and more scared of you than you of them. Plus they only get about 3 feet long. The salties on the other hand... they will kill you. They get to be about 10 or 12 feet long, but have been seen as big as 16 feet (5 meters). Signs were up everywhere that said, "Saltwater crocodiles have been known to enter these areas undetected. Swim at your own risk."

Darwin is a great little town with a decidedly 70s look after the whole place was destroyed in the 1970s after a hugh cyclone hit. So the architecture is in the style of the times. Litchfield and Kakadu National Parks just outside of Darwin are full of amazing waterholes, cascades, and rock jumps. Some are only accessible with four-wheel drive vehicles. Lucky for us, we had some.

So, those are just some of the highlights of the places I went and the things I saw. I had an amazing group of travel partners and we had such a blast together. We also really enjoyed meeting the other travelers on the tours we took. In our groups, we met people from England, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and different parts of the U.S. I met a former Swiss guard who'd protected the Pope, a former professional footy player (who I just recently met back up with in Melbourne), and a French amateur didgeridoo player who made the Northern Territory jungles come alive with his excellent playing. Such a variety of people only added to the excellence of the trip.

So why not take another one? Tomorrow, I head off to Brisbane for a week to tour Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world, and the southern most parts of the Great Barrier Reef. It's sure to be a great trip to finish off my in between semester holiday.