Up to Date

Okay, for some reason the blog is not uploading pictures anymore, so I will call it a day. Heather arrived a few days ago in Darwin and we're having a blast! Phil and I have eaten our way through Darwin and seen the inside of many pubs - definetly the blast of urban life that we needed to revive us!

I will try to update this much, much more often (at least for my sanity as I don't know how many 2 hr computer sessions I can handle!) and keep you all abreast of our trip.

love to all,
Andrea (and Phil)

Uluru and Kata Tjuta

We arrived in Alice Springs a day earlier than we had expected and picked Jude up the following day. After a day or two of poking around the town and seeing some local sights, we made our way over to Uluru (aka Ayer's Rock) and Kata Tjuta (aka The Olgas). I wasn't sure how great The Rock would be, especially after all the hype you see out here - hundreds of postcards and pictures of it everywhere - but it was phenomenal. It is huge, so much bigger than I would have imagined, and it has so many details you never see from far away. The color is amazing as well, it changes so drastically from bright orange to purple to brown throughout the day. I have included only this one pic of Phil and his cousin (Jude) and I, but you can all see my pics when I get home.

We did a walk around Kata Tjuta for an afternoon which was great as well. How can two rocky outcrops, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, look so different? It is crazy, the rock is completely different but equally cool.

Winton and Plenty Highway

Winton, like Longreach, had loads to offer. We saw the Waltzing Matilda Museum which gives more information, and renditions of the song, than you would ever want. It was aparently written in Winton, or maybe sung there originally (the info over-load seems to have overwritten what I learned there!).

We also went to see some awesome dino tracks and to a random museum that had pioneering info, as well as a big chunk on dinosaurs. Maybe the highlight of our sightseeing was "(probably) the World's biggest deckchair" in the open air deckchair cinema. As you can see, it's big. We even got to see a screening of some Popeye at the cinema one evening!

We had our first taste of 4wd-ing in Central Australia on the Plenty Highway which went from the tiny, friendly town of Boulia to Alice Springs. All in all it took 10.5 hrs (better than the 13 h estimates we were hearing) and we did it in one day and got bogged in a semi-dried mud pit once. It was great fun! We even got to see 'roos jumping alongside us at dawn.

Carnarvon Gorge, Emerald and Longreach

We journeyed onto Carnarvon Gorge where we took a 14km walk to see the Moss Gardens, Ward's Canyon and some great rock art. Although that seems to sum it up well, the walk was great and what we saw was really amazing.

We stopped in Emerald for the night and checked out its train station and, get this, the world's largest Van Gogh painting. It was really, really big (you can see Phil and Neil at the bottom of the picture) and has nothing at all to do with this town.

Longreach was one of those towns with so much to do. First stop was the Stockman's Hall of Fame which detailed the pioneering history of the Aussie outback. The best part was definetly the video of a man boxing a kangaroo!

We also took in the QANTAS Founders Museum where we got a tour of a Boeing 747. Now, I have been on a lot of planes heading from here to there and was kind of dubious about how good a plane tour could be, but it was really great. We got a detailed description of how things like the weather detectors worked and even got a quick tour of the cockpit! I learned, for instance, that a plane can run on a single engine and it keeps fuel in its wings.

We took a nice boat ride up the Thompson River one night and enjoyed whip tricks, fish, steak, a nice sunset and wine out of a can - how can you beat canned wine?

Into the Center...

After Fraser we headed to Noosa, which is a really trendy town with loads of gorgeous restaurants and nice shops. We stayed in this wicked apartment facing right on the river. The highlight was when this little boat playing rag-time music would journey past in the evening, cranking its tunes loud enough that we could enjoy it from our balcony. We also rented a boat for a few hours and Phil ferried us around to see the expensive houses and to enjoy a bit of fishing. I caught a fish!!

After Noosa we started our journey through to Alice Springs. Our first stop was Roma, a town with a a bakery called "Bake A-roma" and very delicious steak restaurant where the meat was on display for the choosing. We enjoyed both lunch and dinner there. We also spent a proportionally large amount of our time taking pictures of bottle trees which, as you can see, are very cool.

I think my favorite part of inland Queensland is that every town you go to has its own tourist attraction that, by and large, is fabulous. We spent a few hours poking around the Big Rig to learn about the oil and gas industry in Australia. Though it sounds boring, it was great! The best part was this hallway that let you "journey through time" back to the age of the dinosaurs to see how oil forms. The last stage was the oil getting drilled out - so it looks like you're in a cave and a drill bit bursts through the ceiling. It was great!

Sorry for the delay!!! Fraser Island

Sorry again for the two month delay, but here goes...

Phil's parents, Maria and Neil, arrived in Bundy in early May. From there we went to Fraser Island which was awesome. We were staying in the gorgeous Kingfisher resort and we all enjoyed the nice layout of the place and the food, (you could say it was to d-d-d-die for). The second day we all loaded up in the car and went out 4wd-ing. We got bogged in the sand almost straight off, but lowered the tire pressure and got out (with the help on an Aussie) no prob. The big problem came as we were leaving Lake McKenzie parking lot; when Phil turned the key - nothing, just some clicking sounds. We popped the hood and everything seemed fine, but maybe the constant bumping on the rough tracks had loosened something or killed the starter motor? The only way to get moving was to roll-start the car, it wouldn't even jump start! We had to scrap our plans of heading up to the wreck on the coast on the third day and we had to let Big Red idle on the 45 min crossing back to the mainland. Anyway, we got to Hervey Bay and had an auto electrician take a look... it turns out our new car had a "kill switch" which immobilizes the car so no one can steal it - a handy feature, especially when you know about it!