Darwin to Cairns in four days!

Country: Australia by Lisette

09-11-2004

Riding to the never-ending horizon.

Desperate to see the world famous outback I decided not to fly from Darwin to Cairns (northeast of Australia) and booked a tour. It took us, a group of ten people, four long days on very, very long roads in very, very hot weather to get to Cairns.

The scenery was amazing; we saw wetlands, savannah, desert and rainforest as we drove hours towards the seemingly never-ending horizon. We also saw a huge quantity of black flies that were determined to not leave us alone; we felt the not-so-well-kept roads as we drove around for 12 hours; and we slept in great and ordinary places. What I remember most is that we were never able to get rid of all the dust.

Another fascinating, “Australian”, thing is the road train. A road train is used in remote areas to move freight, such as livestock or fuel, efficiently. Some isolated communities are reliant on regular service. Australia has the largest and heaviest road-legal vehicles in the world (according to Wikipedia, with some configurations topping out at close to 200 tons. The majority is between 80 and 120 tons; these are the one I have seen.

A modest sized road train

I clicked most with an older couple, Barry and Avis (who five years late came to our wedding!) and Mia, a girl from South Korea. Unofficially I am now Mia’s older sister and she named me Sister number 1. Barry and Avis ‘adopted’ me as their daughter; in a later blog post I will share about meeting them in Brisbane and hanging out with their sons.

My “Ozzie” family from left to right: Mia, Barry, Avis, and I.