S M F G · A Counter-Clockwise Trip Around The World

On the road again!

Sep 18th 2009
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After over ten days in Darwin, and after calling all the people selling cars, things finally started to go the right way :-) I have a car now, and I also managed to go for a week-end trip to the Kakadu National Park with some of the CSers staying at Noodle’s with me.

I’m writing now from Alice Springs, in the red centre of Australia. It was a long trip — 1500 km through a very monotonous landscape — but now I feel free: in a place like Australia you really need to have your own wheels. After a couple of days resting (= not driving) I hit the MacDonnell Ranges, Uluru and Kata Tjuta and the Kings Canyon.

I do have photos of that, but — as you can probably imagine — being there is a completely different matter. Especially the strength of Uluru/Ayers Rock is something that photos cannot tell.

There I learnt a few more tales from the creation and more about the Tjukurpa. I was especially fascinated when a woman in her fifties asked the guide about the Aboriginals belief that huge god-moles dug their way through the rock leaving the holes we can see today: Moles are tiny animals, it’s silly thinking they can make holes that big, innit? I hardly refrained myself from asking if talking snakes and virgin births were more familiar and reassuring concepts for her :-)

After the big endless red landscape it is now time to cross the Tropic again: the new destination is Cairns, Queensland, land of beaches, reef barrier and tropical forest, as well as renewed town of party-inclined backpackers!

[hana-flv-player video=”/video/kakadu02.flv” more_3=”showplayer=autohide&playeralpha=0&showplayer=autohide&margin=0″ /]

A big crocodile (i.e. 4 m) is peacefully swimming a couple of metres from our boat


This post is filed under Australia, Oceania and tagged , , , , , .

9 Responses

  1. Ally says:

    good to see you back on the road.
    australia seems to be harder than you thought!

  2. buck! says:

    Waiting for the photos… ;P

    • pt says:

      So am I ;-)

      I post here below my utterly frustrating situation at the moment:

      \begin{copy+paste}

      [1929]pt@raso.0>~$ rsync –archive –human-readable –progress –partial –partial-dir=partial –copy-unsafe-links –copy-dirlinks –keep-dirlinks –delete-after –exclude=tn/ –exclude=”*html” /home/pt/foto/ piergi@traversin.org:foto/
      building file list …
      8665 files to consider
      2009/08/29/
      2009/08/29/20090829-pa10819-ef000.jpg
      3.36M 100% 3.08kB/s 0:17:45 (xfer#1, to-check=342/8665)
      2009/08/29/20090829-pa10823-ef000.jpg
      2.40M 100% 2.57kB/s 0:15:12 (xfer#2, to-check=341/8665)
      2009/08/29/20090829-pa10828-ef000.jpg
      2.38M 100% 2.56kB/s 0:14:55 (xfer#3, to-check=340/8665)
      2009/08/29/20090829-pa10829-ef000.jpg
      2.30M 100% 2.33kB/s 0:15:51 (xfer#4, to-check=339/8665)

      \end{copy+paste}

      The key figures here are the time needed for uploading a single photo: 15 minutes, 14 minutes, 17 minutes(!)

      This is what I have at the moment. I am uploading to the web site today the photos from August 29th, then I have to organise them in galleries, put the captions and so on. I know that rsync is not the fastest thing out there, but I am so not uploading by hand hundred of photos in groups of five or six, plus rsync goes unattended (by the way, in Perth one photo was between 1.5 minutes average).

      I so hope to find a better connection!

      Thanks for following.
      Piergi

  3. Ally says:

    Nop,
    never received the SMS….

  4. marco says:

    taiarse i cavei no?

  5. palindrodromica says:

    A long, long, long, long time ago – Before the wind, before the snow –
    Lived a man, lived a man I know – Lived a freak of nature named Sir Psycho –
    … in a tv-program about lucky survivors, I saw a man, who was attack from a crocodile on 60 cm deep water (i guess he was from Terra Australis Incognita). he did manage in cold blood pushing and opening a lung-membrane with his hand putted inside the mouth, through deep throat and sharped teeth (not my cousin). feel free to use this expedient if you need, also with woman in her fifties
    but in a way, we are so close everyday, we cross the crocodile-infested office by barefoot (send you a lovely picture one of this days)
    I, upside-down-here, would love to take a long trip — 1500 km through a very “stereotonous” landscape like that,
    because you know, i do every day fifty “monotonous” km forth and back home–>work–>home and then i eat meat_and_salad kmO(zero)Ø

    “humans are silly animals, it’s freaky thinking they have holes such big, innit?”

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