On the road again!
Look at this little fellow that Glen spotted on the edge of the road while driving! At
first we were a little reluctant because the THORNY DEVIL has a really frightening outer
appearance, but then we learned that he only eats ants (and lots of them) and is one of the few creatures
out here which is NOT poisonous! So he turned sooo sweet and everybody wanted to hold him.
To scare away his potential enemies, he has a spiky or thorny skin
(which does not feel too spiky however) and a kind of second head behind his real head
which he peaks out to confuse the aggressor. Otherwise he is well disguised and a slow mover...
... with quite an impressing coloration on the belly. We still wonder how Glen could
make out this little creature next to the road!
While travelling east through the Great Victoria Desert, always following the Great
Central Road, we did not only keep an eye out for the unique Australian wildlife of the
Red Centre, but also stopped at viewpoints or to visit aboriginal waterholes,
caves, gorges and art sites. This is one of the caves we visited...
...and Stephan has already spotted some sleeping bats...
...while we are looking at a waterhole, now empty as almost all waterholes we saw, due
to the long dry period that Western Australia had been facing.
Desert near the cave.
Isn't this landscape fascinating?
What - a bus stop in the middle of nowhere??? At least it looks like one. The one who
waits here for a bus would probably wait forever! A great spot for having lunch though, as
here is SHADE! We still don't know who put this up, but - thanks mate!
The Rawlinson Ranges appear in the distance.
This is Giles Weatherstation. Its purpose is mainly the recording of weather conditions
out here, not the weather forecast (this is quite easy...). Working out here is not very
different from working on the North Pole. There are only few people working here, and they
are not allowed to drive to the next city (which would be Yulara near Uluru a few hundred
kilometres east) as it is too far away and too dangerous. The only company they have are the
Aboriginals living in a small settlement near the weatherstation. But as everywhere within
Aboriginal land, alcohol is forbidden, and this is of course also valid for the weatherstation... so,
no wild parties out here! Most people only work here for a few months because of the good
salary.
The almost unpopulated deserts of Western Australia were once used for rocket testing -
at the weatherstation we could see one of the remainders of that time...
We travelled on the famous Gunbarrel Highway for a while before getting back to the
Great Central Road again. Crossing the Western Australia / Northern Territory border, we
theoretically would have had to turn forward our watches by 1 ½ hours, but actually we
didn't, as time doesn't really matter out here.
This region is really very scarcely populated.
The only traces of civilisation are the isolated roadhouses and Aboriginal communities (at distances
of hundreds of kilometres from each other!). As said, it is generally not allowed to enter
the communities, but the roadhouses are open for everybody. Among others, we stopped at
Tjukayirla, recognised as one of the most remote roadhouses in Australia, and the roadhouse
of Warburton. The only community that we were allowed to enter was the isolated little town
of Docker River.
