The Ghan

A dream come true.

Adelaide

Adelaide is... nothing much. Mind you, I'm not saying it's bad, it's just... nothing much. There is not much to see or do, and the little there is is... nothing much.

The Adelaide Hills are nice to see and set foot on, I'll grant you that. You get a good view of the city from Mount Lofty, but then again, there's nothing much to see. The city is as flat as a city can be, lazily sprawling on a flat plain between the low hills and the calm sea. No recognizable landmarks, nothing flashy or particularly interesting.

Actually, I think of Adelaide as the most European of all Australian cities so far. Flat, squat, old-looking and with churches in it, even a recently-built old-looking cathedral. European-esque? Yes. Boring? Absolutely.

It does have beaches, for sure, Glenelg being the most touristic and trendy destination, and also being... nothing much. It's nice, but I've seen much nicer.

So, what is there to Adelaide that drags tourists there? Probably it's just "in the way". It's (very approximately) the midpoint of the journey from Sydney to Perth, and all Great Australian Rails stop there: the Indian Pacific (Sydney-Adelaide-Perth, got that one halfway), the Ghan (Adelaide-Alice Springs-Darwin, got that one too) and the Overland (Melbourne-Adelaide, missed this one). Then there's the wineries. The region is big on wines, wine-tasting and wine-drinking. That's not my cup of tea, or, as it were, wine, so I'll skip it. The other Big Thing: it's the main headquarters for those attacking Kangaroo Island. KI is supposed to be an island paradise of hopping wildlife, unspoilt nature... and farms.

I haven't been there myself, for a host of reasons, mainly to do with money and fire. Money is self-explanatory: all tours are a rip-off. The other one means the island was burning while I was there. This would have normally made me more enthusiastic to go, but in this case it meant half the island was closed, including both of the main National Parks. So the main thing to do in Adelaide, I didn't do. However, for what I gathered from others who did go, it's... nothing much either.

What else? Victor Harbor. Didn't go, looked like the typical tourist trap, and it was expensive. Next: Hahndorf, the "German village" in the hills. Sure. The only things German about that tiny town are the name and the throngs of German tourists walking the streets. There are a few other things travel agencies try to sell you as touristic, but they're... nothing much either.

What I did do and enjoyed was going to the Botanical Gardens (every city in OZ seems to have them), cycling through the city in good company (bike rental is free, and the parks are very bikeable), visiting the Aboriginal Exhibition at the SA Museum, buying really cheap food at the Central Market, eating for next to nothing at the Food Plaza in Chinatown and having lots and lots of beers with some amazing guys.

In a nutshell, the best thing to do in Adelaide is to get into one of the nice pubs in the center and ingest unreasonable amounts of Cooper's* in the company of the great people that your fellow travellers are.

* Cooper's=the local beer of Adelaide. To my taste, the best beer in Australia, and probably ever.

This said, I did take many nice pics during my stay. Here go a few:

No News Is Good News

I know, I know. I know you're out there, and I know you're all hungry for news and pics of my crazy ambling.

Fortunately, I am too busy having the time of my life, which prevents me from putting down and together any amount of words.

But stay tuned. We'll be back shortly.

Wildlife

Though not that wild, actually. Cleland Wildlife Park is a place I can't cease to recommend to everyone I meet. You can of course see echidnas, wombats, wallabies, emus, snakes, lizards and tons of birds in lots of other places.

But few are your occasions of feeding and petting kangaroos and koalas. Let me introduce you to my new friends:

Skippy the kangaroo

and Collie the koala!

I wanted to cuddle a wombat* too, but apparently they don’t appreciate it and bite. I didn’t try it with the emus* either, and nor did anybody else. They have a way of looking mean, mad and dangerous up close, without actually doing anything to account for it. I think it’s those big bright eyes and the mocking smile. And the mechanical, robotic way they walk. I can’t help thinking of an AT-AT Walker from Star Wars driven by The Joker.

But actually, the only really wild and potentially dangerous creature I saw was a kangaroo just outside the fence, that started growling and showing me its teeth as soon as I approached. I gather he had come because of the scent of the females inside, and he was quite angry because he couldn’t pass the fence. When I first approached the park, I was impressed by the security measures. Barbed wire, electrified fences, double fence lines in some places. It looked rather like a concentration camp or Jurassic Park. I thought, boy, there’s no way I’m getting in there for free. I was ready to spend $13 on the admission fee, but then, whaddya know, the rear door was open. Turns out those fences are more for keeping inmates in and other animals out.

But back to our stray ’roo. From behind the fence, I amused myself watching the poor enraged bastard. He hissed and he growled, and made aggressive gestures, which was really funny to watch. That is, funny from behind an electrified barrier. Now I have the proof of the roos’ famous bad temper.

*wombat = a marsupial halfway between a pig and a mole

*emu = a mean-looking ostrich

Perth

Go West
Life is peaceful there
Go West
There in the open air
Go West
Where the skies are blue
Go West
This is what we're gonna do

Life is certainly peaceful in Perth. Sedated, even. After a while, dull. That is, according to the many travelers I've met. I myself haven't had the chance to get bored, and I've actually found it to be quite lively. Looks like I've hit the Interesting Times here: Christmas time. I can easily tell, for the city is packed full. It took me a long long time to find accommodation, and it was of the expensive sort. They say I've hit the "good" hostel though, and I've heard some really interesting stories of what the bad ones are like.

The very day I arrived they had a big parade through the city, with loads of colourful coaches and people dressed up funny, doing crazy choreographies. Dancers, clowns, jugglers, drum-banging hordes of asians, the full set. And the pipers, of course. Heaps of them. Can't have a parade without the pipers, stands to reason.

Then I met the locals and went out for a few beers too many. It was great fun.

Fremantle (the port of Perth) is fun on weekends. I love browsing through stalls in the markets, gaping at every cheap souvenir with a sprayed kangaroo on it. No comparison to the Victoria Market in Melbourne or Paddy's Markets in Sydney, but they're still cool enough. Fremantle also has a bit of history to it, and that's a plus.

Met the first two Spanish guys since Sydney (a rarity themselves in these parts), jolly good chaps both of them, with lots of stories to tell. It felt surprisingly good to have someone to speak Spanish to. I was tired of meeting german and dutch people, with their secret codes of communication. It was fun to use my own for a while.

Then Justo and I went to Scarborough for some beaching, but the day was pretty windy, so we came back up to our ears in sand.

On my last day I finally climbed to King's Park for some nice views of the city. They say it's prettier at sundown, but I had to get going.

All in all, though I've enjoyed my time there, met a truckload of cool people and had heaps of fun, I haven't done much in Perth itself. I suppose there just isn't much to do. It's just a nice place, with a "relaxed and laid-back" atmosphere. A place where it's common to get a nod, a smile and an "Oaryagoin' mate!" from people you pass on the street. Really homely for a city its size.

And then I suppose there's always the museums and zoos to visit. I would've done that, with a few more days to spare. But alas, time is scarce. Gotta get hopping on to Adelaide.

The Pinnacles Trip

I took an organized day trip there, which in the end turned out to include a mere 30 minutes stay at the Pinnacles themselves. I would be angry about that, but I had so much fun it didn't matter.

First of all, I saw my first proper big kangaroos and koalas up close, in a park where we stopped just for that. I also caught a glimpse of a few emus, all of them running away as soon as we approached.



Then, on our way to do some sandboarding, our driver managed to get our 4WD truck stuck in sand. Bogged, he called it. After watching how the halfwit tried forward and reverse 80 times and just dug deeper and deeper, I offered my services as a rational being and came up with the idea of putting rocks and wood under the wheels. He discarded it as useless, and tried to dig out the wheels with his hands. I came up with the idea of using the sandboards as shovels. He discarded it as useless, and just continued to sink the thing deeper.

So I just did what I had proposed, and gathered rocks and sticks, then started shovelling with a board. Two Asian guys joined in. We propped the wheels, and we shoveled, and we shoveled some more, while our idiot driver watched and commented. I started pushing and everybody joined. We pushed. And we pushed and we sweated. And we pushed and we sweated some more.

And we made it.

We got the truck out of the sand. It was great. For the same price, a full hour of forced labor for free!

After that, the sandboarding, on big dunes of very fine sand. An opportunity to end up to my ears in sand I didn't miss. It's fun, but not as exciting as it seems.

Then we drove a few more hours and arrived at the National Park. Had a nourishing barbie* lunch there, then went to see it. We saw it. I loved it. Even though it was too short.

Drove half of the 260km back to Perth. I slept. We had tea*. Drove back the other half. I slept.

I arrived back at the hostel, and heartily filled my dorm with a very abundant mix of three different kinds of sand, much to the cleaning lady's dismay the following morning.

Heaps of sand. Heaps of fun.





* barbie=barbecue. As in, brekkie=breakfast, undies=underwear
*tea=light early evening meal, very rarely including tea

Pinnacles

Picture this: Hundreds of thousands of solid rock pillars, boldly reaching for the blue sky again, through the sand and the wind, like the once mighty trees that made them... while slowly crumbling away, constantly, inevitably, eroding, bit by bit disintegrating into more sand, joining the infinite surrounding dunes... then blown away and away, over the hills and beyond the horizon, fine dust subtly flying into oblivion.

That's the Pinnacles. Beautiful, isn't it?

Out of Rottnest

I booked the trip to Rottnest Island and the accommodation with a travel agency, which was a first for me. I paid a few dollars more, but I saved myself a lot of trouble.

Just as usual, when we're talking bureaucracy and myself, by the time I got to Fremantle C-shed, the ferry company had no record of my booking. I actually had a booking for an 8:30 service that didn't exist (their fault: a misprint). Took them half an hour to fix it.

I enjoyed the cruise, and got there without further incident. I knew I wanted to rent a bike, and thought I would just get it on the island. It never occurred to me that I could get a decent mountain bike from the ferry at a decent price.

Instead, I paid a rajah's ransom for a useless metal bulk that looked like the offspring of tractor and a rake and might, just might, have been a bike in one of its previous metallic reincarnations. A one-gear, wobbly, unstable rusty contraption, rented as if it was made of gold and diamonds.

I had to push it more than ride it. Every bump was pain, every hill penitence. After every ride, my legs were shaking and my arse was in agony.

Oh, but I had so much fun.

I flew down the hills, by the splashing sea, over bays of coral. I went up the hills, up the cliffs, down to the beach. I cycled all the island, and walked half of it. I swam and snorkeled among the pink corals, in the company of heaps of very photographic fish of all shapes and sizes, colorful starfish and hermit crabs.

It’s a small island, but it’s still easy to escape civilization. Actually, civilization on Rottnest consists in a few buildings by the main jetty, a couple of residential neighborhoods and the former army barracks, now refurbished as the Youth Hostel. When I got to the Other Side (Cape Vlamingh*), I was alone.

Alone with the Rats, that is. The island is full of them. “Quokkas”, they’re called. They do look like kangaroo rats; hence the name “Rats’ nest”. They’re the friendliest (and smallest) merry hopping marsupials I’ve met yet. They don’t mind you petting them, and will be very happy to eat whatever green thing you care to give them. Actually, they’re pretty stupid too, which may explain why they’re almost extinct on the continent. No competition or predators on the island.

And that’s about it. Rottnest: a great small place to go to get Away.

I sincerely loved every minute.

* named after the first Dutch guy who bothered to step ashore and give the island a name

Rottnest

Two days. Two days of cycling, swimming, snorkelling and hiking. Two days of blue skies, green hills, white beaches, turquoise crystalline waters and azure seas. Two gorgeous apocalyptic sunsets. Two days alone with Nature itself.

Two days of fun, adventure and freedom. Two days away from everybody and everything I know. Two days Away.

Away.

Nullarbor

The great huge empty dry flat plain nothingness in the way from Adelaide to Perth, crossed by the straightest 478km of railway track in the world.

Staring out of the window while crossing it has a certain hypnotic effect. A rough mat of greenish gray covers the reddish floor. No tree or house or any other point of reference in sight, just the same cloned scrub at irregular intervals on a flat flat plain, stretching to a heated blurry horizon and the infinite unknown nothingness behind. This same landscape keeps repeating itself, rolling on in front of your eyes, again and again, like a conveyor belt, on and on, until it starts revolving around itself, and becomes a whirling disc of scrubby shrubs and red dirt, and the horizon is a wobbly mirage, you can see the sea and almost the surfers and the disc is spinning, and now it's you that are going in circles around it all, in a huge infinite merry-go-round that will take you nowhere and never let you go, until your bones too lie spinning in the sun, clean and white, on the red red earth.

But the spell is broken when the train stops at a place that only exists as a name on the map and a bent signpost by the track, where people have gathered because the coming of the train is the big event of the week, probably of the month, possibly of the year. Aboriginal people, coming from a rumoured settlement over the horizon, driving the same white utes, with the trunk full of kids, coming for a free one-hour concert.

Then comes Cook, the ghost town in the approximate middle of the very precise nowhere, with abandoned buildings, rusting old wrecks, and a population of 2, who run a souvenir shop. There you really realize how far away you are from anything whatsoever.

Then the disc starts spinning again.