These are some pictures of the trip which show the journey from Broome to Alice Springs. The wide open road, road kill, wind, sandstorms, and Uluru (Ayers rock) in dry sun and thunder storms.
It was an organised trip which me and Richard Mail took with a company called Western Exposure. It was on a bus travelling up the coast seeing beaches, gorges and other really impressive sights. Unfortunately i didn't bring those pictures with me to the Internet cafe otherwise i would have put them up. Some highlights were... running a snake over in the bus, then reversing back to watch it writhe about before it took its final breath and then some brave lad (not me) picked it up with a stick and threw it into the bushes. Gorge walking in big red canyons with green trees and blue skies above. Got some good pictures but at this time of year the water is surprisingly cold and the cliffs rather precarious... although cliffs are probably dangerous at all times of the year. Anyway, once this 10 day trip was over i arrived in Broome to pick up my rental camper van.
The plan was to do a car relocation (a very cheap way to rent vehicles) from Broome to Alice Springs then go from Alice Springs to Melbourne. However once i arrived at Britz they informed me and Mail that the car had been cancelled. After a couple of hours of argument and walking around in the overwhelming heat looking at different companies. We settled on a low budget camper van company to take us to Darwin. --From Darwin we pick up a decent camper van for very cheap but we have to drive it to Sydney... where we will need to find transport back to Melbourne. Complicated. Yes. Unnecessary. Probably.-- Anyway. We were in the budget 'wicked camper' car lot and asked for the cheapest, crappiest car that would make it to Darwin. The guy took us deep into the storage yard, which looked a little too much like a scrap yard for my liking, and we came across a blue painted monstrosity. The thing started up... just, with a lot of shuddering and shaking. It was dirty, smelly, rusty and hardly what one would call road worthy, however this was to be our home for the next 5 nights (the 5th night being tonight). Uneconomical does not begin to describe this thing. 4 gears, automatic, petrol. Not good, but on the up side the A/C doesnt work so at least that doesnt waste petrol. It does mean you need to drive with all the windows open at all times which is not good for fumes, dust or volume. So we drove this thing from Broome to Darwin where we are now.Its about 2500km (or... many many miles). The van has insects the size of my head, an ant infestation, at night the temperature is probably close to that of the sun, lights dont work, when the engine is turned off the car continues to shudder for a good 30 seconds and the cooking facilities are... well... not good. All that being said, it was a fun few days. We saw some national parks, a lot of flies and a lot of outback. Here are some picture from that trip.
Me surfing on the the blue monster... I hope the rental people don't see this.
I ran out of time and the pictures wouldnt upload. Only the first one. Will try to change this shortly.
