after the walk on the 2nd day

we had lunch (just for your information:breakfast and quite most of the meals we pre­pared togeth­er but we had Piz­za and Schnitzel from beef… please be nev­er curi­ous — it tast­ed awful).

The road became rougher and we went to a beau­ti­ful gorge (gorge is geo­log­i­cal built by a riv­er, a canyon is built by pres­sure of tec­ton­ic plate movement).

dusty road
dusty road

and here you can see what the pres­sure made:
img_7420
Beside all, I was always impressed how sim­ply and beau­ti­ful and soft the envi­ro­ment was always chang­ing. As the aussies spoke about it as the “Noth­ing” I did­n’t expect the very ten­der  changes all the time.

And we arrived some­where, far away from every­thing. We slept in a house that was in for­mer days a hos­pi­tal. But many of tourist groups are com­ing day by day I was told. So the first day of was few days lat­er for the own­er of every­thing (shop, house, gas…).

In the morn­ing I looked like a dead per­son. It was too hot and the lit­tle dog from the own­er was­n’t hap­py see­ing me out­side so I went back to bed (Many oth­ers came out at the same time).
I decid­ed to give you this pic instead of one of mine.

Morgendämmerung
Mor­gendäm­merung

Now on the 3rd day we went to a coal mine ‑the biggest in South Aus­tralia. It looked like an open wound. I saw a doc­u­men­ta­tion before and hoped I would­n’t see one but now I had.

Leigh Coal Mine
Leigh Coal Mine

and now we were in the desert… I know it sounds crazy but it was what I want­ed to see. And the tem­per­a­ture reached 50°
desert - the nothing
desert — the nothing

1 day — 1 night — on the way to the desert

We start­ed going up to Clare Val­ley and as it was always the very first days, ClareValley many things remind­ed meof home. In Castle­maine I met an Aus­tri­an woman who is a friend of a friend of mine.

Now in Clare Val­ley we were at a wine tast­ing of Jesuits. As you might know the Jesuits helps me and my friend with our project in Zambia.
WeinkellerWe had our lunch at Mount Remark­able. If we start in Aus­tria with nam­ing moun­tains like that we need to give them num­bers: Yes­ter­day I was at Mount Remark­able 3467, it was great. But it is remark­able that this moun­tain is the rain bor­der. Up to north it is only 200mm rain a year (when it rains) and farm­ing becomes quite impossible.
We saw the first ruins of farm houses.
And also the first abo­rig­i­nal secret place.
male site
At the end I could say that I nev­er felt good at males places and there were more till the end of the jour­ney. The curios­i­ty won but I don’t know if I would go the next time.
In the evening we arrived at Wilpe­na pound. This is a dead vul­cano. I decid­ed to sleep out­side in a swag it is some­how a water­proof matress. Beside all the oth­er ani­mals I could imag­ine, it was fun­ny to be awaked by the hop of a skipy (a wal­la­by — for us Aus­tri­ans a kan­ga­roo). I was­n’t aware that this was we got up late (between 6 and 7). The first group (the ear­li­er ones) went up to over­see the crater. I belonged to the lat­er group and we went into the crater in a nice walk. wilpena pound

what happened in the outback

I recent­ly decid­ed to write it not in one piece, I hope I can pre­pare some parts for the next days and you get fre­quent­ly news from me.
Before I start to write about past 8 days I have to say that I am lucky not look­ing into fur­ture and enjoy what I have now. So I did­n’t imag­ine how nice it is to be lazy in the morn­ing, sit­ting with a cup of cof­fee, going to toi­lett 3 times with­out any hur­ry. Oh I love Alice.

We start­ed in Ade­laide the Feb­ru­ary 4th. Phil and Hugh, the nice cou­ple where I staid in Ade­laide “promised” me that just the first day sounds inter­est­ing and I will be on the bus with loud, noisy, young British folks. But we were a fun­ny mix­ture. Fam­i­ly Früh­ling you were with me all the time (for all oth­ers: col­leagues of mine) we had 3 dutch peo­ple on board(couple and a woman), a brave japan­ese cou­ple, 3 swiss (1 cou­ple and 1 girl), 1 ger­man girl and we were 4 Aus­tri­ans (me, a cou­ple and a friend of them) The ages: 67,62, 54, 54, 47, 35, 34, 30, 30, 26, 23, 23, 19.
That’s how welooked like after 8 days together:
Group in Kings Canyon

Our guide was Tom. He is 25–30 years. A very nice and kind respect­ful per­son who cares for peo­ple and coun­try. Peo­ple like he will make Aus­tralia a bet­ter coun­try. He decid­ed to become guide to get to know the coun­try bet­ter which is a nice way to expe­ri­ence my home.

As we were a lot of old peo­ple: that’s the way we could remem­ber final­ly our names:

Names on the window
Names on the window

Alice Springs

Vor 2 Stun­den bin ich in Alice angekommen.
Nur kurz, weil ich jet­zt gle­ich noch Abschied feiern geh.
Ich hab mir frei­willig eine Tour aus­gewählt, wo man täglich um 5.00 (es war auch 4.15, aber auch 6.00) mor­gens auf­ste­ht, um Son­nenaufgänge oder Wan­derun­gen zu machen.
Heute war der erste benei­denswerte Tag, ca 27 grad. es kann auch heiss­er gewe­sen sein, auf jeden fall fühlte es sich kühl an.
Aber ich dachte nicht, dass ich 50 grad überlebe.
Eben­so hab ich 2x draussen geschlafen, let­zte Nacht war der Mond zu hell, da bin ich in ein Luxu­szelt gewandert.
Mor­gen geht es nach Dar­win und wenn ich gut aufgelegt bin, gibt es noch Aus­führlicheres zu den let­zten Tagen.

im outback

hal­lo ihr alle,
now it’s my 4th day out, 2 nights sleep­ing out­doors with the milky­way above me and one night like in school times with a bunch of peo­ple in the room. It is ter­ri­bly hot but I still live. Today we arrived in Coober Pedy and we have now 50 degrees. But in side the mines we had 24 and we are look­ing for­ward to the night indoors with 24 degrees and no ani­mals. Although it is fan­tas­tic that I sur­vived till now. I saw Emus, skip­ies (kan­gu­rus), rep­tiles (alive!!!), drometar, sheeps and cows of course, goats, dogs and cats, I put a big, big spi­der away, swam in 2 mil­lion old water which was spar­kel­ing and more alive than any oth­er water I saw in my life. And I don’t under­stand that I can be so hap­py when it’s so awful hot.
Next days I will be on the road again on Wednes­day I will arrive in Alice. But now I go for a swim. More next time!!!

Fix und fertig, nach kurzer heißer Nacht. Um 3 traf ich noch einige andere, die draußen Luft schnappten. Ganz zu schweigen von den immer lästiger werdenden Fliegen.
Fix und fer­tig, nach kurz­er heißer Nacht. Um 3 traf ich noch einige andere, die draußen Luft schnappten. Ganz zu schweigen von den immer lästiger wer­den­den Fliegen.
juckender Hitzeausschlag, der Gott sei Dank nicht sehr lange anhielt.
juck­ender Hitzeauss­chlag, der Gott sei Dank nicht sehr lange anhielt.

Information ist alles

Wenn ich wie Linus durch Aus­tralien laufe, werde ich viel Erde gese­hen haben und son­st nichts. Ich werde also das Geti­er am Boden ignori­eren — meis­tens zumindest.

Snake

Die Queen Snake gibt es nur in den USA aber dafür gibt es diese Schlangen in Aus­tralien. Ich bin mutig 🙂

Käfer

Wenn nicht, dann hört ihr mich schreien.

Und das war das erste gefährliche Tier.

Und außer­dem ist das Wet­ter viel gefährlich­er, wie wir schon wissen.