Adorable Weird Animals

From our trip up the coast of WA last October with a visiting researcher. D and I are extremely excellent tour guides, I recommend us!

First, we took a teeny tiny baby plane to get to an island off the coast of WA.

Tropical Rock Lobster carcass.

Pig Face (the plants, not D...)

Ospreys!!

Someone built them a nest at the end of the dock!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa so cute!!!!!!!!!

I pretty much just passed out from too much squeeing at the super adorableness. <3

So lazy, it let me walk right up to it. <3<3<3

Back on the mainland, we saw more cute creatures!

Photographing people photographing kangaroos.

Native Hutt River Provincians.

Shingleback goes BLARGH!!

Kangaroo prints go hoppity-hop-hop in the desert sand.

More to come!

WHERE DID THE TIME GO

Egads. So many things have happened! Let's try to catch up, shall we?

 
After returning to Sydney from the Big Alice Adventure, we took a little road trip to Canberra:

The Big Merino: a national treasure.

Parliament House is colour-coded!

The Ned Kelly paintings by artist Sydney Nolan in the National Gallery.

All this nationalism made us hungry for Australian food.

Eventually we made it back to Sydney and all of our stuff. On a related note, I am a MASTER PACKER.

Almost everything we own in Australia.

Many thanks to the friends who let us park the car and bikes at their place!

Quintessential WA. 

Be sure to tune in next time on "trying to remember what happened last year," when I'll be featuring adorable pictures of weird animals, yay!

Day 17: 17km, The Last Day

It has been so difficult to write about this last day; it feels like The Big Hike needs an appropriately exciting ending. But alas, that last day was a strange mishmash of emotions, and was pathetically anticlimactic. So in the interests of moving this damn blog along to catch up with my life (so much has happened since July!!), I'm forcing myself to get this all out as best I can.

Upon waking up on The Last Day, we packed as quick as we could and set off, hoping hoping hoping that Englishman was okay and that we'd find him soon. THREE KILOMETERS (an hour of walking) and a train track crossing down the track we found him, in the actual river bed (not our crappy dry-creek road). He had, as suspected, charged right past the place we'd stopped, as he figured (correctly) it was too small to be the river bed. I was both relieved he was safe and vaguely annoyed with him (and myself) for having worried all night long.

The last bit of walking was arduous for me. My feet hurt. I was exhausted. I was soooo close to a shower and a lie-down, but not there yet. Still not there yet. WHY ARE WE NOT THERE YET. Poor D did a wonderful job of getting me through those weirdly difficult last hours by doing things like leaving candies and nuts on posts next to the trail, so that every few meters I'd get a little treat to keep me going. He was still stupidly energetic and also sad that the hike was almost over. I felt crappier for being so crotchety while he was having the time of his life, and kept saying that he didn't want it to end. Sigh. Maybe next time I'll be less of a wet blanket.

At the official end of the trial, everyone wanted to take lots of congratulatory pictures. I think they really speak for themselves.

HOWEVER, I managed to perk up a bit for the last ~kms into town. We stopped and rested at the Telegraph Station, where a nice nap on the grass did a lot for me. I showered whilst D went out (still dirty) to pick up some snacks, and we both really enjoyed those activities. I felt like a new (still tender-footed) person, and our evening reunion with our hiking mates was wonderful.

First, we went to GrownUpFriend's room to discover that The Colonel and SuperAussie had left us a present - a bottle of bubbly, and fancy lotion and soap for us girls!! SO AWESOME.

The champagne paired very well with the watermelon D got everyone as a post-hike treat.

And then we went out to the pub and ate steaks and burgers and drank several delicious beers or ciders until we were buzzing, went back and watch the world cup in our hotel room,  to finally sleep fitfully on mattresses (but we enjoyed the clean sheets).

THE END

p.s. We flew back to Sydney the next day, sharing a flight with Englishman. The Sydney airport was pretty overwhelming; D and I just kept staring and saying "so many people..." We actually ended up just standing still until the rush died down, when it was easier to think. Then I avoided walking for the next few weeks, as my ankles and knees STILL freaking hurt, and I felt like an old lady taking the stairs sideways. But eventually it all healed up and probably I'm stronger now? Hopefully.

Day 16: 15kms, The Danger of Not Paying Attention

As usual, my feet hurt, so when all five of us left camp together in the morning, Englishman, GUF, and Rugby left D and I in their dust. There were a few waterholes 500 m or so off the track, but D and I decided to bypass them in the vain hope of not keeping the others waiting too long (also, I didn't really have an "extra" 1km in my energy supply). It turns out this was unnecessary, because we actually managed to outpace our crew because they stopped for a dip in one of the waterholes. After a nice long lunch at Wallaby Gap (which was a misnomer, unfortunately), we all had a look at the maps and decided to walk a bit farther to make our next (and last!!!) day on the trail a bit shorter. There weren't any official campsites between Wallaby Gap and Alice, but we'd heard there was a nice sandy creek bed in between, so we found the spot we though that was on the map and said we'd meet up there.

We set off again, this time with Englishman at the front (as always), then me, then D (because if he walked in front of me, he'd accidentally leave me behind), then Rugby and GUF, who were lagging behind due to repacking and taking heaps of pictures of these point hills we were walking on.

Pointy rocks. We can see Alice Springs and the caterpillar hills in the distance.

Still not done walking, but at this point, I'm really starting to wish I was.

Englishman, of course, disappeared in the distance pretty quickly. The light was starting to fade, as was my ability to walk any farther, when D and I found what we reckoned was the creek bed. Although it looked rather more dirt-road-like then we'd expected, it was at the correct kilometer mark according to our map, and anyway, the light was going fast.

However, Englishman was nowhere to be seen. Additionally, GUF and Rugby were behind us somewhere, and also nowhere to be seen. We could only guess that Englishman hadn't been paying attention and was farther along the track. Cue me fretting. We dropped our packs, and did the only thing we could think to do: I waited for GUF and Rugby, and D tried to hurry forward along the track to see if he could catch up to Englishman. I waited nervously in the half-twilight, freaking the fuck out, until GUF and Rugby finally caught up. We decided to make camp, which I did whilst constantly looking up the track like a forlorn dog looks at the front door until the people come back home. When D did finally come stomping down the track, I could've wagged my tail off if I'd had one.

D had make it a whole kilometer and hadn't found any sign of Englishman. We supposed that the damn pom must've blown right past this spot without paying attention, and hopefully was camped somewhere farther down the track. Our last night on the track, and here we were, split up!

The rest of the night felt spooky to me. I jumped a lot at little noises; because we could finally hear cars on the highway in the distance, I kept thinking a car was about to come barreling down the road/creek and run over our tent. Rugby tried using her dang iPhone multiple times to call Englishman, to no avail. Was he okay? The stars were out, but the light of Alice Springs had erased some of the magic of the Milky Way. Civilization had descended upon us a little earlier than I had anticipated.

To be continued...

Day 15: Other Hikers (12kms)

After 12 entire hours of sleep, the world looks a lot nicer, even though my feet were still pretty painful.

Arrenge Bluff in the morning.

Car doughnut marks where there aren't any roads, or crop circles where there aren't any crops?

Truly dedicated trail building. I'm deeply impressed.

Owie ow, oh look pretty view, ow.

Whooooosh I'm like the Larapinta trail sign bird, wheeeeeeeeeee! (I may have begun to experience delirium at that point).

Along the way, we met a young solo hiker named Lon from China who had just finished walking the Overland (a snowy trail in Tassie) and then immediately came and walked the Larapinta. This dude was walking over 20km a day, mostly because he reckoned he'd get bored if he stopped too long. He was happy to chat with us about what hiking was like in China (either too crowded or nonexistent), equipment (there are some good up-and-coming brands in China, but he'd gotten his stuff from the US), and the Larapinta (boring compared to the Overland).

After our chat and treat break (cigs for Lon, fruit for us), Lon shot past us and indeed meet up with our crew at Simpsons Gap and chatted to them for a bit, before going even farther along the trail. When we finally staggered up to Simpsons Gap, our crew was lazing about in the sun and tending to their gear and feet. Rugby finally decided to pop the blisters she'd been nursing for a while; she'd read that blisters shouldn't be popped, so she'd been using giant padded bandaids, but the blisters had only gotten huger (think the size of her entire heel). So serious surgery was in store:

Bush surgery.

 The best bit was that after GUF finished poking her blister with a pin, she said "Wait, that's it???" So anticlimactic.

We shared the shed that night with the most hikers we'd seen all trip: an older couple from Adelaide and a group of 3 uni-aged boys. They'd all packed too much food, and it was funny to watch them try to repack their bags.

Best of all though, we met an artist from England who had come to the Gap by bicycle. She'd traveled around Australia a few years ago, and discovered she really loved Alice Springs, so she spent a year or two saving up and came back to spend all her time in and around Alice Springs painting, and then 1 week in Sydney to have an art show for her paintings. A kind person in Alice had loaned her a bike and camping gear, and she hauled herself over a dirt track to get out here to paint the gorge. So. Cool.

Such a rickety set up!

Simpsons Gap, which has wallabies!

Simpsons Gap in early morning. The photographer said she'd been taking pictures at the gap for years, and this was the first time she'd ever seen water in it.

To be continued....

Day 14: Being Flexible with Plans

Despite having felt pretty good during the previous days' walks, on Day 14 my foot began aching only 4kms into the hike, which felt like we hadn't even left camp yet. Annoying, but we had technically planned to only walk 10km more to Mugla Camp.

Orange break amongst wildflowers on the way.

However, by the time D and I pulled up to Mulga Camp in the mid afternoon, Englishman, GUF, and Rugby had finished lunch and were raring to push on to the next camp at Simpsons Gap, which would mean a total of 24km walk for the day (and a pretty late arrival to camp at best). As I sat exhausted by pain on a (surprising and convenient) picnic table bench, it was clear I couldn't manage that. So once again we decided to split up; the energetic oldies would race to Simpsons Gap, then spend the whole next day resting there, whilst D and I split the walk over two days, and we'd all sleep together the following night at Simpsons Gap. Thank goodness we had the ability to split up like this, because it was really helpful for my painful feet.

So off the other three went, while D and I relaxed and scoped out Mulga Camp, which had two smallish water tanks, two rather battered picnic tables, a drop toilet, no specific shelter, and approximately 76 trillion flies.

Not 15 minutes into our quiet lunch, I asked D, very puzzled, "Do... do you hear a truck??" AND SUDDENLY UP RATTLES A TRUCK out of nowhere, seriously where did they come from, and out leap two brawny blokes who start chatting whilst dismantling the campsite around us holy crap. They're like, "You weren't planning on staying the night here, were you?" Welp, not anymore.

I had almost forgotten what trucks were like.

Dude started up a generator in the back of the truck to run a power saw to saw off the bolts holding the picnic table together. Amazing.

So, after filling up all our water bottles and still feeling rather disoriented, off we walked to find a different place to camp. Our trail book indicated a campsite only a few kms farther along the trail called Arrenge View. We found a dilapidated signpost with this name on the side of a hill, with no flat space in sight (but, indeed, a mighty find view of Arrenge Bluff). We trudged on for what felt like forever, with my feet hurting more and more and more, until we realized we must have passed whatever used to be the Arrenge View campsite (because there definitely wasn't a campsite along the way now). I was exhausted and bitchy with pain, but D decided that we had to turn around and go back to the creekbed we'd passed to camp in the soft sand. Was he seriously telling me I had to retrace my (incredibly painful) steps? D very carefully cajoled me back down the track and he deserves a medal for being so nice to me.

I am finally sitting down, hence the strained smile. Also, there are about 50 million flies here too.

Checking out Arrenge rock from our creekbed campsite.

View of Arrenge rock, with D's slippered feet propped up after a long day of taking care of me.

To be continued....

Day 13: The Low Road

This is the only part of the trail where you had options! We could choose to take the High Road, which leads up, over the ridge, and back down, or the Low Road, which winds through the rocky dry creek beds, and both roads met up again a few hours down the track.

With my joints and feet still not 100%, D and I wanted to take the Low Road, which was supposed to be about an hour shorter. GrownUpFriend wanted to take Rugby up the High Road for perhaps her only shot at a big vista like those we'd seen earlier on the hike. Englishman chose the High Road as well, if only because it would take longer and he was way too fast for the rest of us as it was.

So over the friggin boulders in the creek we went. And you know what? The dang Englishman still managed to beat us to the intersection where the roads met up again. (We had to wait foreeeever though for GrownUpFriend and Rugby, because they took lots of pictures and she was sloooooow.)

An hour less for going the same distance? Sign me up.

The next leg of the hike took us through some relatively lush country. 

Grass!

Fish Hole, which has fishies!

Fish Hole and M.

The last bit of hiking before getting to camp. Walking through deep sand sucks, but the afternoon was deliciously warm and sleepy.

Jay Creek camp. See if you can spot The Englishman pretending to be a supermodel...

To be continued...

Day 12: Miller's Flat

[egad, I'm so behind on posting! There's been plenty of good stories from life post-hike, so I'm going to try to speed things up here so we can get back on track...]

After a luxuriously showering with hot water and sleeping on grass, we woke up the next morning to the arrival of the last of our hiking mates: GrownUpFriend's wife, who we'll call Rugby, because she's a big fan (but only of the "right" kind of rugby, which still mystifies me, so go ask an Aussie instead of me).

Yep, our very classy socks out to dry on our tent.

This log on the fire at the Standley Chasm kiosk unfortunately was full of ants, which we attempted to help escape the flames by giving them a stick bridge.

People who drove to Standley Chasm are warned away from continuing down the trail.

Oh hey, the trail goes straight up the rock face here. Easy peasy?

GUFriend and Rugby scaling the tricky rockface.

And then we camped on hard ground at Miller's Flat and I attempted once more the teach grown men how to handle a campfire (to no avail, because they wouldn't listen to me), and all was well.

To be continued (hopefully much faster than I have been uploading)....