The Northern Territory

Well we can say it now. We've been to the center of Australia and survived. We survived the heat, the flies, the bugs, the swooping sandwich snatching falcons, the road trains, the strange gas stations, the National Parks, the tourist buses, and suicidal kangaroos. Its an amazing place with long drives that usually end in spectacular sights, or at the very least a free camping spot.


Music Please: Dancing Queen, Young and Sweet....

After Alice Springs, we headed deeper into the outback to see that Australian icon, Ayres Rock, or, as the Aboriginal's call it, Uluru. However, Uluru is not the only thing to be seen in middle-of-nowhere Australia. Before we got to "The Rock" there were a couple of stops along the way. First, was Watarrka National park where we did the Rim Trail around Kings Canyon. Second, was a hike around The Olgas or Kata Tjuta as its known to Aboriginals. Third, it was finally time to see the "Big Rock", Uluru, and another memorable hike. That was 3 hikes in 3 days, a welcome change to the 4000+ kilometers of driving up to then.

It must be said that these Aussies have everything covered when you go for a hike in the desert. There was drinking water provided along the way despite several warnings that you should take plenty of water with you. There were emergency radio stations sticking up out of the rocks in case something goes wrong. There were handy little arrows, bridges, stairs, and other things to make the hike as simple and enjoyable as possible. This may sound like overdoing it, but after walking for a little less than an hour in that heat, we understood the precautions...things could get real ugly in no time if a person wasn't prepared. Anyway, check out some of the photos.


We got up at 5am to catch this shot. Actually, I got up, Kendra kept sleeping in the back with a, "Yah I see it", in between very long blinks.


A classic shot.


This rock is HUGE. We did the 10km base walk around Uluru, the trees in front are a on average about 5m high.

Our next stop was a new addition to the trip. We decided that we had the time and motivation to head up to "The Top End", Darwin, and visit a couple of national parks, including the famous Kakadu National Park. As an added motivation we were able to hook up with another of our long lost Tibet pals, Karl and Petra. Its crazy that 4 months after meeting them in Dali, China we would meet them again strolling down the streets of Darwin. Not to be too cliche, but it truly is a small world and it was just like old times, as it seemed like yesterday we were in Bampa's truck bouncing around Tibet. Great to see you guys!

Once we left Darwin we were able to spend 2.5 days exploring Kakadu. What a place! At first glance it didn't seem like much, but take a couple of walks and/or boat rides and you discover why the place is so famous. Once again, check out the photos.


This was posted at our campsite for the night...being careful where one walks at night takes on a whole new meaning!


One of the many croc's that we saw on the Yellow Water boat tour.









On another note, one could say that Uluru is a just a "big rock" in the middle of nowhere, and Kakadu is just a "large river system", but as we discovered, they are much more than that. Not only are they great places to visit but they are also sacred Aboriginal sites. The Aboriginal people have lived in these areas for well over 20,000 years (some say 60,000) isolated from the rest of the world longer than any other group of people in human history. Their languange, social structure, stories and knowledge all comes from the nature around them. Because of this they've developed intimate knowledge of their world and consider many parts of them to be sacred.

Two of the national parks that we visited, Uluru and Kakadu, are actually legally owned by the Aboriginal people that originally lived in those areas. This was not always so. Most land, as in North America, was taken from the aboriginals who had to fight their claim of ownership, eventually gaining their land back around the 1980's. In the case of these two parks, they were already famous icons in Australia at the time. The aboriginals agreed to lease the land back to the government as national parks on the conditions that their people be allowed to live there, and that the park would be run based on their culture and traditions (I'm sure there were several other conditions, but we don't know about them). Ever since then they greet thousands of visitors into their lives each year, simply asking that visitors respect their sacred places. This may mean in certain places no photography allowed, or not doing the climb at Uluru (although this free climb still goes on due to its long established tourist draw, something Kendra and I did not do). Their influence in these parks is unforgetable as each one has fantastic cultural centers with free guided walks and talks dedicated to explaining many parts of aboriginal life. An eye opening experience.

Today was a unique day as we picked up a great half day underground mining tour in Mt. Isa, Queensland. We got fully dressed up and went undergruond with Steve, a former miner for over 35 years. Steve came complete with an intimate knowledge of underground mining, a booming voice, a missing finger and plenty of first hand stories. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos, although considering we were underground they probably wouldn't have been that spectacular. Instead it would have been better to record the sounds and smells of the place rather than the sights. Its incredible what most miners deal with on a daily basis.

Cultural centers, mine tours, we're proper tourists now aren't we.

So after several thousand kilometers we are now back in Queensland heading North to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. Looking forward to seeing the ocean as well as something other than long straight roads for a change.



Talk to you soon,
Mike and Kendra

Mamma Mia

G'day Mates!

After 7 months of Asian backpacking, we have finally arrived to Austrailia!!! We touched down in Brisbane, Queensland on Sept 1 and were fortunate enough to stay with family (Mike's cousin Debbie & family). Free accomodation, an accessible fridge with endless supplies of beer, wine and cheese (it's amazing how it was always full :-), drinking water from a tap, a shower and toilet just a few steps away from our room; it's no surprise that we ended up staying for a week!!!! All joking aside, it was a blessing for Debbie, Dominic, Meghan and Erin to open their arms, hearts and doors to us; it was a royal welcome to Austrailia. Deb, how you orchastrated the fireworks and fighter jets to fly over your house for us will always be a wonder... okay it was actually the start of the annual River Fire Festival, but it was still special!

Debbie, Mike & I at a great lookout point of Brisbane

So what did we do in Brisbane for 7 days? Well, there was A LOT of sleeping, shopping (Mike had to burn most of his shirts), touring down town, singing at a barbershop chorus practice, attempted hair cuts, and arranging for our overland trip to the outback. Oh, and then there was the visit with the Infectious Disease doctor. No kidding! We had gone to a travel clinic for our post Asia travel check up, when the doctor looked at us quizzically and said "I've never heard of a post check-up in all my years" (and trust me he was old). Leaving his office, we felt like we were slapped in the face (especially with the $106 bill!). Debbie had mentioned to a collegue our experience and it turned out her husband was an Infectious Disease Doctor, so he called us that night and agreed to see us the following day! Talk about a wonderful doctor. He spent 1.5 hours going over our history, giving me a thorough check-up (I was feeling pretty crappy again; not as bad as China, but not great), and then dun dun dun... the inevitable stool sample. Only after you have scooped your own liquidy poo into a container and hand it to your doctor, do you know true humility. Two days later, after the preliminary results were in with no signs of parasites or worms (yeah!!!), I was given the all clear to travel.

While in Vietnam, we had heard of a company called "Wicked Rental" that had camper vans for rent. As the cost for accomodation in Oz is astronomical, we thought it would be ideal to rent a van that we could sleep in for our trip to the Outback. The vans are "groovy baby" to say the least! Each van is hand painted on the sides to hide the accumilation of dents. With our upgrade to the delux van for FREE, not only did we have a "kitchen" in the back, with cooking burner, ice cooler, and utensils; a table in the middle that converts into our bed, all the linens we need and storage room, we suddenly were wooed with Air Conditioning & Power Steering! Such Luxeries!

Our van's artistic mottife is the faces of ABBA. So, prior to leaving Brisbane, we burned a cd of ABBA's greatest hits and now, as an anthem of sorts, we faithfully listen to ABBA every morning as we leave our camp sites. Everyone now:

"Mamma mia, here I go again
My my, how can I resist you?
Mamma mia, does it show again?
My my, just how much I've missed you
Yes, I've been brokenhearted
Blue since the day we parted
Why, why did I ever let you go?
Mamma mia, now I really know,
My my, I could never let you go."

Mamma Mia Indeed. The day Mike & I picked up our new home for the next 35 days

Leaving Brisbane, we thought was going to be easy, but it turned out to be quite the adventure! Just as we were packing up the van, we received an urgent call from Dom, who was in dire need of a part from Brisbane to be "hot shot" to a town 6 hrs away called Roma. With the offer to make a quick buck (although we would have done it for free after everything Dom & Deb had done for us), and a chance to be on the other end of "expediting", we quickly made our way to the airport to pick up the 8" x 8" x 3' long package. Five minutes away from the airport, Mike's claim of "wow it really feels like it's windy, but there's no wind", clued us into the fact that our tire was flat. Once we stopped, realized the tire was completely busted, tried the jack to change the tire and found the jack was broken, we knew we were in for one of those days. Well that's one of the reasons we rented... for roadside assistance. At least they didn't have too far to drive! But in the mean time the back up courier had picked up the package from the airport and had it at their depo. Now we had to get a new jack, a new spare tire, and the package from the opposite end of the city. Yikes! Luckily we had all the tasks done within an hour, the package fit in our van like a glove and we were off..... Hand Delivery indeed!

Break down #1. Still inside Brisbane!

"Hand Delivery" in action

The one thing we were warned repeatedly about driving in the outback was the "roos". Yeah, yeah I replied. We're from Canada. We have to watch out for deer all the time. We know to look for their eyes on the side of the road at dusk. Well, holy crap had I ever underestimated the roo invasion! In our attempt to meet our rendezvous at Roma, we had to drive after dark and I have never seen more animals on the sides of the road in all my life. There were kangaroos everywhere! And they were staring at the road, ready to pounce across the highway right into our grill. But it wasn't only the live roos that were surprising, it was the number of carcasses on the side of the road. Talk about marsupalocide! I swear there were dead roos every km! Wicked Rental's motto regarding roadkill is the following: Don't swerve when you see an animal, you will roll 4 times. Don't be a Dickhead.

The solution: stick behind a truck and let them either a) scare the roos or b) hit the roos instead. And let me tell you about the trucks. They're not even called trucks, but "Road Trains", because quite literally, they haul many containers on them, exceeding lengths of 55m and boasting 64 wheels! You are advised to only pass these monsters when you can see 1 km ahead of you.

And then there is driving on the "wrong" side of the road. And that's not the only thing, the van is backwards! The driver sits on the right hand side, the windshield wiper is where the signal indicator should be and the stickshift is on the left. Talk about a comedy of errors! Let's just say I never knew that my left and right turns were associated with having to cross lanes of traffic. In one town, Mike told me to turn left to hit the highway again, and I proceeded to get into the right hand lane. Mike yells "LEFT, LEFT"... I yelled back " I am turning LEFT"... then realized I was in fact turning right and had to swerve into the left lane at the last minute. Then there's the "gas is on the driver's side"... man I can never figure out what side is the "Driver's Side"... even when I'm driving! Slowly its all coming together though.

So far, we have been on the road for 6 days and have just arrived in Alice Springs, Northern Territory Province. We have accumilated over 3000 km on our van and have seen gas prices reaching $1.79 AUS$. The scenery has been spectacular - very barren, yet not the desert that I expected. At one point, the surroundings were so flat that Mike and I were able to see 360 degrees of the horizon and when it set, it was breathtaking. The earth is red with sparse vegetation of greens, yellows, purples & pinks resulting in a rainbow of imagery. We have seen roos, emus, birds of prey, ferrel cats and procupines. Thankfully we haven't seen snakes or spiders.

View from our van (for the last 3000 km!)

The other thing on the road.

Our only sight seeing stop on our way to "The Alice". This is the Devil's Marbles in the middle of the outback. Many rocks that are set precariously on the earth. Like I said, Mike likes to throw boulders, but this one wouldn't budge!

Camping life is great! We are up every morning by 9am because of the heat wave that hits our van. Then its make the bed, have breakie (usually cereal) and then I take the morning shift of driving *Insert ABBA CD here*. We pull over at a rest stop to make sandwiches for lunch while trying to avoid the masses of flies that attack every orifice available to them. Then Mike takes over with the afternoon drive. I look up the next free rest stop for the night and set our aims to hit it before sunset (6pm). Once we find our evening accomodation, we turn on the propane burner and start cooking dinner. After eating our meal (no not Kraft dinner - we have made some really great meals including of course Tacos), we boil water, do dishes, and make the bed. The evening ends with a star gazing bonanza as the outback has a brilliantly clear night sky. I even saw my first shooting star!!! Then we crawl into bed by 10pm and fall into a deep sleep riddled with dreams. Every one and a while we splurge for a camp ground that costs $$$ so that we can shower (yeah baby!).

Mmm, Special K in the morning, my favourite!

One of our many overnight stops. Mike in his glory... a campfire, the wilderness and a sunset

Only 29 more days of camper living! Next stop: this "big rock" in the middle of nowhere. Sounds fun, eh? And you were worried that Oz would be boring!!!

Luv ya!

Kendra & Mike

In a Word

How do we describe Asia in a word? We just can't think of ONE word, so instead we decided to put together a list of our top places, sights, and cultural moments. We've documented some little known tidbits, quotes, and strange foods all wrapped up to entertain you and to remind us of these moments for years to come. Enjoy....

Mike's Top Places
(It is soooo hard to decide or categorize the best places we've seen, but I've summarized ten places here)
- Mt. Everest
- Mt. Kailish
- Potala Palace and Lhasa
- Angkor Wat
- Terra Cotta Warriors
- Koh Tao
- Sapa
- Teman Negara
- Kashgar
- Geongju

Kendra's Top Places
- Terra Cotta Warriors
- Mount Everest
- Angkor Wat
- Guge Kingdom, Tibet
- Mount Kailish
- Laos
- Potala Palace/ Lhasa
- Sapa, Vietnam
- Ko Tao, Thailand
- Phuket, Thailand

Mike's Top Highlights
- Standing on Monestary's step at Mt. Kailish at 6:00am with one of the monks; Tibet, China.
- The monks kitchen in Bampa Monestary; Tibet, China.
- The Bell at the Bulguska Temple; Geongju, Korea.
- Snorkeling in Mango Bay; Koh Tao, Thailand.
- Diving the "Chumphon" and "Southwest" pinnacles; Koh Tao, Thailand.
- Waiting for the stars at Rowak Lake; Tibet, China.
- Haggling at Kashgar Markets; Xinjiang, China.
- Jumping off Bamboo Contraptions into the river in Vang Vien, Laos.
- Wondering the old town of Lijiang early in the morning; Yunnan, China.
- Watching the sunsets in Railay; Krabi, Thailand.
- Sunrise at Everest; Tibet, China.

Kendra's Top Highlights
- Reaching the 5650 m pass of Mt Kailish and realizing I could hike anything (if I want to, and NO I do not want to hike the Anapurna Circuit!).
- Staying at Mount Everest base camp.
- Diving with the fishes... 30 times.
- Finding the "end of trail" sign after our lovely "walk" in the leech infested jungle of Teman Negara, Malaysia.
- Climbing down a dark tunnel in the Guge Kindgom by myself and discovering hidden rooms in a mountain, China.
- Thai massages on the beach.
- Walking through the rice fields in Chang Mai, Thailand on our way to the Karen Village.
- Kayaking in Luang Prabang, Laos.
- Understanding the meaning of pain, suffering and endurance when I visited the Killing Fields and S21 museum of Phenom Phen, Cambodia.
- Playing with a restaurant owner's children after exploring Kumbum Temple; Gyantse, Tibet.

Best Quotes
- "Poo can make your day." Warren
- "Jody, I dropped my undies in the Dunny." Warren
- "Como Manzo, Laba." Everybody on the way to Lhasa
- "Your the longest person we've travelled with so far." Mike
- "We've got F'n Shitty ass wine, but its free!" Tour operator, Vietnam
- "I am not going to Mt. Kailish." Kendra (5 min before signing up for the Mt. Kailish overland tour)
- "Freddie don't do it." N/A
- "Your staying for a month and not doing your DMT?!?" Everybody in Koh Tao
- "Its only another hour hike." Just before our ordeal in Teman Negara, great advice :(.
- "Where are you from,"...Canada...", "The capital of Canada is Ottawa...." Every kid in Vietnam, and Cambodia
- "Great to see you, you couldn't have picked a worst time to come." Renee

3 Things we didn't know about each other
Mike
- How quickly Kendra adapts to any situation.
- Once Kendra starts to hike, she doesn't stop until she's there
- Kendra loves Caves, and Museums.

Kendra
- Mike loves to throw boulders/rocks down hills.
- Mike doesn't like sand to be on him, although he prefers to lay directly in it rather than use a towel at the beach.
- Mike has an amazing ability to learn foreign languages quickly (thank goodness!)

3 things we didn't know about ourselves
Mike
- I can't stand when people overcharge for admission prices in China...doh!
- It is OK, and sometimes actually fun, to get lost.
- I really enjoy markets; looking around and shopping at them.

Kendra
- I can survive without showering for 5 days straight
- I am a less pickier eater than I thought... although I still don't like onions, and green peppers, oh and tomatoes,
- I am a backpacker (although I will always love a good ol' resort!)

Top 5 "Critter" Experiences
1. The leeches of Tehman Negara Jungle
2. The cockroach that walked across Mike's *cough* unit; Ko Tao, Thailand
3. The poisonous spiders dangling in our paths; Halong Bay, Vietnam
4. The Ants in our beds at Railay, Thailand, and along the walls at Hoi An, Vietnam
5. The Titan Trigger Fish attacks, Koh Tao, Thailand

Average weight of our Laundry: 5kg
Longest distance we've carried our bags: Big Bags 4.5 km; Small Bags 22 km
Average Cost of Beer: $1.25 Canadian (including the big 750 ml bottles :) )
The Favorite Traveller we've met: We didn't like anybody (just kidding).
1 Thing we miss most about home: My own car (Mike); My Bathtub (Kendra)
Strangest foods we've ate: Fly Larvae, Sampa, Kimchi, Minnows
Most expensive drink: Singapore Sling, $15 Singapore Dollars
Most Expensive place we've stayed: $36 CDN; Koh Tao, Thailand
Least Expensive place we've stayed: $3.5 CDN; Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Least favorite place: Ali, China

# of times we used overnight transportation: 18
# of Car Accidents Seen: 15+
# of Car Accidents Involved in: 1
# of Countries Visited: 8
# of Scuba Dives: 28 Mike: 30 Kendra (I was legitamately sick one day)
# of Can's of Shaving Cream Mike used: 1/2 of 1, barely shaved at all.
# of different cities we've slept in: 59
# of times Mike got angry at admission prices in China: Too many to count
# of World Heritage Sites we've visited: 12
# of engagements announced since we left: 6
# of significant fights between us: none, we never fight...owww, Kendra, OK 3.
# of Parcels Shipped home: 9
# of times we've cooked for ourselves: 0 (Does instant noodles count?)
# of Injuries Mike's had: 0; YESS!!
# of days travelled (up to Sept 1): 221

Cheers,
Mike and Kendra