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Welcome to the Captain's log. 

Here in the captain's log you will be able to follow up on some of my adventures.  I will try to update this page as often as possible giving you insight on what I did during the day or since the last update. 

Australia 

Pics: http://s462.photobucket.com/albums/qq342/fabstravels/

September 7

Alice Springs Henbury

Guess what we did.  yup nothing appart from getting supplies and relaxing.  we finaly headed out at the end of the day south towards Uluru, stoping at Henbury.

September 6

Alice Springs day 2

We moved hostel to one that was a little more quite and cozy.  Were we meet some realy nice people and had a relaxed day of updating webpages and uploading pics ect.  Ya as I said not much to do in Alice.

September 5

NT Boarder to Alice Springs

Yes it is very fare to Alice springs, many many many Km. We did a lot of driving today as well, but at least we arrived in Alice springs.  You might be thinking why didn't they go to Uluru first since it was on the way, well we needed suplies to make it for the next few days that we are going to be there, so to Alice we went.  Alice Springs is for it's location (in the middle of no where) preatty big.  It seams to be a preaty buisy town with a very big mix of ethnic backgrounds.  There is not much to do there as a tourist appart from sit back and relax after a long few days of going through the desert.  It is or it was a natural oassis with a fresh supply of water, but I don't realy know how that stands at the moment.   The heat and present environment conditions are creating water shortages through some parts of the country. 

After cheking in to the hostel we walked around and got a feel for the town and had a few well diserved fresh beers.

September 4

Pootnoura to Northern Territory boarder

I think the title speeks for it's self.  YOu can expect me to be dooing cool stuff all day every day, there are some day were all we do is drive and stare out the window at the crazy changing desert and the realy stinky dead wild life. Yes today was one of those days. so the end.

September 3

Coober Pedy to Pootnoura (rest area)

We spend the day walking around the place and taking in the whole of the town wich we had not done the previous day.  We had also the night before gone to a Opal mine tour that was organized by the owners of the camp grounds.  very cool but no thanks.  As I was saying we continued to discover the town and by the late afternoon we had desided that it would be better to head out and continue our trip North. 

On the way out of town we stopedto admier "The Breakaways" and the famous dog fence that runs from east to west wich is ment to keep the Dingos out of the southern part of Australia.  The Breakaways are absolutly breath taking.  look at the pics in my photobucket page to see them.  A picture is a worth a thousand words.  I don't feel like writing. Yes I am lazy you should know that by now.  After such a treat we then folowed the road up to Pootnoura for the night. 

Oh by the way Mad max, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Pitch Black and one or two other movies were shot in Coober Peady.  You can see in one of the pics the the left over pieces fo the spaceship of Pitch Black. How cool is that.

September 2

Lake Eyre to Coober Pedy

I was hopeing for a magestic sunrise on on the Lake Eyre planes, but no such luck.  It was a nice sun rise, but there was just not as many colors that I would have hoped for.  As the sun came up all was soo peaceful, until there the sun was high enough and the heat of the sun had warmed the plan's just suficiently to wake the creatures.  It was not long before they were upon us making swoops for our heads and other body parts.  They were all over the place, we fought with every spec of energy in our bodies until it was almost too late.  we were able to take refuge in Viki.  We barely made it out alive.  The killer head swarming fly's.  We were safe for the moment, but little did we know we would have to fight again soon. 

We left lake Eyre and continued on what became a realy horrible piece of road.  At many occasions I thought the van was going to be rattled to pieces.  It was not a fun morning of driving.  The road eventualy falttend out and because very nice until we had finaly made it to Coober Peady.

Coober Peady is a VERY interseting place, with VERY interesting people.  I was warned before going that this is not a place for the lovers of luxury and the type of person that you will find there are hard working people.  Many say that they are excentric characters that are as warm and friendly as a grizzly bear.  We defenetly saw some boarderline social case's.  But all together it is an incredible palce to see and visit, but too long. 

We stayed in a place called Ribas Camp grounds, were we stayed under ground.  It was a cool thing to experience. 

September 1

Flinders Range to Lake Eyre

We headed back into the national park Visitors center this morning to abuse one more time of the nice free showers, as well as to ask about the road conditions before we set off.  We set off through the northern Part of the park through to an area called Brachina Gorge wich led up to Leigh Creek.  For a geologist this part of the park, well actually the hole park would have been a feast for them.  There were so many different laters of the earths crust that were exposed, dating back millions of years.  It was a real delight for even those that are not that knowledgeable in the field. 

We had finaly reached the sealed road and the stopping of the brain ratelling road.  We continued up to Lyndhusrt were the road became dirt road and we were back into the prope ouback roads. 

The Outback is a very changing place contrary to what some people may think.  There is a continuation of color change from the dark red's borderline browns, to Oranges reds, light orange to dark tan to light tan.  from dust to treesto rocks to bushes.  Never was there the same type landscape.  I thought of it in some areas to beeing on Mars.  Then you have the well known mirrages that give you the impressions of water, or like a magicien making a mountian range disappear and then reappear.  Very amazing and interesting to experience. Deffenetly not for those that are thirsty. ;o).  We were on the strech of road that is know as the Odnadatta Track.  We continued our way up the track, were we reached the southern most part of Lake Eyre were we stoped for the day. 

When we got out of the van, we were atacked by the famous outback fly's.  I would have never in my life think that they were that bad.  there must have been 20 to 30 buzzing around my head at the same time.  Very very very anoying.  After a whiel you start to get used to them and once the sun starts to come down the dwindel away and dissappear.  AHHHH what a relief.

August 31

Flinders Range

The clouds were still out this morning, but there had not been any rain through out the night.  This was good news since with the sun that was comming out, the roads would try very quickly and that meant that we would be able to continue our trip throught the outback.  Whiel we had breakfast the weather seamed to get even better so we desided to go for a day hick up the Flinders.  We took the St Maries Peak track.  The mape says that it is a 7-8 hours return walk with a hard degree of dificulty.  We did the loop track in under 6 and it really was not that hard.  They like to exagerat the levels so to disuade some of the not so experianced hikers.  It was a really nice walk with great views of the surounding area, as well as an impressive outlook of what was waiting for us tomorrow.  The great vastness of the desert awaited us. During the walk we saw some Yellow Tailed Walibies which are susposed to be a rare animal in the park and in Australia, they were all over the place.  The are much fluffier and smaller that the one's we saw earlier in the hike. 

Once the hike was over we abused and used the camp paying campgrounds showers to have a well diserved wash. 

August 30

Hancok's Lookout to Flinders Range

We headed out from Hancock's Lookout to go North finaly towards the Outback.  Finaly making our way there.  We stoped in an area, a mountain range called the Flinders Range, a very beatiful range of mountains.  We headed in to the parks information center to see what kind of walks the park had to offer and also to check on the conditions of the road that we were going to use in the next couple of day.  Since it was raining the roads were not in any condition to be used by the van.  They were only open to 4X4's and that type of truck.  So we spent the day at the camp site hoping for the weather to clear up tomorrow so that we could at least go for a hike and hope that the roads would dry up ASAP.

Capitain's long Sept. 14