Milky Way Marbles
Hi everyone!
I know it hasn't been a full week, but we took a much needed break here in Katherine, NT. We have found that every ten days or so we need to just stop. Stop traveling, stop photographing, stop writing, stop doing and rest. So, this is today.
It gives us a chance to catch our breath, work on photos, and reflect on where we have been. If we are in a place with a grocery store, we stock up for the next leg of our journey.
One more thing, I try to make it that we are in a motel so even setting up the tent isn't even a problem.
Since our last missive, we have been to the western MacDonnell ranges, the Devil's Marbles and the Cutta Cutta Caves, along with a very long slog up to Katherine. The MacDonnells are a series of mountain ranges that spread east and west out of Alice Springs, mostly west. They are simply magnificent and a surprise for all who think that the center of Australia is flat. Within the MacDonnells are distinctive locations such as Simpsons Gap, a gap between two ranges with a pool at the base, Standley's Chasm, a very narrow crack in the range (~20 feet), Ellery Pool, a popular billabong with the locals and Serpentine Gorge, a snaking riverbed that cuts through the ranges and has a lookout to die for (if you don't die from first - try 1.6 kilometers straight up very dangerous rock slope).
We camped out at Glen Helen "Resort" which was as resortish as Howard Johnson's was 5 star dining. However, the stars were magnificent.
The Devil's Marbles are a very large group of weathered red granite boulders that do look like giant rock playthings nestled in a startling green landscape. This year has been very, very abnormally rich in grasses and vegetation due to the best rains in 30 years. Great for flowers and crops and unfortunately even better for the expected locust plague, which is feared to be the worst in 70 years. Hopefully, we'll miss out on the majority of it.
Cutta Cutta (local aboriginal for starry, starry) caves are a series of caves embedded in local limestone karst and are worth the visit. Fans and spires and columns of stalactites and stalagmites fill the caves along with very reclusive ghost bats and ringed tree snakes.
We'll be off to Katherine Gorge National Park tomorrow and then the fabled Kakadu NP afterward, then Darwin and Litchfield NP later. Depending on the attractions and sights, it may take a week or two. Who knows.
Then, we embark on an unplanned variation of our journey.
We originally planned to see Western Australia (WA), but that will have to wait. After seeing how long it is taking to see all we want to see and how long it is taking to drive places, we came to the unfortunate realization that we do not have enough time before an already planned and payed for photography workshop in the first week of December in Tasmania to see WA. In a nutshell, to get to the places in WA we want to see, we'd have to drive nearly 5000 kilometers in 6 weeks and see four national parks, visit Perth, swim in the Pacific, and do all the things we wanted to.
So, our variation is as follows: drive like mad back down the Stuart Highway to Port Augusta and then see the Southern Flinders Ranges, visit the Clare wine region of South Australia, tour Adelaide, meander down the Fleureieu Peninsula, pop down the coast to Mt. Gambier and then retrace the Great Ocean Road in Victoria on our way to Melbourne, from where we'll take the ferry to Tasmania. There will probably be a detour up to the Grampian Mountains, VIC, but we'll see.
This way, we will be much more relaxed and really get to enjoy what we are seeing, rather than rushing to make a deadline and missing so much in our haste.
Take time to enjoy the gifts given you.
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