A little company for the night
This evil green monster was concealing itself in the dark, probably waiting to dig its filthy fangs into my flesh to draw the life out of me.
That will teach me to turn the lights on before washing my hands.
Especially since I saw the frog AFTER I was done.
Shake, rattle and roll
Last night I experienced my first earthquake.
Actually, it was more of a tremor reaching Darwin just a few minutes after the 7.0 that shook Indonesia just 700 km north from here.
A few minutes before the shaking and rumbling the dogs were scratching the door trying to get in, and I had some weird heart palpitations (I don't know if it was related but a quick search on Google shows that it might be) that I voiced out loud to my friends. Then my couch suddenly started shaking quite strongly underneath me.
It was a very strange sensation.
And not a very comfortable one.
In a flash, the feeling that there was nothing I could do, and nothing I could control popped into my mind and clenched my guts, and although I could feel it wasn't very strong and not life-threatening, an animal-like fear was raising and racing through my brain like a freaked-out rat, frantically looking for the exit and screaming 'out, out, OUT!'
But I put a smile on my face, stayed shaking on my couch, and laughed about it with my friends.
We are not animals, aren't we?
Well... maybe.
La resistance
A cheezy clip but some special thoughts for a special someone going through some personal turmoil I can relate to.
We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone*
They have just left me after 8 days on the road, and I miss them already. It was probably tough for them, camping out in the wild, but I am happy we have done this together...
Sharing a tent, cooking on the fire, trying out new recipes for damper (very tasty one with coconut milk), swimming in waterfalls and water holes, spotting birds, snakes, discovering 50 000 years old rock art, tasting green ants, playing with soap tree, getting stung by caterpillars, dreaming of a cold shower...
I am a bit sad tonight, as they are flying to Cairns to discover the Great Barrier Reef for their last days in Australia. Hope to see you again soon, dear roommies!!
*Orson Welles
There are two sides to every coin
My roommates, Sébastien & Pitichat, are now only a couple of days away... After a big roadtrip from Sydney to Adelaïde, they are now in the vincinity of Alice Springs to visit one of the wonders of the world... Uluru!
On Thursday they will take the Ghan, an historic train crossing Australia from the south to the north and arrive in Katherine on Friday morning.
Then we will hit the road quite quickly to go out bush for almost 10 days, so I can give them a taste of outback Australia... That will be quite a big change from our life in Paris :-)
Litchfield National Park and Kakadu National Park are on the program, along with nights under the stars, cooking straight on the fire in a cast-iron camp oven, swimming in water holes with goannas, watching saltwater crocodiles bathing in the sun, and of course a lot of bitumen, unseal roads and red dust.
------------------------------------
To give you a glimpse of what we are going to see, a small serie of three shots taken on the Yellow Water River, in Kakadu National Park, NT (very little post prod, just a bit of vignetting)
The area was buzzing with wildlife (birds and saltwater crocodiles) yet nothing was troubling the peaceful mirror-like surface of the water...
high res on Flickr
Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction.
Saturday was a special day in Katherine, NT. The rodeo show was in town!
Organised to raise funds for a breast cancer association, the show was featuring bronc ridding - saddle bronc and bareback - bull riding, the dangerous steer wrestling, barrel races (a women-only event) and team roping.
The Katherine showgrounds were quite busy as a lot of the spectators had made the trip from cattle stations some as far as three hours from the Northern Territory town.
Cowboy hats, leather boots, high-waist jeans and checkered shirts were the norm among the crowd, and many were wearing a pink-adorned outfit to show support for the cause.
Although the level of testosterone was pretty high that night (life can be quite lonely for those guys on those remote cattle stations), I must recognise that a lot of those country guys are truly behaving like gentlemen - surely the results of being brought-up by a badass mother (there were a lot of those women around at the show - tied up in jeans and cowboys boots, pink cheeks and tough frames from living outdoors although keeping a certain femininity, you really don't want to mess with them)
The event happening at night it was quite a challenge to come up with decent pictures, so here is a quick resume I have put together in video.
After spending a couple of hours eating dust and being galvanised by the adrenaline (and the testosterone) overflowing everywhere, it is quite difficult not to fall hopelessly in love with one of those cowboys and dream about long rides in the sunset, mustering the cattle, fencing together under the unforgiving sun...
high res on Flickr
A colorful ribbon of tarmac
I am leaving tomorrow morning for a quick bush tucker trip in the outback with an Aboriginal man and another French girl. I shall be back Friday night.
Even though I am told that Aboriginal people are happy to share their knowledge, a great number of subjects related to their cultures are not to be passed on to everyone (man business, woman business, old people business as the saying goes) so I am not sure about what I will be allowed to share and even if I will have the freedom to take pictures. I will see what I can tell you when I return.
These Aboriginal cultures (there are many of them all over Australia) are very complex, which make them fascinating yet not easy to understand, and when I receive a little bit of that knowledge, it truly feels like I have found something precious. I am slowly rediscovering the process of learning.
I am currently reading this book called " Donald Thomson in Arnhem Land
In the meantime, I leave you with my favorite series so far!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
When you drive for so many kilometers, your surroundings may have a tendency to look very much the same... But the subtle changes are everywhere.
This is my Stuart Highway, a 1500km colorful ribbon of tarmac.
high res on Flickr
Because we all live under the same sun
A small collection of the stunning drop-everything-you're-doing-to-watch sunsets I have been admiring while on the road during the last four months.
Somewhere on the East coast, NSW
Somewhere on the East coast, NSW
Bondi Beach, NSW
Augathella, QLD
Boulia, QLD
Gem Tree, NT
Uluru, NT
Kata Tjuta, NT
Tennant Creek, NT
Darwin, NT
Kakadu National Park, NT (Ubir)
Kakadu National Park, NT (Yellow Water)
Katherine, NT. During a bushfire.
high res on Flickr
Special treat for @Silphi!
Follow me
June 09, somewhere on the east coast, in New South Wales.
And a very different type of tracks... Can you guess?
high res on Flickr
Well… I’m back
Thanks to my lovely roommates who are coming to Australia for a visit (well, yeah, for those who did not know yet, I'm in Australia right now...) I'm coming back to blogging. Just reading their very first entries made me so excited that the virus has come back, I want to blog again!
For how long, I don't know, what subject, no idea, which frequency, well let's not be too optimistic because I usually have difficulties to access to internet since I am very often out in the bush without even a cellphone coverage.
I will probably randomly blog in english and french, and maybe (if I feel like it...) I will translate my posts in both langages.
The theme of the blog will be reworked later, but if I wait until everything is perfect (as usual) I won't start posting before 2034. The RSS feed is still coming from my last blog, so until I fix the whole thing with the new link (which might take a while considering I am highly motivated to eat code for dinner) you will still have to use this one.
Why am I travelling, alone, in Australia now? Well I guess that'll be the subject of another post... or not ^_^