A cool book of memories

Ever since we came back from our epic motorhome trip to the centre of Australia, I've been wondering how best to put our memories, especially our photos, into some kind of viewable format. Having them as digital images on the computer, wasn't quite my idea of how they should be.

So when my friend April wrote on Facebook about a free photo book being offered (by MyPublisher), I jumped at the chance. Especially because April is the designer of the magazine I manage and I know that she wouldn't be promoting a dodgy website.

One spread from our book.

This is what we've ended up with: a 20 page professional-looking book with our own photos. I'm stoked. We all love it, actually!

Most of our memories are in our heads, but it is very special to have something we can hold and even show others. It is a physical reminder that we did have a very special trip last July, one that we will probably never forget.

A peculiar day

Today's just been weird.

It started off quite normally, until my eldest didn't go to school as usual, but instead walked with me there at 8.45. It was Student-led conference day. The day when middle and high school students present their work (for us, one challenging and one enjoyable piece of work per subject) to their parents and talk about their goals for the rest of the school year. It was good to see how our son is self-evaluating and the improvements he's made in the last couple of years!

Unexpected photo project
Then we came home, both of us! I've spent the rest of the day working on a photo book that will be professionally printed. Finally our Uluru trip photos will find a suitable home. It's been one of those "must do" jobs that just gets pushed aside by everything else. But I hadn't planned to do it today.

It's just that my friend and the designer of the magazine I edit shared a deal on Facebook the yesterday that My Publisher was offering. A free 20 page photo book if you shared their deal on your FB page. Plus our designer highly recommended them as a company. It was too good to pass up. The hitch is that the deal expires next Monday. So, I had to make time to do it this week.

Firstly I had to choose photos from the 535 photos that we took (and if I could go back I'd take more)! That took until lunch-time. Then, after lunch I had to figure out how to use the programme. It didn't take too long, but squishing the 85 photos I wanted into 20 pages with decent layout was quite a challenge. Not surprisingly I ended up leaving out some!

However the whole thing has unfortunately taken up a good portion of my day. I say unfortunately because the timing isn't great. I have a whole lot of articles sitting waiting for me to edit them and get them moving along in the process towards publication. I also have another article I have to write myself due on Friday. Argghh. I hate it when things pile up like this.

The weirdness of today
It was weird, however, doing all this in a not-quite-empty house. My son spent a lot of time next to me, working on a big lab report. Thankfully he didn't require much help from me, but merely my presence to keep him on-track. I wonder if it counts as an unfair advantage to have the head of science as his dad? Not that David's done much except counsel and cajole him along the road to getting the report written...

It is strange to be alone in the house all day with my eldest. He's the one most likely to be absent—at training, or sporting events, or various school excursions or camps. And I can't remember the last time he had to stay home for illness. It is distinctly weird. He found it a bit odd too, remarking how quiet the house was. I remarked with glee that that is how the house is every day that they go to school and I stay home and work!

But I must say that I did enjoy his company. He's turning into a young man I'm proud to know.

He's also enjoyed some SQUILT time (not SQUIRT time). Not reading, but Lego play on his own. Yes, our nearly-14 year old is still loves his Lego.

But as for me, I'd better get back to my to-do list, secure in the knowledge that while I haven't made much progress on my immediate priorities, I've at least put time into something that might otherwise have never made it off our hard-drive.

Looking back at 2012

On the first day of 2012 I wrote a post about what I thought might be coming up during the year. There were less big surprises in 2012, a relief really!

• We visit Australia in July. We certainly did. 
• Motorhome driving holiday to Uluru while in Australia. This was the highlight of the year. This link will take you to all of the posts I wrote "on the road".
• Increased professionalism of Japan Harvest (the magazine I'm an editor of) and increased responsibility for me there. Yes, this happened. I also became the Managing Editor of the magazine. More change has happened with the magazine this year than I believed possible.
• More camping trips. We did three camping trips again. One was interrupted by a serious typhoon, where we had to find solid shelter for a day and night. Check out the post on that here. We also established a new tradition: camping on Thanksgiving weekend. 
• At least one women's retreat and one mission conference. Yes, did this.
• Another skiing trip with me to try out skiing next winter (hopefully I'll be injury-free) this time next year. After a year of varying concern about my knee, I did get to go skiing just before Christmas and it held up well. 
• Keep blogging daily. 351 blog posts during 2012, and the blog was viewed 20,525 times during the year (barring today).
• Keep going to the gym. I did, although not as often as I'd have liked at times. I didn't make it there during our time in Australia or for a month or two after that due to my knee and holiday busyness.
• My eldest child turns 13. He did indeed. Now he's looking at 14 and moving into high school (year 9 in the American system)!

Here are a few things I didn't anticipate on Jan 1 this year:

• My mother-in-law came to visit us in August for three weeks. She accompanied us on a camping trip to Nikko (north of Tokyo).
• Wrestling captured our son's heart and I was shocked to find myself appreciating the sport too, in a different way to how you might suppose. See this post.
• I wrote a 10 post series answering questions for a friend for her Bible College assignment. It began here and I was surprised at how people enjoyed the series.
• Regarding blog surprises, this photo question post was one of the highest viewed of the year (possibly due to Simone blogging about it). Not something to brag about in my resume, but interesting nonetheless.
• We had the first annual Japan Harvest planning meeting. It was a positive step forward, especially establishing magazine themes for the coming 12 months.
• We held two Writer's Workshops, one in Tokyo and one in Kansai.
• I travelled to Kyoto and Osaka, for the first time, and on my own!
• I lost a tooth, actually it got wrenched out of my mouth by a dentist in Australia. Again, not something that makes front-line news.
• One of the boys had the flu early this year, but it didn't pass to the rest of the family, thankfully.

So it seems I scraping the bottom of the barrel now.

One thing I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped, was writing. I was too caught up in managing Japan Harvest, and editing other people's writing. That job continues in 2013, but hopefully it will settle down a little and the processes we've put in place will enable it to run more smoothly and be less time consuming than it has in the past. We'll see if I manage to get some more writing done in the coming year. But that is really the subject of tomorrow's post.

We have many good memories from 2012. It's been a good year for the Marshalls as a whole. We've seen the boys grow (mostly) in good directions, especially our eldest. It also was the year that my first-born overtook me in height.

I started 2012 with this promise:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

And I finish with it too. I thank God for the good plans he had for me during 2012 and for giving me the strength to fully participate in them. I thank him for the Hope that he gave and continues to give as I face the future. I thank him for the Love that he gives, freely, that enables me to face the future, knowing that I'm loved.

The Final Day

(Saturday 28^th July)

Our final run back to Tweed Heads to drop off the motor home was unexpectedly stressful. We were supposed to drop it off at 4pm, but we couldn’t just drive straight from Bundaberg to Tweed Heads, we had to stop off in Brisbane to pick up our next car, but also to clean out the motor home. We had to extricate all our stuff from every little nook and cranny, and believe me, there were a lot of places to store stuff!

Plus we had to stop for lunch and make sure we emptied the right things (think black and grey water) and filled the right things (think petrol tank and fresh water tank).

Then there was a lot of roadwork, especially between Bundaberg until a bit after Gympie where the dual carriageway began. But anyway, the whole morning was frustrating, I felt a bit like we were in one of those reality shows and even though we’d practically completed the long journey, we’d fail if we didn’t get to a certain place in Tweed Heads by 4pm.

Our final motorhome-journey sunrise.

We stopped at our friends’ house to pick up their car. We also removed everything from our home and car of the last 16 days and dumped it on their front lawn. And then we descended into a frenzy of cleaning. It actually didn’t take too long with three or four of us working at it and very soon David drove off with our eldest son in the front seat of the van. Leaving me with the two younger boys and a dishevelled pile of our belongings. I then endeavoured to locate the right bags of clothes and shove them into the right suitcase.

Finally two lanes.

The Gateway Bridge

When I’d filled all the suitcases, I engaged our friend’s help to stuff it all into the car he was lending us. I reflected with him that he probably never expected that “supporting missionaries” would ever involve him in helping us clean a motor home. He agreed it was a little unusual.

About half an hour after David left, I too pulled out on my way to Tweed Heads. This time, after nearly 8,000km of driving in a small “truck” I sat in the driver’s seat of a Commodore Wagon. I felt like I was sitting on the ground. The difference was remarkable. Probably my low seat was the most challenging thing, although later David had a lot of difficulty with the indicator. In the motor home it was on the left (being a Mercedes). In a usual Australian car it is on the right. The lever on the left powers the windscreen wipers.

David eventually beat the deadline by 30 minutes. I didn’t get there till 50 minutes later, primarily because I forgot which exit I had to take off the motorway. It was wonderful to realise that we’d completed our journey safely. We achieved all we’d hoped to achieve.

Goodbye dear motorhome.

And it turned out that we drove 7,990km. Just a bit further than I’d estimated!

Final full day

(Friday 27^th July)

Roadwork in the misty morning.

Today we drove from Mackay through Rockhampton and into Bundaberg. The landscapes we’ve seen today have been more like we’re used to seeing in Australia. I’m guessing it is pretty typical “within 200km of the coast” open forest that we’ve been seeing yesterday and today. When I think of Australian terrain, that is what most readily comes to mind. It’s been good, though, these last two weeks, to see a different part of Australia altogether.

We had a whole overhead cupboard
full of books for the boys. They learned
to appreciate that by the end of the trip!

We encountered lots of roadwork throughout the day, which was frustrating.
We even waited quite a long time at one petrol station to fill-up the tank, apparently it was an unusually busy day and they only had one bowser with diesel (that had two hoses, but one car with an extra large caravan completely blocked everyone else from getting to it). Plus it took ages to get out of Mackay, partly because we left at peak hour, and our place of stay for the night was a fair way from the highway, but also because we encountered a police road block (for an unknown reason) that we had to negotiate our way around, without a road map. So once again we landed at our destination just at dusk. Not ideal, but not because we hadn’t tried hard and kept the breaks short.

We stopped for a short lunch at David's mother's new house in Rockhampton. It was too short, but thankfully we've already see her this trip and we'll see her again in Tokyo as she's coming to visit when we return.

Beautiful coastal bushland north of Bundaberg.

But our destination was worth striving to get to. We’re with a family who were OMF missionaries in Japan for a few years in our early years in Japan. They’re back in Australia for now, but we love to get together with them because we have so many shared experiences and memories. Plus our kids are very similar ages, even if they don’t really remember each other well. Oh yes, and they’re teachers. So that is something David has in common with them.

Loved these clouds.

My throat is gradually getting better, but it is sore again tonight because we’ve been talking and talking with our friends. My throat is sore from talking, but my heart is full. We started the day with good friends and finished it with other good friends. How much better can it get than that?

Things I’ve really appreciated about this trip 

-       seeing more of Australia than I’ve ever seen in one go before

-       laying eyes on places that I have known about for most of my life, but never been to

-       completing a challenge that most forthright people have declared as “crazy”

-       free camping

-       seeing lots of horizon, and watching multiple sunrises and sunsets

-       doing something that gave our extended family ways to connect with us, when sometime they have trouble finding any common connections with us

-       boasting material

-       the memories it has generated

-       total mental break from Japan and what we normally do in Japan. Just concentrating on getting from point A to point B before the sun set has kept us from thinking about work and refreshed our minds (hopefully).

-       the interesting things David and I never get to discuss in our every day lives

To the ocean

Yes, we have a large state!

(Thursday 26^th July)

Yes, we reached the ocean three and a half days after leaving the sentimental “centre of Australia” (not the actual centre of Australia, that is about 200km north of Alice Springs).

This morning we woke up on the beautiful Australian bushland, surrounded by gum trees and birds, and a river flowing just a couple of hundred metres away. It was a beautiful place to begin, unfortunately, much like most of our trip, we couldn’t stay long to enjoy it, we had to “make tracks”. We continued to drive east through Charters Towers and down to Townsville.

Bigger trees, definitely a wetter climate here west of

Charters Towers.

In Townsville we’d arranged to meet someone David taught in his last couple of years of teaching in Australia. This “young man” is now an ordained minister and at the end of the year to be working as an army chaplain. I’ve not met him before, but it was a pleasurable couple of hours where he treated the whole family to beverages from The Coffee Club, and we sat in a green grassy park and ate lunch next to the beach. After lunch we let the boys go down to the beach and touch the ocean. It is the first time in over two years that we’ve been to the beach. The boys loved it. Our eldest even showed our “new” friend some wrestling moves after he’d shown some interest in them. Wrestling on a beach, however, is a very gritty affair. They both came away a bit like lamingtons — covered in sand, but both happy.

This is why Australia's national colours are green and
gold. The most common colour (aside from yellowed
grass) is the green of eucalyptus. Then you see these
stunning flowered bushes: yellow wattle, our national
flower.

?Near Townsville. A lot different terrain than what we'd
become accustomed to seeing.

The boys, and in fact all of us, would have loved to stay longer, but again, we had to leave before we were satisfied. We’d organised to stay with friends in Mackay, 300 or so km to the south.

It has been interesting to watching the geography change as we’ve driven to the coast. It is so green and wet and so variable after what we saw hour after hour in central Australia.

City driving terrified me after all the long straight country
driving we'd done. It didn't help that we were driving
a large box-shaped vehicle! I let David do this bit.

A common thread throughout our whole journey is that almost everywhere we’ve stayed and many places we’ve driven through we’d like to have stayed just a bit longer. I can imagine happily doing this same journey over a month rather than 16 days. I’m not sure whether the boys would have been happy too, but then perhaps they would have been. We’ve really had to neglect the E of our EF parenting philosophy. Exercise has been sadly lacking in our long driving days, and we’re seeing the effects of that now, with very ratty boys by the end of the day. Thankfully we only have two more long travelling days to go.

The Beach! 

Tomorrow we leave early again and travel to Rockhampton to see David’s mum’s new house. Then we’ll travel on to Bundaberg to see some more friends who we haven’t seen for three years. We’re nearly at the end of our marathon journey.

The voiceless day

(Wednesday 25^th July)

I started the day with less voice than yesterday and that hasn’t improved. It is very difficult to manage my rowdy family with nothing more than a squeak or a whisper. Even worse in a van where just to be heard you have to speak pretty loudly. A few times I resorted to notes. However, “Settle down or you’ll lose another M&M!” just doesn’t have the same force in a note! Even worse is that you can’t easily get other people’s attention. I can barely reach the boy sitting in the rear facing aisle seat, I tell you I was tempted to throw things today!

Where we landed at the end of the day:
Campaspe River.

We started with grumpy boys this morning, actually mostly just one grumpy boy. It was late to bed last night and then he was the one sleeping on the breakfast table, so had to be shifted most urgently this morning. Another one said, “I don’t like this, all day driving, day after day, thing very much.” I could only agree with him.

Today, though, we were able to finish driving a little bit earlier, about 5pm. Enough time to go and explore the flowing river (and give the grey nomads a scare when our boys went up on the narrow road bridge, which constituted the 110km/hr highway, before we knew where they were). It was a very timely spot to stop for the night as the boys had about reached breaking point. About 10km earlier our eldest forcefully thumped the seat repeatedly and then screamed his lungs out. His explanation:

Building a castle with river sand.

“I did it to get out my frustration so that I didn’t thump one of my brothers.”

“What are you frustrated about?”

“I don’t know.”

I could have answered that for him. He was sick of being stuck in this car, just like the rest of us. I applauded his ability to recognise his own emotions and not take them out on his brothers, but the yell was a bit much and gave David, who was driving at the time, a fright.

I didn't look too sick, did I?

This morning I dozed off in my seat after driving the first shift. This is highly unusual behaviour for me (as an adult, as a kid I did it regularly); but probably a combination of tiredness from all this driving and battling a cold. It did help the morning go quickly, though! I was worried about my after lunch driving shift, so I broke my no caffeine rule and drank a Diet Coke. That helped my drowsiness a lot!

In the last driving shift of the day we met a kangaroo on two different occasions. We slowed for both of them, the first one actually took off and jumped across the road only a couple of metres in front of the motor home. If we’d hit it that would have probably been the end of our motor homing holiday. It was fairly large, maybe about 130cm. So it was a relief to get off the road a little earlier today.

Just after sunrise the next morning.

We’re in a lusher environment; the tablelands west of Charters Towers. I’m not sure we saw any water flowing or lying around in the Northern Territory, but there is around here, even water lying along the road. More vegetation, more wildlife. We lost count of the road kill we saw in the hills east of Mt Isa this morning, in fact all along the road. There must have been dozens.

Oh, and tonight is our last official “free camping”. We only have two more nights left in our journey and for both we’ll be parked at the houses of friends in Mackay and Bundaberg.

Tonight we’re in a lovely spot by a river, but the downside is that we’re sandwiched between the highway and the train line. Granted we’ve only seen one train in 3 ½ hours, but every now and then a semi trailer sounds its horn, no idea why, but that could be a disturbing feature of this otherwise charming spot!

Another good thing about today was that we were able to get almost all the clothes I washed last night dry. Only because we travelled basically east all day and, being winter, the sun came steadily from the north, through the window over our bed. At each stop I spread out a new set of damp clothes on the bed and through the whole day it almost all got dry! Amazing.

Sunrise the next morning.

For now, it is 8.45pm, and I can’t wait to lie down on this bed (I’m sitting up while typing). Maybe we’ll need a holiday to get over this holiday?

Awesome start, very ordinary finish

(Tuesday 24 July)

This morning we started early again, finishing in time to see the sun rise in a most spectacular place — Karlu Karlu (Devil's Marbles).  I finished tidying up after breakfast a few minutes after everyone left and was most surprised to get out of the motor home and find my entire family standing on the tops of large boulders! I scrambled up too, as far as I dared with my short legs, and watched the sun rise. It was beautiful.

And there is nothing quite a quick scramble on boulders to produce quiet boys for a while afterwards. We had a good start.

But on the whole it was a day when Murphy’s law abounded. The first hint was 100km into my first shift of the day. I was driving carefully at 49 km/hr through Tennant Creek, but missed the school zone sign and was pulled over by a policeman (in a green police car). He was gracious enough to just give me a warning, seeing quite clearly that we were visitors to the state, but it shook me up a little.

This was our third encounter with police in the Northern Territory. The first two were on David’s shifts when he was Random Breath tested plus a visual safety check. Our fourth was to come later today when we stopped at a rest stop across the road from a remote police station. 

On our way out of the rest stop we realised that we’d neglected to take the water cooler off the kitchen bench (a lethal weapon at 100km/h), so David pulled across the highway and onto the verge while we fixed the problem. In that short time the policeman noticed us (we’re pretty obvious) and dashed out in his car to see what was wrong. He was a bit nonplussed that we were fine. There isn’t a rule about not parking in front of police stations, is there? I’m guessing he was having a slow day!

Camping at Karlu Karlu.

Most of the rest of our travels were fairly uneventful, if long. Again, we had very few stops — most were driver and passenger seat changes, fuel, toilet needs. We made it back into Queensland again, our home state.

Oh, but I did pass my second road train (with three trailers)! My first was yesterday just outside of Alice Springs. It is a scary thing to do, especially in a motor home! But thankfully this baby has a good amount of power and we were on the Barkley highway west of the Qld border, which is pretty straight and not high on traffic.

A painted-on road grid!
Check this link:
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2005/s1424777.htm

I’m battling a cold, though I don’t feel too bad. I sound pretty bad though. It is a combination of a cold and talking over the noise of the engine to David as well as shouting back at the boys. My voice gradually faded over the day. I even took a nap. I don’t remember the last time I napped during a car journey.

We pulled into Mt Isa close to dusk, I dashed into Coles to get groceries while the guys got petrol. Then we searched for the caravan park we were booked into. The directions were distinctly unclear and got us lost at a time when we were low on energy reserves. My lack of voice didn’t help my feelings of frustration either. By this time the boys were just acting crazy in the back, and that made finding our way even more difficult. Eventually we found our way and parked. Everything seemed to take so long as we prepared for dinner and sleeping the night, and I began to make mistakes, a sure sign of tiredness.

A lot of straight, flat, featureless land today.

My first mistake was while preparing to wash up after dinner. Without a dish drainer, it is challenging to dry dishes for five people. I was checking the stove to see which element was hot (David cooked left-over pancake mix for dessert) and unthinkingly touched the hot one with the pads of my index and middle fingers. Oooooouch!

Next mistake came soon afterwards. I somehow lost the plus down the plughole. It squished and went shooting down the pipe. Thankfully it is tethered to the tap, so we fished it out eventually!

Third mistake was putting the laundry into the dryer on too weak a setting (which goes with another mistake: not bringing enough dollar coins with us on this trip). End result: a bunch of clothes that are clean and only partly dry and no money to put them through another dryer cycle (office is shut). They’re hanging outside overnight, I hope they are a bit drier before we depart early tomorrow. Wet clothes are difficult to manage when you are travelling!

Fourth mistake: washing myself in the shower with body lotion. It was lovely and smooth, but I wonder how clean I got?

I could write more, but my fingers are hurting and I’m tired. Time to call it a day. Tomorrow onwards towards to coast. We have two days to get to Mackay via Townsville, both days should be less than 700km, which is better than today and yesterday. We’ve driven close to 1,600km since yesterday morning. No wonder I’m a bit muddled. Hopefully it will be a good night and another great start tomorrow. Our youngest son commented to me that he was disappointed we couldn’t see any horizon from our caravan park. I guess we’ve seen a lot of horizon recently and he’s grown to enjoy that. I hope Tokyo won’t be too much a comedown for us all!

The Loooong Haul

(Monday 23^rd July)

Today we drove the longest we’ve driven this trip. About 830km. We left at 7.36am and arrived a bit after 6pm. We took one toilet/driver swap stop, two driver swap/fuel stops and one other fuel stop, none of them long. Lunch was tacked onto one of those fuel stops and consisted of sitting on the gutter at a service station scoffing sandwiches made before dawn. Those who didn’t beat the driver through their sandwiches got to finish their lunch on the road (the driver had her banana waiting at lights to get out of Alice Springs). It was a Loooong day.

The day started well, with lots of quiet in the back, which was good, because it was a challenging start. I drove east just after dawn for two hours before handing over to David. I wore a cap to help me view the road in the face of the sun rising in front of me! It was a bit tricky. Thankfully no wallabies or kangaroos jumped out or we could have been in trouble.

The noise from the boys got worse later, especially towards lunchtime. Without going into details, you only need to know that there were various clashes as siblings are wont to have. One drama king, one stubborn, opinionated boy, and another long-suffering sibling who put up with a lot, but got quite tired of the nonsense and eventually put his foot down. We put our “foots” down quite a number of time too! After lunch David put a DVD on to help quieten the mob. But of course a DVD only lasts so long, so eventually they had to find their own things to do.

A Karlu Karlu sunset

We arrived at our isolated destination not long before sunset and immediately sent the boys to climb on the abundant boulders that lay around. You see we’ve arrived at a place called “Devil’s Marbles”. Actually I prefer the native name for it Karlu Karlu, or “God’s Marbles” as I’ve also heard it called. It is a remarkable area covered with large granite boulders, like a giant’s marble collection that he failed to keep neatly packed away.

We ate a simple tea of bacon and eggs, boiled mixed veggies, and a triple-decker cheese quesadilla (three tortillas with cheese sandwiched between the layers and baked in the small oven we have onboard).  We are “free” camping. Actually we’ve paid $AU7.70 (!) to park here (with about 30 or 40 other parties) and camp with no facilities except a drop toilet. Again, like Avon Downs last week, there is no settlement close by. Free camping has the advantage of being uncomplicated. When you pull up somewhere you have nothing to connect to. You just turn on your gas and, if you’re as late as we were arriving today, start cooking dinner!

We discovered on arrival that the park ranger just happens to do a campfire with an hour of explanation of the local area, flora, and fauna. He also answered questions from the many who gathered around. We got there for the last half of his talk and it was fascinating. One really interesting part was about the climate of this area. It doesn’t have a defined annual cycle. Rather more of a 10 to 20 year cycle that includes wet and dry times. 2010 and 2011 were very wet years (Alice Springs got 76mm of rain in 2009, 760mm in 2010!). Both of David and I were expecting to see a more arid, barren Northern Territory. But it seems we’re here not too long after a prolonged wet period, and that is why it doesn’t seem too arid.

My boast for the day is passing my first three-trailer road train. I'm not sure I've even done that in a car, to do it in a motor home was quite something — holding-my-breath, kind of something! For those of you who aren't Aussies, a road train is a truck with two or more trailers (see Wikipedia's explanation here). The one I passed was more than 50m long. I do need to temper my boast and tell you that the truck was driving at 70km/hr (on a 130km/hr road) and driving up a hill . . . but I did pass it. (Ed's note: I passed another one the next day too and David passed one later, east of Mt Isa . . . or at least he says he did, I was asleep.)

Well, we’re up early again tomorrow, hoping to leave at about the same time — just after sunrise. We’re aiming for Mt Isa, where we’re booked into a caravan park. If we get up early, though, we might just have a little bit of time to explore the close-by boulders a little (the boys did today before the sun set, but we didn’t as we were busy with making dinner and a little bit of set-up).

Unexpected treasures

(Sunday 22^nd July)

Well, we did get a solid night’s sleep and it made the world of difference today. We were almost all up and about before 7.30: sunrise. So we went up to the campsite viewing point and watched the sun rise on Uluru. Beautiful. Just seeing a sun rise over the horizon is beautiful, let alone having Uluru as part of the context. In Tokyo we rarely see the horizon. Out here you can see the horizon in all directions. It is magnificent.

Not the most popular view of Kata Djuta.

We had pancakes for breakfast and then eventually ventured out to Kata Tjuta (previously known as the Olgas). It is another 45km on from Uluru, and it is pretty obvious that it isn’t the main attraction. It is more remote and less resourced. One toilet block is all there is. There are less signs, smaller car parks etc. 

But Kata Djuta itself is not “less” in any way. It is actually quite a different experience. The same orange-red rock and blue sky — but not just one big rock that you walk around, but lots of domes that invite you to explore. We found we were surprised around several corners of the walks we took, unexpected sights abounded. It wasn’t an easy walk, however, and now my knees are protesting the punishment I meted out to them.

Again, the three contrasting colours.

We didn’t quite complete all that we wanted too, partly because we lingered over lunch. The reason being is that we ended up sharing a large picnic table with two cyclists who are riding all over the place out here. I’m not sure what their final destination is, but they’d come from Mt Isa so far. What surprised me was that they weren’t young, they had grey beards, I suspect in their 60s. And they didn’t seem to be ‘mad’, they didn’t boast of their achievements (and this isn’t the first or even third outback biking journey they’ve undertaken). They just seemed to enjoy the life on the road, the freedom that being on bikes gave them, and the companionship of travellers along the road. They answered our questions and returned with questions of their own for us. One of them has lived in Japan and speaks some Japanese.

Around each corner was another stunning facet
of the rocks.

Fascinating people that you meet along the road. We’ve been in such a rush to get here, that we haven’t had time to sit and chat with people who are also on the road. Our time has been consumed with getting from here to there as well as organising the boys to get the essentials done (teeth, showers, dressed, and if we’re lucky: exercise etc.) and getting all the necessary things done ourselves (like laundry, petrol stops, and grocery shopping).

This looks a little like a lunar landscape.

But of course one the first questions people ask is, “Where are you from?” Twice today I’ve answered that, “We’re from Brisbane, but we live in Tokyo most of the time.” Which provokes interesting responses, especially if you don’t identify yourself as a missionary (which tends to produce an uncomfortable  silence).

The other reason we didn’t do as much as we’d hoped at Kata Tjuta is that we wanted to allow the boys to have a short camel ride near our campground, and that shut early. The boys were grateful for the interesting experience of riding on a camel, but in total agreement that a short ride was best, and that a longer ride might indeed induce motion sickness.

A young camel saying, "G'day".

After that we stopped at the resort/town shopping centre for just a few groceries, to avoid having to waste time in Alice Springs tomorrow as we try to get as far north as we can on the Stuart Highway.

The shopping centre was a fascinating place, mostly because it services a fairly unique community. The whole town is pretty much based on tourism and servicing the tourists. The town is hidden from view of most tourists, but there are, I’ve heard, at least 1,100 workers out here, and many of them are young.

I couldn't get enough of these beautiful
gums and the blue skies. This one was
inside the campground.

At the shopping centre I stopped to look at the Community Bulletin, which in a small town like this can give insights into the community. There was a list of regular activities, including touch footy on Monday night, non-denominational Christian meeting on Saturdays, a meeting at the library. I didn’t linger long, but noticed a list of visiting medical professionals to the medical centre, job vacancies, various rugged vehicles for sale, and further education training opportunities with Charles Darwin University, etc. It is fascinating to imagine what it would be like to live in such a specialised community so far from anywhere else (Alice Springs, the nearest big town, is over 400km away).

After we got “home” the boys dashed off to see if the giant chess board was free for use. It was busy, so they watched someone else play for a while. Later they had a go themselves and enjoyed it immensely. Unfortunately they ran out of time and had to call it quits before they were done (but we did take photos of the board, so they could finish the game somewhere else on a different board). It WAS pretty cool!

These pieces came up to mid-thigh on the boys.

After dinner we went to the campground’s public campfire where there was someone singing with his guitar and free marshmallows for cooking. The boys just love fire and I had trouble getting them home, even after the fire was put out.

But we’ve eventually all hopped into bed in preparation for three large days of driving and then two, only slightly less driving days. David has been busy calculating and recalculating distances, but in the end we’ll see how we go. Our only ‘booking’ between now and Mackay on Thursday night is at Mt Isa; we’ll be free camping in-between. The beauty of free camping is that it means you can camp when you’re done with driving for the day, rather than stick to a set schedule or get to the next town that has a caravan park or motel in it. It is also a faster set-up and pack-up as there is less to do outside the van (read no electricity to connect, or water, or grey water hose). No laundry to do either!

But for now I’m heading for the horizontal position!

A quiet, yet awe inspiring day at The Rock

(Saturday 21^st July)

Today we laid eyes on Uluru (Ayers Rock) close up. We slept in a bit and then toddled off to Uluru. It takes a little more to get going, because we have to pack up “home” totally (except a few things like our portable washing line). Unplugging the motor home, securing everything inside etc.

The Rock

When we finally drove up to the rock, it was an awesome sight. Of course we’ve seen the image of the rock many, many times. In fact we own a framed print that graces our walls when we’re in Australia. But to see it up close is amazing. It looms. The colours are more intense. You look up a couple of hundred metres to where the edge of the rock disappears from view and the intense blue of the outback sky contrasts strongly. Then there are quite a lot of spots where bigger-than-usual-in-the-desert eucalyptus trees are growing, no doubt enjoying the water that obviously flows off the rock when it rains. I say obviously because at various points around the rock there are dark vertical stains where the water flows down. So the rusty orange meets the intense blue sky and is complemented by the familiar green of the eucalyptus trees.

A place where you can see that water collects and
then flows down the side of The Rock.

We didn’t rush through, we dawdled and enjoyed wandering along the base. The boys also enjoyed it, poking about here and there. We didn’t do the 9km base walk, we figured that would be too much for at least our youngest, if not other members of the party who were tired.

And that includes David and I. Not only were we tired from our marathon of driving over the last week, but we had a very disturbed night in our motor home last night. One boy got really upset at about 11.30 about sleeping next to his brother (They’re on the double bed above the driver’s seat). He started kicking about and making the motor home roll from side to side; then moaning and kicking the walls. Needless to say we were pretty upset about this, we’d both been asleep for about an hour by this time. There is very little room to deal with something like this in a motor home, no other rooms to put him in and two other boys sleeping. We considered sending him outside but as it was getting down to zero, we thought that was a bit too cruel. I don’t know how long we spent trying to sort him out.

I gave him many opportunities to mend his ways, but he didn’t take them, so I ended up putting him on the floor of the aisle that runs from the back to the front of the van. It made it tricky to get up and go to the toilet. It was a threat that I figured he’d consider significant: “Sleeping on a cold, hard floor with only a sleeping bag,” but he didn’t see it that way and asked this morning if he could sleep there again tonight. Uh, nope. It is a very inconvenience place when they go to bed before us.

He actually continued to have problems when on the floor which makes me think that blaming his brother is only an excuse. What his real problem is, I don’t know. I thought that a day not driving in the motor home would help him, but as I type we have him outside in the cold on 10 minutes time-out. He is still resisting sleeping in his designated spot as I type.

Yes, we were there!

Sorry, I’ve raved on a bit about this. It isn’t a bright spot in our journey, actually very emotionally exhausting. David and I were talking the other day about how parenting is not controlling so much as managing. Well, managing this boy with his high levels of persistence can be very difficult and immensely draining.

Back to Uluru. After walking along the base we drove to the Cultural Centre a little bit away and found a BBQ/picnic spot amongst the Spinifex. While the adults manufactured a basic barbie the boys found some fantastic sticks and ran amongst the Spinifex until we called them. They had a much more enjoyable day than they’ve had recently.

Sunset. Only ruined by an internal thingy in our camera
that puts that annoying hook-shaped shadow on skies.

After lunch we took a look at the cultural centre. The national park is run by the local Aboriginal tribe in conjunction with the government. Therefore it is very culturally sensitive. The whole site is sacred to the local aboriginals. So there are plenty of signs telling you what you can and can’t do. Especially photography. They also prefer you not to climb the rock. We didn’t have a option because the climb was closed due to high winds. At the cultural centre we saw lots of aboriginal art and even two artists in the midst of creating their work.

We soon tired, though and came home for some down-time. Mum and Dad stayed to see the sunset at 6.15, but we were back at the campsite by 3 or so.  I had a lie down, but that was the furthest from the boys’ minds. They alternatively played with the football and created some intricate imaginary world/game called Stick Wars. At one point they decided to try swimming, but lasted only 5 minutes. The water was cold.

I guess that is one thing that might surprise people. You imagine the centre of Australia, desert, to be hot. But it probably only made it to about 16 degrees Celsius today and at the start of the day I was well layered up, it was still below 10 at 9am. The showers are good here, but the building is still very open, so I made sure I had a shower before sunset today, it helped quite a lot.

So, we bunk down for the second night in the same place, which hasn’t happened since last weekend. It’s been very nice to have a slower paced day. Now I’m hoping and praying for a solid night’s sleep!