Crossing Australia
5000 kilometers, 5 friends, 1 Snake.
Arriving in Adelaide On Friday, after little to no sleep, four friends ran to the airport to catch an 8.45am flight to Adelaide. Between napping and listening to music, I glimpsed outside the cabin window and finally saw Australia. So vast that no car was to be seen. No human life, no animal life, just full desert. And that’s where we decided to head towards.
After picking up Raph in Adelaide, we started on our first 500 kilometers. We crossed the path of kangaroos running by, and massive trucks carrying merchandise. Driving at night gave us this gloomy sense of loneliness. One straight road for thousands of kilometers was waiting for us.
Pimba to Kulgera Roadhouse Slowly opening our eyes after a night of deep sleep, we finally saw the Outback. We parked on a rest area with a gas station that hosted dozens of trucks and mobile homes. It resembled what you could imagine being outback Australia, metal roofs, old white people, trucks, and gas.
On our way north, we hit Lake Hart. Endless lake of salt, presenting a perfect landscape for a western.
Uluru The alarm rang in the dead of the night to wake our cold, frail body. We drove for a few kilometers until we saw the first lights. We stopped and absorbed everything there was to take.
After discovering Uluru, we headed to the Fields of Lights. It was a surreal experience. Afield of at least 5 acres with thousands of little low lights that create a nervous system — but giving all of us a sense of calm and introspection.
Kata Tjuta The Sunrise on Uluru surpassed our expectations. After discovering this wonder we headed to the sister structure of Kata Tjuta.
We hiked in the middle of canyons, where we could notice that where the trees were, water had made its way in. The environment was surreal, the canyons were bright red leaving openings for holes that resembled communities living in the rocks.
With our demanding appetite, we put all our efforts in putting together a great ratatouille on the camping site, that brought us back to warmth and comfort in the middle of a cold desert.
Kings Canyon At 6 am we slowly and painfully woke up. But we still made it for the 7 am sunrise behind Uluru. Today was a very different sunrise as the clouds surrounded the rock and the sun. We had a very different perspective, the colors were stunning and various, from blue to pink to yellowish to orange, this sunrise was unique.
At Kings Canyon, we discovered a new palette of striking colors. We made our way through 3-hour rim walk that offered very unusual geological phenomenon. The rocks were made of sand dunes that had solidified over millions of years making it a park of rocky obstacles. It still had green spaces like the Garden of Eden with palm trees and eucalyptus trees.
Mereenie Loop After a typical French breakfast with coffee and tea, and bread and marmalade. We then took the car and drove to the entrance of the Mereenie Loop, where we started our 4WD adventure. The road was made of red dirt, dry vegetation, dry trees and cars fumigating the road.
We passed a town called Hermannsburg, or N’taria. For the first time, I really saw the contrast with the aboriginal population, they live with such limited means in the literal middle of the desert. The town had this oppressive silence that reminded us of where we came from: Sydney, a loud-rich city where water is not even a question.
Palm Valley to Alice Springs For our early morning hike, we did a 2-hour Loop around the Palm Valley — the only oasis in Australia. We then chained up a couple of spots to check out on the West Mc Donell Range: the crater Tnorala, an old meteorite crater; the Redbank Gorge; the Glen Ellen gorge.
Serpentine Gorge is where my head went round, the place was beautiful — the rocks bloody red, the views unreal, and the space calm and majestic. Yet I found a way of going a little crazy, doing jokes and sketches for a while. The craze of driving, lack of good sleep hit all at once
Stanley Chasm to Tennant Creek After leaving one of our partners in Alice Springs we continued North for 10 hours.
This part of the trip is much more contrasting in the differences between Aboriginals and white population. The difference was stunning, the outback faces deep poverty while being part of one of a so-called developed country. We stopped to get gas multiple times and saw multiple aboriginals just sitting not doing anything and living in houses made of cart board. This flagrant contrast is very upsetting when you know the wealth that you can find in Sydney or Melbourne, and racism that comes with it, but also the relationship between the two races. It’s hugely conflictual and feels uncomfortable. The colonialism put the aboriginal population in the odd space where they’ve been robbed of their pride and culture, but yet not given the means to be part of the white developed and wealthy culture.
Daly Waters to Katherine We drove to reach Katherine as fast as possible, we only had around 300km left.
We had a solid lunch, parked our car and headed for the Beautiful Gorge hike. Our way down to the picturesque site took about an hour an half, we took the time to jump in the water, observe the wildlife (saw a yellow snake and nasty spiders), and talk to a French couple that had similar plans to us. It was funny to be on the other side of the world and meeting people from back home with the same ambitions to travel all over Australia. They had been driving from Perth through Broome all the to Katherine. After our little chat, the sun was starting to come down as we decided to extend our loop to get to the lookouts. We got to watch the sunsets from above the gorges at Judas Rock.
Eventually, after 18kms we found our way in the darkness of the Katherine forest back to our camping spot.
Katherine Gorge. On an early note, we woke up around 6 am for a kayaking tour that was awaiting us to fully enjoy the splendor of the gorges. It was fantastic to witness the bright and early lights that the water so perfectly reflected. We took a speed boat to get to the first gorge where our kayaks were awaiting us. After attesting of our lack of skills we just decided to enjoy the ride and to watch the beauty of the rocks that surrounded us. We passed the third gorges and paddles to the fourth where we had a little break in the sun after a rough workout. The sun on our face felt like golden streams reflecting on the beautiful red rocks.
After having lunch, we were ready to head out, when Mathieu got bitten at the foot by what seemed like a Black Whip Snake.
Our first reaction was very tame, we really didn’t realize what had just happened. We went to the rangers and they told us to get to the hospital and emergency room and soon as possible. We drove up to 140km/h on the small road, limited at 80. But at that point, we were all so stressed of the venom that Mathieu survival become our focal point. We arrived and he was immediately taken in. We waited for a bit, in the ignorance of what could happen…eventually, we went to see him and he was doing just fine. They did a battery of tests on him to verify that the venom hadn’t touched his blood vessels. He ended up staying overnight in a double room with an Australian bogan, that had feet problems too. He talked to us, mumbling. We couldn’t understand a word.
Katherine to Kakadu We picked up Mathieu from the Hospital. He was supposed to stay another 4 hours but the blood test indicated no sign of the venom, so we got to head out earlier. We went to Edith Falls, where we got to swim out.
The off-road already announced some beautiful sceneries. We drove 27km in the dirt to get to the Gunlom Falls. We climbed up to one of the best sunsets and views I’ve seen lately. On top of a small 30min hike up, a waterfall over viewing parts of the park. Raph and I chilled there for a while until we decided to head back down.
Kakadu: Gunlom Falls to Ubirr The alarm rang around 6 am but none of us got up on time to see the sunrise. Yet at 7 am we hiked up to the swimming pools to swim a bit in the morning. It was really a sweet moment to be able to enjoy the slowly rising sun in the pools.
We decided on doing a river cruise on the Yellow River. We saw massive crocodiles that were for the smallest 3 meters long. We saw Ygritte’s bird that are the most common birds in the world apparently. We also saw local and native birds there, some red and white, some native ducks, and migrating birds. We learned that ducks are not any type of food for the crocodiles so there they can just chill on the beach. There are two types of crocodiles in the rivers; fresh waters and the salt waters, the ones that are most interested in humans. The river was actually previously an ocean, and later become a river, the flora is mostly mangroves and swamps.
We decided on going all the way up north to Ubirr to watch the sunset on the swamps. The sky had this hue on it that was mesmerizing. The place in itself was surreal. We could see far away from the never-ending swamps and the trees cutting through the horizon line. Mathieu jumped, hiked and crunched his way up to watch the sunset with us with his crushes. We passed a couple of rock art spots on our way there, showing off stories from the aboriginal culture.
Nourlangie Rock to Jim Jim Falls This morning Raph, Baptiste and I decided to do the 12km loop around the Nourlangie rock art that transformed into a bush-walk. We passed through burned down forests and walked straight into ashes. Apparently, this technique of burning down the weak grass is for the aboriginal people a symbol of a renaissance. It is supposed to allow for new weeds to grow. After passing these never-ending bush fires ashes, we got to the high rocks where we were all mesmerized by the Kakadu National Park. It was vast, allowing open space between trees letting the light go through. The rest of the hike was calm and peaceful, and mostly flat, going through a burned forest.
We met up with Mathieu who still couldn’t move much. And after a solid picnic, a sweet coffee, and some family calls we headed to the Jim Jim Falls. Jim Jim means “a lot of water” in the aboriginal language. It was a lot of fun, each turn was very tight, we went through some puddles, and the trees pretty close. When we arrived we started the hike to the falls. Mathieu was still in crutches but ended up being able to walk eventually. The falls were the most beautiful thing we saw on our whole trip. 56 meters high only accessible during the dry season, as during the wet season, it’s inaccessible and infested with crocodiles. The signs actually remembered the visitors not to go in the water because of the uncertain number of crocodiles. We still took a dip and enjoyed freshwater in the middle of the falls’ crater.
Jim Jim Falls to Darwin Hiking up the Falls gave us the best look out of this mesmerizing national park. Most of the hike was about boulder jumping and climbing, which I started really enjoying as it is more technical and feels like a parcours.
I swam across the fall’s pool and contemplated this insane beauty. The fall is in the middle of a rocky crescent with a middle a deep dark blue pool. On the rocky walls, you can observe trees and squared rocks. The swim was intense as the closer you get to the fall, the water started splashing on your face, and the water was frigid.
5000 kilometers later we jumped on a plane for Southeast Asia.
