Australia - a land of CONTRAST- lets get down & dirty
Written: Oct 29 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: clean, clear air
Cons: nil
|
|
|
| SMITHSWOODSIDE's Full Review: Australia |
Review Topic: Overview
Sorry my last epistle was a bit short but "she who knows everything" was screaming at me to “get off that bloody thing and come talk to me” - nag, nag, nag. You know how it is with these women, fellas. First its find yourself a hobby, but they never say don't let me see you enjoy it! A little word of advice to all you blokes - When your wife nags you have you ever noticed that there comes a point when they give you the silent treatment - it is the best part of any argument - isn't it fantastic - so its always worth that little extra effort on our part!!
Anyway, to get down and dirty with this epistle;
A couple of U.S. tourists made one of the best decisions of their lives yesterday - they happened upon my shoe store!
Having purchased the shoes they wanted, and with my friendly encouragement,a couple "just in case", we got chatting. They had been in Australia since mid January and had planned for a six month stay, which has now been extended to February of next year.
They had seen a great deal of the country, and very much agreed with my attitude that seeing cities for any more than a few days is a waste of time as they are virtually the same as any number of the cities in the U.S.A. in the one to four odd million "class". This couple, who I estimate were in their late sixties, were more interested in the rural areas and couldn't get over how the south of Victoria and most of Tasmania apparently resembled England,(even Australia has it’s downtrodden areas!) while the Outback was a huge desert, the "Top End" tropical and through our winter the Snowy Mountains were, as their name suggests, a huge snow covered area actually greater in size than Austria.
Already they had been to Marble Bar, the hottest place in the world, up in the far North West, down to the freezing Snow conditions of Mount Kosciousko and the surrounding area. Marble Bar, with a population of three hundred and eighty, often endures over a hundred consecutive days with the temperature well in excess of one hundred degrees. Temperatures occasionally reach the one hundred and twenty odd degrees and the minimum rain in any month is zero. Umbrellas don't sell well! A friend of mine was raised in this area and recalls being terrified at the age of seven, which was the first time he could remember seeing rain falling - it had apparently last happened when he was a little less than a year old!
As they said, much the same contrasts can be found in the U.S., but for some reason they had not expected to find it here. Hell they were smart, smarter than the average bear that’s for sure.
They thought the biggest difference overall was the "acute lack of people", as they put it, in most areas away from the cities. It was known to them before coming that Australia and the U.S. were much the same size geographically, and that the U.S. had fifteen times the number of people, but regardless they were more than a little surprised just what a difference that could make.
They now understood why there is really only one major highway, from North to South, coast to coast. Off this major road, on the tracks, only one car every week or two, sometimes less, is the normal situation. Traffic lights are non-existent for some reason! There is a rare phenomena in the bush on these "roads", a thing we call bulldust. The sand is so dry that once driven over a couple of times it has virtually the same consistency as talcum powder and therefore just one vehicle causes a huge cloud of dust that can hang in the area for hours - this is most unpleasant for any vehicle following, particularly as no vehicle is sealed well enough to stop the entry of the dust. Therefore the following vehicle has to have all windows down so the dust goes straight through, and over everything, plus of course rendering the air-conditioning useless. None to pleasant when it's one hundred and ten or twenty degrees in the non-existent shade!
By the way, these so called roads or tracks are not traditional roads in any sense of the word. They are simply marker posts, clearly visible from one to the next, usually about a hundred yards apart, and its up to the driver to pick the best route. Generally this means to drive where no-one else has, giving a smoother passage. I have seen some of these tracks up to about twenty cars wide, since it usually takes months for a cars tracks to cover over.
If it does happen to rain the vehicle is in serious trouble, even four wheel drives, as there is nothing for the wheels to grip.
All anyone can do is wait it out. Hopefully we have the recommended several days of food and water on board and we have informed the Police of our travels so that they will know roughly where we are and will fly food and whatever we need out when it is required. Staying with the vehicle is an absolute must and never, never try to walk to the next destination unless it is very close.
In the North East area of the Outback is the phenomena known as the "Ming Ming Lights". Now we have to draw a mental picture of this. Try to imagine the calmest, stillest environment possible around midnight - not a sound - total, absolute silence. It is dark - all we can see is a brilliant carpet of stars above which seem so close we could touch them - and yet if we look straight ahead to the horizon it is pitch black. No background light whatsoever, absolutely and totally pitch black. Without warning incredibly bright, blue lights appear and dart around the blackness at extremely high speeds, say 8 miles in one second, then return. Then another, and another as if they are playing with each other.
This can go on for an hour or more and has been seen for thousands of years, and yet is as yet unexplained. You may make what you will of this - static electricity to UFO's - who knows.
To me the major attraction of the Outback is this - The whole area is totally unaffected by humans. By this I mean that if I go to what seems to be a dark place say fifty or a hundred miles from a city or more, where the air seems clean and there appears to be no background light or noise the incredible thing is that in the Outback that view is shown to be so affected by dirty air, background noise and background lighting that I may have well stayed Downtown. - The contrast is that great. I think we have become so used to thinking this is normal our brains can no longer conceive just what clear, silent, blackness really is.
Recently we hosted some students from Tokyo, Japan and what was the thing that impressed them most about Australia - The cities, countryside, tourist attractions - no - the stars. Living in Tokyo all their lives they had never seen the stars, only read about them. We arranged for them to visit the Outback and almost eighteen months later we still get letters always talking about the stars that so impressed them. They hardly ever mention anything else!
Well now, that was a pretty good drink at the trough of knowledge of smithswoodside, but its time for the little Koala to go beddy bies. What, whats that, you want more - well o.k., but fair suck of the sav., its only about two days to the next one - please, please try to get some sleep, you are going to need it for that one. Yeah, it’s one of those no holds barred jobs, but with a twist!
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
SMITHSWOODSIDE
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: Peter Smith
Location: South Australia
Reviews written: 521
Trusted by: 400 members
About Me:
my FIRST BOOK is now at http://www.trafford.com/robots/03-2725.html
|
|
|
.jpg)
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.