Reflecting back on "things not accomplished" in 2009, I realized that I had failed to post any pictures or reflections of our first outback trip that we took in October 2009. So, in an effort to start out 2010 strong, I thought I would put my thoughts together before my parents arrive in a few days and we start preparing for a trip to Tasmania with them!
Ask an American what they think Australia looks like, and they'll likely imagine the harsh, unforgiving territory of the outback- the desert land of scrub brush, red dirt and vast open skies. The fact that we had been here almost three years and hadn't gotten there yet seemed nearly criminal, so Rick managed to cobble together 6 days off during the kids' two-week spring holidays for a quick peek.
Getting ourselves out there, though, involved marathon driving through long stretches of desolate territory- our furthest destination, Broken Hill was a 2-day, 14-hour drive west from Sydney. Our first day's 9-hour drive took us from densely populated Sydney through the less populated but still heavily-trafficked Blue Mountains, to two-lane country roads and on into the sparsely populated edge of the outback. As we got into the outback, the roads became littered with kangaroo carcasses, the unfortunate byproduct of massive road trains (trucks with two full-sized trailers pulled behind them, and in the lesser-populated states, three) barreling through the outback during the night.
At this point, it's important to point out that our kids are fantastic travelers, and we certainly never would have attempted a trip that would require over 38 hours of driving in 6 days if they weren't. People often ask what the kids do while we are traveling, and I must confess that I have always been very "anti-screen" in the car- we have never allowed a portable DVD player or video games for our car travels (I admit that those long plane flights have been another matter entirely!). So as not to push their "fantastic traveler" status too far though, we finally broke down and bought a Nintendo DS Lite game player to help pass all those monotonous miles. However, we limited the time it was used and still spent plenty of time playing games, counting emus (we reached 64 by the end of the trip!) and singing silly Australian songs like this one here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/fr0zBwuz3LUsxjrwQsF1ew?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ2lpdy6loSbvgE&feat=directlink 
One of the 64 emus we counted along the way, along with some of his outback friends!
Our most western destination was Broken Hill, an isolated mining city on the far western edge of New South Wales. Some of the places we visited were an old train museum, the GeoCentre, which explored the amazing geology of the ore deposits in the area (the BHP in BHP Billiton, the global resource company, stands for Broken Hill Propietary Co.), a tour of the base of the Royal Flying Doctor Service and a sunset visit to the desolate Mundi Mundi plains, where the Mad Max movies were filmed.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service brings emergency and essential health care to remote and rural Australia
The kids entertain themselves while waiting for sunset on the Mundi Mundi plains.
After Broken Hill, we made a 5-hour drive over dirt roads for a two-night stay in the shearer's quarters at Turlee Station, a working sheep station. It was rustic (think corrugated iron roof and plywood walls), but a step above camping, with private rooms, beds and a separate kitchen/dining room that we shared with the other guests. Rick's favorite activity at the sheep station was making campfires and gazing for hours at the amazing outback night sky, which is just beyond description in its immensity, depth and vast host of stars. The kids, on the other hand, took the greatest pleasure in seeing just how dirty they could get playing in the outback dust around the quarters. It took weeks to get the car back to normal, inside and out, after all of the dirt road driving on this trip!
The purple and cream-colored doors were ours.
We are still finding dirt in the car's cracks and crevices!
While we were at Turlee, we visited the unanimously-declared highlight of our trip, the World Heritage-listed Mungo National Park, where 40,000-year-old human remains have been found. Lake Mungo dried up about 14,000 years ago and a spectacular, giant crescent-shaped dune called the Walls of China has formed on the eastern shore of the lake. The Walls of China consist of both fragile rugged outcrops and enourmous mountains of soft sand.
What fun it was to just be able to play on the dunes for an hour!
On the last day, we drove home all the way from Turlee to Sydney- with stops, a 13-hour journey. Although we had intended to stop for a night along the way, it proved too tempting to power all the way home. But this short trip gave us a real yearning for longer trips in the less-populated and geographically harsher parts of Australia- so much to explore!
Anne
