Over East. That's what western folk call the rest of Australia. At first it seems a bit parochial, but once you experience the remoteness first hand and try to do business with people who only operate on EST, it's quite apt. There are still plenty of secessionists in WA (and they are fun to taunt when you encounter one).
The remoteness of WA has created some interesting natural quirks, apart from the distinctly different flora.
They don't have sparrows, mynas, or starlings.
They simply weren't imported, and the deserts stop them from making the trek themselves.
A few starlings make the trek, but there is an active trapping program to thwart them.
Alas, there is nothing to stop the relentless march of the cane toad, which having conquered Kakadu, will soon reach the Kimberley.
Before the long run east begins, there is one place on our route through the Northern Territory that we just can't drive past. Katherine Gorge. It is actually broken up into a series of short stretches, varying from about 1/2 km to over 3 km. There are portages between each portion of the gorge, varying from 50 m to 500 m. We reached the sixth of the nine main gorge sections, making the round trip about 15 km.
While Bill has done that sort of distance quite a few times, it was a first for Helen. To ease the load on her Bill did most of the work on the portages. Outbound it was mostly carrying (thanks Elizabeth for the ultra light kayaks), but on the return trip it was easier to feed them through the rapids. In a few instances, there were short ponds between stretches of rocks/rapids.
All too quickly it was over, and the seemingly endless km of driving began. 3000 km in 3 days. Most of the vehicles are tourists, and at least half of those are 4WDs hauling caravans. The rest are mostly trucks. Single trailers are a rarity in these wide open spaces. Doubles and quads are regular, but triples are the most common. We even came across a quad of short b-double pairs - that's eight trailers!
No matter where we have travelled, every few hundred kms we pass a cyclist. It's difficult to imagine what inspires people to criss-cross our vast continent using only pedal power. (Especially with all those road trains.) On this particular stretch of road, we spotted our first recumbent trike rider.
Queensland went past in a flash. We passed a convoy of at least a hundred army vehicles. (I bet their campground is crowded!) We must get back up here sometime. There are plenty of places that look like they could use some computer services.
Of course, as we came back through western NSW, we had to stop in on Chris and Kristie in Bourke, and Sandra & co in Gular. There is still patches of NSW that have had no significant rain, but most places are showing good signs of recovery.
We'd exchanged CDs & DVDs with Scott by snail mail, and got him rolling with a "starter pack", but it is time to get started for real.