Since we wanted to maximize our time, and we read that four and a half hours was about how long it would take to get to Hughenden, QLD, we decided to leave early - four am.
Now Hughenden is in the Flinders Shire (county) region of Queensland, about 400 km inland from the coast. This is outback territory as we tourists call it, but the ozzies just say "out west." Most coastal ozzies are confused as to why we wanted to go out west, as there was "nothing there." Surely they were overlooking the 1500 souls of Hughenden, the major part of the 2000-besouled county of Flinders. The last 500 persons are spread for dozens of kilometers in many directions...
Regardless of the area's population, and the fact that they (the one man camel race planning committee) failed to return calls of ours for days inquiring about the event's start and end times, number of visitors, boredom factor, e.g., we were able to find fun things to do in the area. Since we did not really know when the races were to begin, and we arrived in this godforsak- er, wholesome and fascinating land at the ripe time of 8 AM, we found ourselves easily distracted by any dirt road leading away - many labeled "tourist drive." Most of these had extensive cattle farm operations - low managed industry where cattle are free to roam and be chased by American youths with cameras...
While fascinated with the dusty, dry, vast landscape, a quick comment by one of the group likening the surroundings to any we could find in Kansas sort of demystified the situation... A little fascination returned with the discovery of some wild emu in the same cattle field...
Wallabies were everywhere too, but despite our multiple attempts to chase them down over cracked earth and dried cow poo with our all wheel drive Toyota Rav4, we could not get close enough to shoot even a massive foot.
Anyhow, we finally made it into town, and just in time for the Great Camel Endurance race! Such excitement!
Er, well... I mean it's an endurance race, they gotta eat, right? It would have been fun to watch a track race, where the camels sprint in awkward gaunt-legged flying spittle frolics, but alas, this would not be the case. The endurance race was two days of several dozen kilometers a day; the day we showed up, day two, left the camels (the large flock of nine...) with 49 km of race left - seven laps of seven kilometers each... yipes!
Not all camels felt entirely up to the challenge...
...But those brave camel drivers led them along anyhow - making the whole event more of a human endurance race. In fact, every lap each camel was allowed a 10 minute break anyhow - optional, but no time was removed for up to ten minutes... I'm sure the camels used this rest time to bemoan their existence in this somewhat fiendish position...
Though, to be honest, I speak very little camel - its immediacy and lowness of pitch certainly alerts you to its presence - the best way it could be described is perhaps as a much larger and deeper-voiced goat bleating, or even the whale sounds that Dory speaks in Finding Nemo. Anyhow, you know it's from a big animal, possibly attributable to a bunyip if you heard it in the night. In any case, I did get over my terror and managed to stroke one of these massive creatures...
Don't be deceived; its head from a side shot would show you how much bigger it really is. I think No. 10 here could probably have fit my head in his mouth.
To pass time between the teriffically entertaining 7 km walking laps, we took pictures of the dry river bed that made up part of the track. Really its quite impressive; the wet and dry seasons in northeast Australia are highly bipartisan; this river bed filled to like six to eight feet of water in the wet season, and was almost one hundred feet wide... And it was 100% bone dry when we were in it.
Our fascination with this massive hydrologic feature was not lasting and our numerous pictures of sand (not pictured) were our way of ridding ourselves of all our excess excitement from the suspense-laced sauntering of the day's dashing desert dromedaries.
While discussing the dynamics and strategies of camel endurance racing, we were suddenly awoken by humans falling from the sky.
OK - so they had parachutes. But we weren't expecting them. And it was strange that they didn't shout anything before landing about twenty feet from where we were discussing/sleeping. In any case, it was interesting; perhaps a half dozen more skywalkers descended upon us that afternoon. The camels were not affected.
So there was more going on that weekend in Hughenden; the camel races were just the equivalent of the supermodel girl on a nightclub's advertisement. Those sexy camels dragged us in to the Arid Lands Festival, a summit for discussing life in the Outback (out west) and how to manage it and bring in more tourists, and how dirt is really cool, etc. In any case, the planned party was still quite up to par, sarcasm free - a concert would occur at night with four of Australia's traditional country music artists, including the two performing brothers of a more famous Australian singer!!!! No but seriously, there would be drinking. Everyone we spoke with that day asked if we would be going to the party that night, to join the masses (<2000, I remind you) of the Flinders Shire at their "biggest party in six years," quoth the toothy grinning hag from the one fuel station in town. No but seriously, they know how to drink:
I really did want to stay; there were young people, and, well, um... I wanted to exchange stories, and hear about the Outback way of life (which I must continue to instruct you is more of an invented term - ozzies call it "out west"). But, my vote didn' really count; some guys would have rather slept in the gorge that night. Oh well.
We still explored the few entertaining sights and sounds at this one cul-de-sac sized festival, including stopping to ask this local ozzie entertainer to play "Waltzing Matilda." He said he would, and recruited us to join in; which we did, and he presently made us play about 30 minutes worth of music with him before fulfilling our request. It was fun, I learned to play the "bush bass," while Pat and John shook their lager poles/sticks to the beat.
My fingers throbbed afterwards from plucking a nylon rope at high speed for the edification of the six or seven ears (singular, not pairs) that were out there in the crowd listening. Afterwards, "Pete" also invited us to the party and expressed disdain at our non-unanimous decision not to go (for which I still hold a grudge against my lame peers). I would have certainly enjoyed a VB and some good stories from Pete, and, well, there were going to be young people!!
Anyhow, I've included a bit of the later story - at this point in time, after the jam session, the group hadn't actually decided not to leave town yet. So we explored more locally, including another "tourist drive" just a few kilometers out of town that extended for 93 km more. We weren't sure what we'd find, but surely adventure lurked. Our hunch paid off with our first sighting - an abandoned and rusted vehicle. Perhaps a celebratory gesture by the local high schoolers, it lay decomposing on flat cow poop ridden fields (as all non-town areas out west seem to be plagued by). Why there were bones of questionable origin surrounding it was anybody's guess -
...But we said fuck it, and had a great time anyhow, wondering how the last owner of the vehicle came to lose it, and if that event was associated with the twisted and demolished state of the vehicle, and the many bones in a curious radius around the metal heap...
Look at me! I'm an ozzie driver!! VRRRMMMMM! In any case, the paint-free (washed by time) front license plate of this car now hangs with pride on my dorm room wall.
Along the tourist drive we continued, not a single moving car or truck come across for the entire three hour round trip. With no other autos, police, or civilization around, we were entertained by all hanging out the window while driving - it felt very much like a safari, except without as many cool animals.
The few animals we did see, such as the elusive wallabies/kangaroos, were entertaining. There were cows, black/red parrots of some sort, cows, emus, some other strange birds - maybe large bush-curlews (google it), and cows. The massive swarm of locusts that engulfed us randomly were also pretty cool...
Man, even driving slow, when they smacked the windshield or flew in a window and nearly killed one of us, it was funny, funny shit.
The perceived end of the tourist drive, or at least when we lost interest, was a big open space perfect for photography. Once again, it could have been Kansas - but, well - it wasn't.
That's John, my other Miami co-academic, sauntering off into the vast unknown... Pretty big red open space out there.
Well, the next part of our adventure was fraught with me being a bastard. The group was still not unanimous about deciding where to go; three out of five guys insisted the party would be weak and boring small town bullcrap, and wanted to sleep in the gorge - Kevin (asian dude) and I insisted that it would be a necessary part of the trip's value, getting to know Australia's out west culture. We were continuously rebuffed, and all "compromised" by going back to the town to eat at it's only open night restaurant, strangely a Chinese place, and then check out the "party" and see if anyone was inspired to check it out.
I thought it looked and sounded great, and I was all for hopping the fence and avoiding the $30 concert fee in order to meet the local young people - to examine the mannerisms and structure of the outback's girls, and guys, and girls. But, well, courageousness was lacking in my group and I angrily agreed to drive up to the gorge that night instead and camp there (for $5, whereas it would have been free in town, where buses were carting the few people to and from the free campground in town until 2:00 am... yes, they take their alcohol seriously).
Enough anger. We made it to the gorge, set up tent in an area that looked like it could have been Kenya - three foot tall dry grass and red dirt. With no lions to worry about, we set up in the dark and slept the night away. I poured about four shots of vodka that Kevin had brought into the rest of our milk and chugged it before hitting the sack - my one man salute to the foregone party, the largest Flinders Shire had seen in six years. Party on, cow-persons.
We awoke, ready to face the day's geological wonder - Porcupine Gorge. We packed the tents, ate PB&Js, packed some with us, and drove about 100 feet to park next to the track that goes down into the gorge. 1.2 km descent in and another few hundred meters at the bottom took us to the base of Pyramid Rock:
It was very tall, and I'm sorry I can't put it into perspective for you. Just can't. In that picture, I'm probably still about a thousand feet from the base of the pyramid.
Wet season's absence was felt even more strongly here - the water level normally about 10 to 15 feet higher here - evidenced by the erosion lines and basin structure. Very few areas had any flowing water at all now in the dry season, and most of it was bone dry. Of course, any water was an excuse to explore for aquatic life, which I did at every opportunity.
This little guy could be found under many of the rocks along a more creek-y little stretch of the gorge much later on. We entered the gorge at around 10:30 AM, and didn't make it back to the car until perhaps 5:00 PM. It was a long walk; we trekked several kilometers down this "little grand canyon," rewarded with crazy sights the whole way. I wasn't fast enough to get a picture, but at one point while tripping over rocks on one particular length of the gorge base, I uncovered a six inch long red centipede, bright red, with black stripes, and bright green legs and pincers. It was probably half an inch across and capable of making a 21 year old American man scream like a 12 year old Chinese girl. It reiterated my desire to depart the gorge before Australia's native nocturnal beasties came out to play and dismember all other life.
Instead of trekking back to the entrance, we decided to climb out as far down as we were, off the beaten path, and just walk back in the direction of camp. The absence of any trail would have made this more difficult if it had been the wet season, but it was dry enough to find our way and see any of Australia's venomous snakes before we stepped on them (we didn't see any though; just cow poop and elusive wallabies). Here's a shot taken from the top part of the gorge after climbing out of it:
We made it back to the car somewhat exhausted, and glad for the water and peanut butter present at that location. Now on our way home, we decided to stop at the gorge "lookout" before leaving - and I'm glad we did.
This is the sign we saw before actually getting up to the edge of the lookout, and therefore knew we were in for a trip (hopefully no pun intended). I wish I could put the following pictures into perspective, but again, I cannot...
It was about a couple hundred foot drop; the greenery visible on the edges are trees, not bushes. It was a really fascinating sight, especially if you haven't been to the Grand Canyon. We thought it would be fun to take some zany shots of us fooling around...
...Although this one did not quite come out as fun as it might have been due to the self-imposed safe edge distance I declared necessary in the case of an accidental actual toss. But I could still smell the lack of ground about five feet in front of me.
We headed back, satisfied with the trip - though I still wish we could have stayed for the locals' party. It was saddening how each and every one of them we met inquired if we'd be at the party/concert that night - I feel a good time was missed.
We all took turns driving home, same story as driving there, but this time were much more prone to drifting off to sleep - especially since it was pitch black. A particular visitor changed this sleepiness - making my earlier 12-year-old-Chinese-girl sounds seem like those of the boldest viking. You see, Kevin suddenly realized in the passenger seat that he had a visitor on his lap, and, well, when the rest of us figured out what he was saying as we stirred from our exhaustive stupor, and with the aid of a flashlight... Let's just say that the shout of "stop/everybody out of the car!" was wordlessly and unanimouosly agreed upon. This thing ran off Kevin, out the car and around the front, and stalled on the back door for a photo shoot...
It's the size of my palm, by the way. Promptly post picture, it dove into the trunk through a crack in the door, where all our massive amounts of nook-laden stuff was. John, being allergic to arachnids, and us, being terrified, drove an instinct to find it, politely ask it to leave, and gun the accelerator away. Luckily, it had only run to the inside edge of the door, permitting us to brush it away and sloppily latch on to the vehicle as it roared away from the ground where the beast landed. The one vehicle that passed us during this ordeal must have thought it quite intriguing.
It took us another three hours to get sleepy again, at which point we had arrived back at University Hall without further incident. It had been a hell of an adventure, certainly worth the final cost of $149.43 AUD. Even I might remember it for years to come.
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