I love a sunburnt country

Lying on a sunbed yesterday morning on the top deck of the Calypso 10 as she cruised towards the Opal Reef on the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef, I couldn’t have been happier. It was only the start of what already promised to be an amazing day, but it seemed like a culmination of sorts, as if the whole past six and a half months of traveling had been building up to this day, the day I finally got to explore a tiny part of the Great Barrier Reef. By this time I’d been in Australia for five and a half weeks, and had arrived in Port Douglas, the second-to-last stop on my Australia trip the night before, after a jam packed two weeks traveling through the Northern Territory and parts of Queensland.

I’ve spent the most of the last four weeks since I left Melbourne getting into and out of various forms of transportation, be it planes, cars, buses or boats. In those twenty eight days I spent twelve days on a roadtrip through Western Australia, nine days on organized tours travelling through the Northern Territory, and five days exploring Cape Tribulation, the Daintree rainforest and Port Douglas, with a couple of travel days in between to round off the time. Australia is pretty damn big, and the distances that we travelled on many days would have taken us all the way from the northern-most tip to Israel to its southern-most tip and sometimes most of the way back again. Thankfully Queensland, my last stop, was a little less travel-intense, which made for a nice change.

The first part of my travels in Australia, in Western Australia trip, was different to the remainder of the trip in many ways. I explored WA with a friend, driving a rental car. We stayed in pretty nice accommodation, prepared our own food and were totally in charge of our itinerary, with the only limitation being the need to arrive at our pre-booked accommodation each night. I even managed to catch up with an old friend during the last couple of days in Perth, which was an added bonus. The rest of the trip was totally different. In the Northern Territory it was either backpacker accommodation, swags, or tents, while in Queensland I slept in dorms for a couple of nights, and treated myself to a nice motel for the last couple of nights in Port Douglas. In the NT I did three separate tours, three days in central Australia, three days driving from Alice Springs to Darwin and three days in the top end. We slept outside every night, in swags in the centre and on the way up to Darwin, and in tents in the top end, when the mosquitoes were too numerous for comfort. All the food was included in the tours, with gluten-free options provided on two of the tours, and we ran to a schedule, quite strict in some cases and rather lenient in others. Queensland was a bit more chilled, with a pretty relaxed schedule.

After spending most of ANZAC day weekend in Perth, my friend Chana and I flew to Alice Springs for the first tour, a three day tour of King’s Canyon, Uluru and Kata Tjuta, the last two known to many as Ayer’s Rock and the Olgas respectively. Chana and I did the Red Centre tour together after which she headed back to Sydney and I continued on my way up north. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from the tour, never having done a tour like this before in Australia, and I think we were both pleasantly surprised, especially since we’d booked with one tour company and had been switched last minute to a different one due to insufficient numbers. Our tour guide Adrian was incredibly knowledgeable and friendly, and we found ourselves with a really nice bunch of people, a combination of Germans, Brits, Aussies and a guy from Hong Kong, twelve of us in total, which left us with plenty of room to stretch out during the absurdly long bus rides.

It took around five hours to get from Alice Springs to our first stop, King’s Canyon, and the very appropriately named Heart Attack Hill, the incredibly steep start of our climb to the top of the Canyon. We did a lot of walking during our three days in the Red Centre, including Valley of the Winds and a circular trek to a few lookouts in Kata Tjuta, as well as the approximately 8km walk around the base of Uluru. The daytime weather was incredible, perfect for hiking, but unfortunately my still-unhealed ankle failed me at Kata Tjuta and I was forced to concede defeat and turn back. This was to be a recurring issue during the remainder of my time in the Northern Territory, as the King’s Canyon hike had managed to irritate my already unhappy ankle to such an extent that it forced me to restrict my climbing and movement through uneven terrain in the hope that the soreness would abate.

The nights in the centre were cold. While our sleeping bags and swags, a type of bedroll made from strong tent-like fabric with a mattress and head flap, helped protect us from the elements and the various animals wandering around the campsites, the cold still managed to seep in and I was grateful for the beanie I’d purchased in Alice before we’d set off. We spent our first night at bush camp, and the second night at the Alice Springs Resort, a campsite with a few more amenities than our bush camp, such as power, toilets and showers, for which we were all extremely grateful! Bush camp was a lot of fun, being serenaded by Adrian with his dramatic rendition of “Waltzing Matilda”, and sleeping under the awesome night sky, which is something I’ll never forget. I don’t recall ever seeing so many stars in the Aussie sky before. Each night we all fell asleep lying on our backs staring at that amazing sky, and woke up each morning to the pre-dawn, star-filled darkness.

I enjoyed every minute of the rock tour. We had a great mix of people, a fantastic guide and things ran really smoothly. We did the requisite sunrise and sunset stops at the Uluru, and spent just enough time at all the places we visited. I think this was one of the reasons I was slightly disappointed with the next tour, a three day drive from Alice to Darwin, a trip of over 1,500km, with a few stops each day, some for refuelling and toilet breaks and others to see specific sites on the way.

In many cases, the guide and the participants are the ones that make the trip, with the itinerary being secondary. The quality of the guide is generally the most important factor, as, even if the group on tour isn’t so cohesive, if the guide is good, he can sometimes manage to galvanize people into action, or at least add some interest to the tour. The seven of us on the trip up were unlucky enough to be given a guide who hadn’t done the run up to Darwin for over eight years. Not only was he rusty, he hadn’t revised the itinerary or done any preparation, and almost straight away informed us that the tour we were doing was basically a glorified way to get us from one spot to another, something that hadn’t even occurred to me, as I’d joined the tour specifically to see some of the spots on the way. Julian was enthusiastic and meant well, but he was terrible at time-management, meaning that, even though we tried to help out as much as possible, we arrived at our campsites later than planned, meals were served late, and, with all the good intentions in the world, we still ended up starting the days late, and we didn’t spend as much time as we would have liked at many of the places on the way, which was a shame.

In spite of all that, or maybe because we quickly became resigned to the situation and determined to make the most of it, we still managed to have some fun on the trip. Highlights included the thermal pools at Mataranka and the Devil’s Marbles, a place that reminded me of Hampi in India, just off the Stuart Highway, where it looked like someone had rained massive boulders down in the middle of the green fields and left them to balance precariously one on top of the other. Another highlight was Edith Falls, where we swam in a gorgeous, massive natural pool surrounded by the sheer cliff walls of the gorge. Signs on the way to the swimming area informed us of the various safety measures taken each day to prevent crocodiles from entering the waters, none of which served to entirely quell the fear that we might actually find ourselves swimming alongside a crocodile, or worse. Nevertheless, it was a refreshing and welcome break, especially after a morning of hiking through the imposing Katherine Gorge where we’d almost managed to lose the Korean girl in our group when she accidentally wandered off the marked trail.

I think we were all slightly relieved when the tour finished and we arrived in Darwin. Of the seven of us, five of us were continuing on to Kakadu and Litchfield the next day, and as we waited for our guide to pick us up the next morning, we were all a bit apprehensive as to what awaited us, especially as we were continuing with the same tour company. Lucky for us, Sam was nothing like Julian. He was knowledgeable and, to use his own words, “ran a very tight ship”. Within the first hour we’d all managed to relax and started to enjoy ourselves.

The trip to the top end took us through three national parks – Litchfield, Kakadu and Mary River. Our tour somehow managed to get upgraded, meaning we ended up with tents with beds and mattresses, and a four-wheel-drive type bus instead of a standard bus, which was a definite bonus, allowing us to cross river beds and to access areas that the regular bus wouldn’t have been able to enter. We spent the first day in Litchfield basically spent going from waterfall to waterfall (read: swimming site to swimming site), stopping on the way to check out some different types of termite mounds, some stupendously tall, and some resembling crumbling gravestones. The next morning we went on a dawn cruise down the Mary River, which was hands-down my favourite part of the trip. There’s something about sailing down rivers at any time of day, but especially early in the morning when it’s misty and the waters are still, that makes my heart happy, and that morning was no exception. It wouldn’t have mattered if we’d seen no crocodiles (we did), just drifting through those tranquil waters was enough for me.

Over the next two days we visited more waterfalls, explored Aboriginal rock art sites and, as with all the tours I’d been on, learned a lot about the indigenous people of the area, their history, land rights, and how much they were royally screwed over by the European settlers. Hampered by my ankle I was once again unable to make it all the way to some of the places, as many involved climbing through uneven rock terrain. To be honest, I didn’t mind so much, as it was nice to have a bit of time to myself as I was waiting for the group to return from their climbs, especially at that stage of my trip, after having constantly been with people for over three weeks.

We were a pretty mixed group on that last tour, Brits, Germans, French, Yeojin, the Korean girl from the previous trip, one Japanese girl, myself - the unexpected Aussie, and to my surprise and delight, an Israeli girl called May. May and I found each other almost immediately and it was such a pleasure to switch into Hebrew for the first time in a few weeks. We ended up sharing a tent, and sitting together on the bus, something that unfortunately, for no clear reason (I have my theories), seemed to antagonize one of the British guys who had previously been quite friendly, leading to a couple of unpleasant incidents that slightly soured the last day of the trip. In spite of that, I was grateful that May was with me, especially as on the second day we received the bad news that they had found the body of Or Assraf, the last missing Israeli from the earthquake in Nepal, news that shook u both quite badly. It was a difficult day for both of us, and I was glad to have someone from home with me who understood how I was feeling, without needing any explanation.

The day after we returned to Darwin from Kakadu I flew out to Cairns for the final stage of my trip, a highly anticipated three days up in the Daintree rainforest staying at Cape Tribulation, followed by two days in Port Douglas where I spent an incredible day diving at the Great Barrier Reef and the following day just recovering from the experience and relaxing. My time in Queensland was exactly what I needed, the perfect way to wind down from the craziness of the weeks before, and the chance to have a proper, indulgent few days of holidays before starting to make my way home. I snorkelled, dived, had the gift of an unexpected day off in the middle which I used to go for a long walk on a deserted Cape Trib beach, saw some massive crocodiles on the Daintree River, went shopping for presents, and did everything that normal people do when they go on holiday. I stayed in a gorgeous little place in a great location and allowed myself to enjoy my time there without thinking too much.

After those few days of bliss I once again boarded a plane and landed in Sydney a few hours ago, straight into the reality of my last few days in Australia, and the last few days of my travels. Australia has been all I had hoped it would be, and more. I have seen and experienced so much and I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. While I would love to stay and continue exploring, the time has come to prepare to pack my bags for the final time in this round of travels. On Thursday morning I fly to Hong Kong and then directly on to Israel. Between now and then though there are people to see and there is last minute shopping to be done. Australia, I love you and will definitely be making the most of my last few days here. Israel, I am counting down the hours!