Monday, August 22, 2005

Cairns to Darwin Day 3

I couldn't slep at ALL last night. The best was super UNcomfortable. We had little cots in permanent tents, I was uncomfortable and it got really cold during the night.
As we drove through Lawn Hill again, I just slept on the bus. When I awoke, we had reached the Gulf Roas (Highway 1) and passed through the aboriginal community of Dumanji. Was told that white people are allowed to drive through the community and use the truck stop but not allowed into the community itself. It's only for aboriginals and is completely alcohol free (a lot fo Aboriginals in the major cities end up as drunks because genetically, they have a very low tolerance for alcohol).

Greg stoped for a few minutes and brought on the bus this leaf from a tree known as the bohemia (butterfly) tree. Aboriginals call it the mother-in-law leaf becasue the leaf is shaped that the two haves sort of align themselves next to each other and in the aboriginal culture, the son in law is not allowed ot look at the mother in law and if they run into each other in the street they cover their eyes until no longer in sight. Also, was told we can't take photos of the aboriginals because they believe that the camera takes away their soul. One third of the North Territory is occupied by aboriginals but it is belived they are areas that they live in that have not been recorded.

We stopped at the Hell's Gate Shop. The area got it's name from the fact that way in the past, the pioneers would get accompagnied up to this point and then would be left to fend themselves against a really fierce aboriginal tribe that lived there.

North Territory is the home of the Morning Glory, which is a circular cloud formation that looks like something out of star trek. They had photos of it in the shop and it looks incredible.

At 11:50am we reached the NT/Queensland border and had to change our clocks back 30 minutes.

For lunch we stopped at Celvart River and ate more sandwiches. It was a river but there was no water. In the winter months everything is dried up, in the summer months, water EVERYWHERE!

After lunch we ended up at the Carabirini rock formation. Got to walk around these giant pillarsof sand stone, like out of an Indiana Jones movie.

Our final destination was at the Heartbreak Hotel. And who was there again? You got it Kimbo and Graham. Now for sure they must be following us! We all hung out and I got to play more guitar with Rich. He taught me Good Riddence by Green Day and I showed hime some stuff as well.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Glen said...

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