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Part 2, Wagga Wagga to Pt Augusta
OK, we were heading west out of Wagga Wagga, New South Wales (NSW).
Assuming that most folks don't have a map of Australia in front of them,
I'm looking at my Hammond Atlas of the World, 1994, for reference.
Our route was almost directly west from Sydney, all the way to the
west coast of Australia, with the detour south a bit to Canberra, as
mentioned. We took the Hume Highway southwest from Sydney to avoid steep
grades. If we had gone straight west, out the aforementioned Parramatta
Rd to Katoomba, we would have encountered many steep, winding grades.
Australia is mostly flat - flatter than Kansas - but all along the east
coast is The Great Dividing Range, and behind Sydney it is steep,
indeed. It took the early settlers quite a while to figure out how to
get thru these mountains, as all the canyons penetrating the cliffs are
'box canyons' and extremely steep. Once they decided to approach some of
the promontories instead, a road was able to be built. Curiously, had
they just looked a few dozen miles to the south, where the Hume highway
goes thru, it would have been a 'piece of cake' - when they DID get thru
the mountains, escaped cattle were already there! Anyway, just west of
the mountains the country looks a good deal like central California -
rolling hills with grass, and trees in the wallies. Not much further
west, where we are at Wagga Wagga, it levels out. Somehow one doesn't
expect the level 'outback' to extend so far east into NSW. We set out to
the west on the Sturt Highway. The highways are named, mostly, after
explorers who worked in the area, and the route numbers are secondary to
the name. The Sturt Hwy goes west thru the region known as The
Riverina, a farming area watered to some extent by the Murray and
Murrumbidgee rivers. The rivers are not very obvious until you actually
come upon them. On the morning of our third day we spotted a 'gorge'
just south of the road - and it turned out to be the Murray. It is cut
deeply into the plains so no trees or other clues are to be seen from a
distance. Our route took us thru NSW to Mildura, then thru a small
corner of the state of Victoria (Vic) and into the state of South
Australia (SA) at Renmark. By now we were into typical Australian
'bush'. Oddly, by American standards, the arid landscape, although it is
at least as dry as our deserts, is pretty well covered by eucalyptus
trees of many species, usually taking the form of "Mallee Scrub", an
Aboriginal word for trees about 20-30 feet high, growing in clumps from
a "lignotuber" - a central underground root clump. If the surface tree
is burnt down or whatever, the clump simply regrows from the lignotuber.
It's weird to see so much wood growing in such dry land. In addition to
the Mallee, there are also plenty of Acacia, or "Wattle" trees, and
where it's REALLY dry, Casuarinas and Allocasuarinas, looking for all
the world like the junipers you see in Arizona and Utah.
At the end of our third day we camped on the shores of the Spencer
Gulf, north of Adelaide. Looking at the continent from the perspective
of the USA, the Australian continent is about the same size and of
similar shape. You could think of Sydney as being approximatly where
Savannah, GA is, and Adelaide at about New Orleans, though there are
some mountains running along the eastern side of Spencer Gulf, unlike
Louisiana!
That day we had spent at the very attractive town of Burra, SA,
where we caught their annual antique fair. Mary got several things
there. The prices for antiques were the same or lower than we see at
the giant Hillsborough Antique Fair she liked to go to 3x a year when she
had knees that worked. Had she but known she would have brought another
large suitcase! There was a big sale room set up in the old town hall,
and street fair stuff such as an old calliope, and rides on antique fire
engines. I visited Burra when I was thru here in '97, and it's always
nice. Wine growing is pushing north from the famous Barrosa Valley to
here (the Clare Valley, which was very reminiscent of our Santa Clara
Valley) and now they have grapevines trained on the storefront roofs
over the sidewalks. (Erik says wherever they have 2 drops of water to
rub together, they grow grapevines!) It was late autumn - equivalent to
November - and the variety they chose had brilliant red fall color.
Australia has no native trees or such that produce fall color, so
Poplars, Liquidambars, and such are planted for color. Australian trees
don't drop their leaves annually - but many do peel their bark! The
leaves of most Australian trees are thick and leathery and hang edgewise
to the sun, to reduce evaporation. Basically, if you see a tree with
bare branches, it's either an import - or dead.
After Burra - too small to have a "real" grocery store - we visited
Port Augusta, at the very top of the gulf, which has TWO supermarkets.
Here we stocked up because our next stop was planned to be in Norseman,
West Australia (WA), at the equivalent location of Flagstaff, AZ.
The prices in Australia were no different to the eye than those in
the USA. Many items had virtually the same price you would expect to see
here.
A few prices from our grocery reciept from Port Augusta:
Then you take into account that the Australian Dollar is valued when we
were there at 52 cents, US. Whotta' deal!
It turns out that they are paying just a bit more for gas than we
are. The price for unleaded was from $.85/liter on some days in Sydney
(it varies daily, Monday and Tuesday being cheapest) to as high as - I
think, once, $1.45/liter. $1.15 was commoner in the outback.
Transportaition costs are accuratly reflected there, unlike the random
pricing in the US. So, working the liter/gallon, and AU$/US$ conversion, gas
at AU1.00/liter works out to about US$1.97/gallon. One of the few things
that was more expensive.
Now we were ready to set off for the Southwest. I had been in Port
Augusta before, but not west of there. They call it "the Crossroads of
Australia", and for good reason: several roads lead there from the
well-populated East, and from Adelaide just to the south, but if you
want to go west or north, there is only one road in either direction:
the Stuart highway (note, Stuart, not Sturt - different explorer) north
to Alice Springs (near Eyre's Rock, now called Uluru) and Darwin, and
the Eyre (Pronounced 'Air' - different explorer) to the west. That's IT,
no other roads, although the "Oonadatta Track", several hundred miles of
gravel road does sorta parallell the Stuart Hwy. partway to Alice
Springs. Port Augusta is the 'jumping-off-place for the 'official'
outback, & the last opportunity to stock up on food supplies & that most
precious commodity - bottled water.
Part 3, Across the Nullabor: Pt Augusta to Denmark
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ALL PHOTOS AND TEXT � 2001, 2002 Erik and Mary Ohlson