Darwin to Katherine



Day 1 - a bit of a shock within 30 km of departing Darwin to see how far away Alice Springs is...

 

Farewell committee in Darwin - Hans and Gwen with whom we rode in Africa six years ago. They 'just happened' to be touring in Australia and came by to renew acquaintances - really nice to reconnect with them...



Rae riding with David Freeman who we met in Rome a couple of years ago...

Not a vulture, but a kite keeping an eye on us...


Black Kite

We quickly got a taste of what we're facing in the next few weeks. Temperature was in the high 30s in the shade, except there was no shade. Ursula's bike computer registered 44 degrees after lunch.

Along much of the road, we could see where burning had taken place. It is a practice to keep down the amount of brush that would otherwise help fire to spread quickly.



A few kilometers short of camp was a general store with cool drinks and ice cream - here Rae with Henry Gold and Fred Promoli.

At camp, the swimming pool was a pleasant surprise - clean, cool, refreshing.

In the camp office, we got introduced to two orphan wallabies, this one four months old...

...and this one two months old in the hands of our leader Andreas...

...and the grounds were full of wallabies that came out and fed in the last hour of the day...

 

 

 

... and more birds...



Straw-necked Ibis

...and sunset behind the pond...

Our first night on the road. Inside the tent was like a sauna.

Then it's morning number two, on the road just after 0600 with the sun coming up behind the trees and a couple of interestingly-dressed termite hills...

Morning was 70 km on a scenic road with hardly any traffic and birds everywhere - such a contrast from China where we hardly saw any...



Black Kite

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo



Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

After lunch, it was back on the main highway where we're becoming familiar with the Australian 'Road Trains' - semis pulling three or four big trailers.

A long afternoon, unrelenting heat, unrelenting sun directly overhead, and unrelenting headwind of at least 20 knots. The day's distance was just over 130 km and we barely were able to finish. The lunch truck had to make a second trip back to pick up riders. If heat and wind are the same next week when we have one day at 169 km, we'll be hitching a ride with the lunch truck too.

Camp tonight gave us a couple of amusing signs...

Another nice sunrise over the mango plantation on day three...

...and more birds in a shade tree approaching town a few kilometers short of the campsite...



Rainbow Lorikeet

Silver-crowned Friarbird

Rainbow Lorikeet

Sunday Oct 26 - an appreciated rest day. But we gave in... we spoiled ourselves with an air conditioned hotel room for the two nights here. Yes, the budget is going to suffer in this trip, but the heat is so oppressive that we're glad we wimped out.

Tomorrow it's back on the road for five successive riding days before a day or rest in Tennant Creek. Average distance almost 140 km, three days over 150.

in Darwin, ready to start

October 22nd

First, happy birthday to my brother who I hope will be excited enough about the bird photos that he'll figure out what species they are.

The travel to Darwin was long, but everything, bags, bikes, and us, arrived together and okay.

Sunday at 5 a.m... breakfast at the Darwin airport

Sunday at 7 a.m... at the campsite office, waiting for them to open, and assembling bikes while we wait.

 The tent got set up

 

and we headed out on the bikes into town, stopping first at the aviation museum featuring this bike in their WWII exhibit. The trip would be a challenge on this one.

Unlike China, where we were riding last year, there is an abundance of birds and animals around here.

This one was on the road at the campsite... unbelievably long tail...

Northern Water Dragon

Northern Water Dragon

This lorikeet was feeding from a tree 50 m from our tent. Beautiful, yes... noisy, yes.

Rainbow Lorikeet

Rainbow Lorikeet

We took a good bike ride around town and along the coast - where you can't swim for seven months of the year due to deadly jellyfish - and saw these birds.

Double-barred Finch

Double-barred Finch

Kingfisher with his dinner.

Forest Kingfisher

Australasian Figbird

Springtime here, so gathering material for the nest.

Pacific Reef Heron

Masked Lapwing (Northern Australian subspecies)

Masked Lapwing (Northern Australian subspecies)

Striated Heron

Straw-necked Ibis

 

Thursday, 16 October... bags are packed, bikes in boxes, bus to Vancouver, and the now-familiar airport scene.

Airline check-in with Air Canada was outstanding considering that we're a short overnight in Los Angeles and travelling on a Philippine Airlines that wasn't open for check-in. The self-check-in couldn't handle that and gave us baggage tags only to L.A. which would have given us the opportunity to spend our very short time in L.A. waiting for bags and bikes, lugging them around, checking them back in, and on top of that paying the extra charges for the bikes twice. However the Air Canada customer assistance agent had absolutely no problem fixing it all up so hopefully the next time we see the baggage will be when we get to Darwin.

The new super x-ray machines at YVR can't handle baggage as big as bike boxes so they had to be opened but that went well with the CTSA people being really good with tape and assistance to seal everything up again. Us going through security went just as well including my hips that always lead to the pat-down. The US Customs and Immigration and there too the agents were professional, courteous, and pleasant.

So now we are captive in the pre-screened area. First thing Ursula found was this mural depicting outdoor activities - You can see that she is ruefully looking at the surfboard and thinking of the two months of biking before we get to that part of Australia.

Welcome to our blog... we'll post our progress when we can, hopefully more in photos than words.