Crossing Australia via the Outback

Hello fellow Steemists!

It's been a while. During the global pandemic, I have been stranded in Australia on my motorcycle round-the-world trip, which has shut itself off to most international travel and thanks to that, people can mostly live a normal life. Not a bad place to be, in that sense.

In this post, I want to share my experience of traversing Australia, from West Coast to East Coast and via the Outback. Australia has an incredibly low population at around 26M, while being almost the same size as the US. Once leaving the coast, things get pretty remote pretty quick and the scenery and experience are quite unique. Think a mix between Utah and a Mars-like desert environment. Scattered along dirt roads and about every 300 kms are roadhouses, which offer fuel, food, and a place to camp and shower with bore water. Apart from that, it's just you and general nothingness.

Having left the coast in Western Australia, I come across the mining town of Kalgoorlie. They have the 'Super Pit' which is still operating as a giant gold mine. Huge mining trucks which take out the extracts look like toy trucks from the viewing platform above. Throughout Australia, there is quite a bit of mining going on. After all, natural resources make for a major income of the country.

From Laverton further up the road, the tarmac ends and I enter the 'Great Central Road', an 1100-km dirt road leading straight into Australia's Northern Territory and ending at the magnificent Uluru (Ayers Rock). Seeing this giant rock appear on the horizon after three days of a desert's isolation is an indescribable feeling.

On my further way, I am crossing Kings Canyon and reach Alice Springs, quite a special town right in the middle of Australia. It has been established thanks to a military base half way between Darwin in the Australia's tropical north and Adelaide in South Australia. About a half hour north of Alice Springs, there's the tropic of capricorn.

The next step takes me further south to the Flinders Ranges, a mountain range in South Australia about 5 hours north of Adelaide. It is a true Mars-like environment and offers mesmerizing roads and walks.

Ultimately, I enter the state of New-South Wales at Broken Hill, the "Silver City" which was Australia's first large mining town established in the mid-19th century. The mining boom having long passed combined with the summer holidays made the city appear a bit of a ghost town, however well maintained. Not far from Broken Hill is Silverton which came to some fame from being the movie set for the Mad Max movies.

I complete the travel to the East Coast via some more dirt roads which were in pretty good condition. Freshly graded and when there is no rain, riding a motorbike on dirt roads is quite smooth. Much more than on tarmac, you just need to 'let go' and let the motorbike do its thing. The handlebars start shaking at times and you are the steering dampener while holding on loosely to the handlebars and looking far ahead. I find that this requirement of attention forces you into the present moment, which does feel quite meditative.

Via Menindee, I proceed via Wilcannia and Tilpa on dirt roads towards Bourke. The environment then gradually turns from red to green, towns come more frequently and look more lively. All too soon, I park my bike in front of the Opera House, having reached the well-populated East of Australia, but the Outback left an impression that will stay on my mind.

"There's bugger all out there. Why would you want to go there?" is a question I heard a lot when talking about traversing the Outback. In my eyes, it’s the adversity and simplicity that makes it appealing. I see it this way: A horizon, a wide sky, a comparatively small human to perceive it all. It can make one feel so unimportant, but at the same time one is playing quite a crucial part here because if it wasn’t for them, who would be there to perceive it? It is a spiritual experience in the simplest sense. You are becoming aware that you are the window through which the universe experiences itself. In that sense, it does make you feel more connected to your surroundings: a part of it all instead of apart from it all.