We met up with Terry and Hannah the next morning at our campsite. We made it to Mt. Isa that night, and were forced to stay because of car trouble. Some scenery of Queensland outback...
After we had the break pads tightly screwed on (phew), we continued on.
We stopped at Camooweal for a little R&
R, but timing is everything, and the police happened to drive behind terry's unregistered car. Terry, the prince of Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea, is a nice guy, but he either has no need for legitimate license plates in the islands, or remains on "island time", and couldn't pencil in the time to get one. Fortunately, the policewoman was very nice, and let us go as long as Terry pinkie-promised to get a license plate ASAP. Naturally, we got right on that.
Camooweal is also where Queensland ends and the Northern Territory begins. According to Mitch, an NT resident (which explains a lot), NT also stands for "Not today, not tomorrow." I didn't really believe him until I saw my first territorian. I wish I had a picture but I was absolutely terrified to shove a Nikon in his face and ask for his picture, considering he was almost 7 feet tall, wearing a shirt that said "If you don't like me, then fuck you", and had on ridiculously short shorts and boots.
We stopped at the Barkley Homestead just before dust, and got to meet Cocky, who apparently bites. After some good arguing about a campsite, we finally settled on one just off the road, a little bit past the Barkley.
The next morning, we left quite early and made it all the way to the Barrow Creek. On the way, we stopped in Tennant Creek and Ti-Tree. Not much to them, just little gas stations along the way. Plenty of people and dogs hanging about, both drinking green cans.
That night, we camped just before Barrow Creek and climbed this little plateau and watched the sunset. It was a little steeper than I had hoped, and I drank a tad too much wine at the top, which made getting down interesting. No broken bones, though. Shocker. (Not that kind, Katherine)
The next day, we went to Alice springs and stayed at Annie's Place, some hip and edgy backpackers. We ended up staying two nights there because of the weather and what-not. We got to see a show outside of the grocery store on our first day. Some girls were brawling in the middle of the street. One girl was curled up in a ball on the curb, and another girl was kicking the shit out of her. Everyone just stared, including me. Weird-for me at least- but alice springs in the stabbing capital of the world. "Little stab, one time". This was the court statement of an aboriginal man who accidently stabbed his wife to death. Apparently, little stabs are common in the aboriginal culture. But this poor fellow happened to stab his wife in the wrong place and she died from only one little knife jab. To all those one-time stabbers out there, be warned.
That's a lot for one time, so I'll continue tomorrow with our journey to uluru and up to Jabiru, the heart of kakadu!
