Yesterday (Sunday), was our last day in the desert. We drove to the tropics! Well, the Tropic of Capricorn. Being in the tropics isn't as exciting as you might imagine. It was just a random place on a very wide dirt road, but getting there was plenty exciting for me. It was my first time (as an adult) driving on unsealed roads. Jon says I did a good job, but I went rather slow at times, and since the sand was often the texture of a washboard, it made for a very bumpy ride. Fortunately the road was wide enough for a 4 lane road and we never saw another car. As a side note, I highly recommend desert driving if it's your first time driving on the other side of the road. There's almost no traffic which is very relaxing. So back to the tropics. I suppose the desert we saw along our way was no different than the other desert we saw during the trip, but it felt different. We felt very remote even though we only went 40km or so. We saw no signs of people except for some old tires along the road... and the road, of course.
We stopped by the Red Gorge on the way back, but even though it was only about 10:30a, it was already blistering hot. We stuck around just long enough to notice how the spinifex had burned (had been burned?) in one area versus another. The burned area looked very empty except for "black shadows" which were really just the scorch marks left by the spinifex.
We ate dinner at the resort, and it was good again, though, as usual, expensive for what you get. We had scalding hot tomato soup--actually quite tasty and refreshing even though it was still hot enough for just t-shirt and shorts outside. We shared a kangaroo fillet, perfectly cooked. I think I like kangaroo because I like venison and flank steak, meatier, chewier cuts. The Outback seems a bit obsessed with celery. We've had it as a cooked vegetable with the kangaroo, sliced in salads, and sauteed as seasonal vegetables. I hope it's just that celery is cheap with a long shelf life.
We snuck in one more night sky viewing, complete with some bat action. I don't think we'll ever get tired of looking up at the Milky Way, Scorpio, and Jupiter. As a slight digression: about a year and a half ago I went to Antarctica. This desert and Antarctica aren't so different; as a start Antarctica is basically a really cold desert. It gets almost no rainfall. Still, what I keep realizing is what large, wild, inhospitable places they are, and how they remind you that people are really just a small piece of nature. It's sort of a nice feeling, very peaceful.
Monday we woke up with the sun and were on the road by 7a, drinking my latest favorite morning beverage: iced coffee. We've had iced coffee twice here and neither time has it been like in the states. The first time at a cafe, it was the German version: cold coffee with ice cream and whipped cream. The second was as a milk container where it's basically flavored like chocolate milk, only with coffee and sugar instead. Yum. I know milk is good for you and when it has a good helping of sugar and coffee, I'm happy to drink it.
We drove back to the airport and were very sad to leave. We passed the thin spines of jagged rocks that looked like dragons and what I insist look like soft, velvet puffs (spinifex) but makes Jon launch into a discourse of how that scientifically cannot be possible since the puffs are too rigid, unlike grass, which suggests that the puffs are made of spikes and would be uncomfortable. Flocks and flocks of birds keep flying up out of the grass into the road as we drive by, and we narrowly miss killing them. I really don't understand why they fly into the road instead of away from it. Lyle Lovett is the perfect empty, desert road music. The gas attendants are super friendly as always, wanting to know where we're from, how long we've been here, and where we're going. We're glad it was cooler most of the week, and excited to come back someday and hike and do all the things we didn't get to.
I don't know how much we've talked about it, but we could sit for hours looking out at the desert and listening to the birds. For me the scenery and the feeling is a bit indescribable. Since the living conditions are so harsh, you get to appreciate each shrub, tree, plant, and bird. It's just beautiful. This is how we've spent a lot of our time here.
By the way, if, say, you have the urge to kiss your boyfriend in a dry, arid place like a desert, be sure to ground yourself first. Otherwise you might just end up with a huge electric shock across your nose, leaving you with the strong smell of ozone and really sore nose. Just fyi.
Perth is shocking in several ways: multiple lanes of traffic with many cars, much, much cooler, and humid. We have another Australian-made car but a smaller one this time. The climate here and in Margaret River feels a lot more like the Bay Area and the wine country. The Margaret River is much smaller than Napa or Sonoma, most of the restaurants are closed on a Monday evening. We ate at a hotel in town for dinner. The spinach salad was great but the pork belly was overcooked and the white beans undercooked. We were happy to have non-kangaroo, barramundi, chicken options, though. The pizzas at the hotel looked fantastic, made in a wood-fired oven. If only they had been gluten free. Speaking of gluten free, though, we're staying at the Noble Grape in Cowaramup. It's a B&B which means the rest of the guests are generally 50 and older. The upside is that our hosts, Donna and Steve?, are very familiar with gluten-free. Even though we hadn't told them I was, they had gluten-free bread, muesli, and even made me fresh chocolate muffins for breakfast. Jon was enamored of the homemade peach muffins.
We're hoping to (finally) have a really good meal and see some wildflowers tomorrow.
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