On the road with Dirty Sanchez: part 2

Some more pictures of our road trip today!

What I won't show you are the many, many dead kangaroos along side the road. You can't drive 20 minutes without seeing one and  it made us a little sad at first, but after a while you kind of get used to it, even when they are horribly disfigured or decapitated. It's one of the reasons why you're not allowed to drive at night because they are nocturnal and they're not reacting very fast either. A couple of times, we experienced that this cute marsupial isn't the most clever among its kind. They stand in the middle of the road, but with their skin being the same color as the surroundings, you always notice them too late. They look at your car but they're frozen and have no clue what to do, so too often they make the wrong decision and jump right in front of your vehicle instead of turning around (or could they just be very suicidal?). Luckily, Dirty Sanchez is a good fellah and he doesn't speed (he can't actually) so we always managed to brake in time and save the life of at least 10 skippies.

All of this might have influenced our choice in the supermarket in Katherine (proud hometown of Cadel Evans, for those interested in cycling) because we left with two juicy kangaroo steaks for our first camp site barbecue. Also first time I tried this meat and it's quite good, very tender and tasty and cheaper than beef or pork.

When we crossed the border between the Northern Territory and South Australia, we stopped at Lake Hart, one of many dry, salt lakes in that area. From far, it looked like it actually had water in it but only when we were very close, we discovered the vast, salty surface which is so different to the ochre landscape we'd been driving through for days.

Another curiosity we encountered while being on the road with Dirty Sanchez is the 'grey nomad'. Well, usually there is two of them. Australians love to travel, when they're young they all go overseas but when they're a bit older, they love to discover the homeland. So when they retire, a lot of Ozzies rent or buy themselves a big 4WD with caravan and off they are, for three, four, five months or longer. We even met a couple that was driving around Australia for an entire year. All of these people, most of them couples, looked so relaxed and they always had great stories about exclusive and remote places they had stayed at, I often envied them. Okay, they have time, money and the right gear for this trip (a lot of exciting places in Australia are only accessible by 4WD) but I am going to remember this idea and the day I retire, I'll be back in Oz with a big jeep and the rest of the country can call me one of their 'grey nomads'!

With this post, I'm saying goodbye to our lovely van. He might have caused a bit of confusion in the town of Peterborough where the inhabitants were convinced that we were selling oranges but overall he's been a great and reliable travel buddy. So long maaaate and thanks for not letting us down in the middle of nowhere!