Live it like only I can

Finally a real time post!

Since my sister left (April 30th) Oz I drove back up to Kyabram. 

kyabram is a small town in northeast Victoria. 

I had been here already in the first two months I was in Oz. But this time I wasn't heading for the Northern Warmblood Stud, no. I'm staying with this awesome couple and their 2 year old girl. These are real horse people. At Northern I didn't agree with most of the methods they used with their horses, here how ever I believe I have the privilege to stay with a great horse man. And above all, he's teaching me all these awesome things about horses and everything else!

In the meantime I've been here close to a month and I've learnt so much already! 

The responsibility bit, however, started the 20th before dawn and dusk.

As Steve and Charlotte needed to go up to QLD for 10days I've got the place all to myself now! 

The house including about 60 sheep, 3 cows, 8 horses, 6 chickens, 2 dogs and 2 kittens are currently all under my capable control.

(Top left to bottom; Bob, Chilli & Wilson, on the right is Milo and the two kittens) 

I had gone from being responsible for nobody but myself and my car to being responsible for somebody else's house, land and animals for 10 days in a very short time.

I don't mind being on my own at all anymore because I've been on my own quite some time now but this is different as I'm alone in a actual house instead of my car haha! 

It's great, I like to cook, clean and care for myself and all the animals. It's amazing how much you get back from them. Well, from the horses, cats and dogs at least. They have one ram which scares the crap out of me, how ridiculous that may seem but I really don't like that guy. When I go feed the Bob (the stallion), which is in the same paddock, the ram always wants to have food too so he stalks me which is scary of you ask me ! Even if I'm just in there to take of bobby's rug off he comes waddling up to us at a good tempo and starts following me around and sniffing my trousers and standing infrint of me and pushing his head against me. No. I don't like him.

On a positive note though, I started running again and Man I'm out of shape ! Djeezus, I couldn't even run for 5 min flat! 

Thankfully my condition is coming back quite good and quick. I'm almost back at my 5k jobbie which is where I kind of left of in Belgium all those months ago. 

So that's all good, and I'm working with horses every day now which makes me very happy too. Even without Steve here to teach me new things and point out the obvious things, I still feel that I'm learning every day I work with these horses. Which is one of the best feelings in the world if you ask me. Progress.

I've been talking to a friend from high school with whom I hadn't spoken with since well, high school. But it was great to talk to her again and I feel so much better having talked with her. She really is a great person. 

I'm still a bit nervous to go back to Belgium certainly now I know what I'm leaving behind here. But that's what I have to do and so I will do that. I know I've got a great family and good friends there to help me get back up when I fall over. 

Which is a good feeling because I know that whichever path I choose to take I know that they'll be there for me. 

But choosing a path, I have to do on my own. I'm the only one who can do that for myself which is, comforting in a way because I know that I'm fully in charge of my own life. Which is what I want and always have wanted. I find it a magnificent feeling to know that you are in charge of your own life and for the last 7 months I have got to have that non stop. Nobody could or would tell me where to go or what to do. No, I decided everyday again and again what I would do and see that day if I would do/see anything at all, that was completely up to me. That kind of freedom is really what I needed after everything that happened the past few years. Things seemed to move so quick and out of my control, certainly my last year of high school and the summer following. Such absolutely wonderful things happened (graduation being one of the biggest) but at the same time terrible things happens just as fast, easy and good as the good things it seemed.

Life seemed to be spinning out of my control further and further away so it was time for me to catch and grab it with my both hands never to let it go out of my sight again. So I booked a flight to the other side of the world with my backpack and pocket full of life, ready to live my life like only I can.

Which is what I did, am doing and will do for the rest of my life. Well, try to do now I know how good life can be.

That'll be all for now,

Lizzie xoxo

Oh, ps; my laptop is doing strange things, well not doing things which is strange actually but anyway I can't get on the internet so I'm posting with my iPod hence the increase of mistakes and the lack of posts.

outback auzzie

After a mesmerising trip at Uluru and a (free!) good nights sleep and a fuel fill-up we headed back up the Lasseter Hwy toward Kings Canyon !

Kings Canyon, sometimes referred to as Australia's own Grand Canyon!
It was yet another beautifully hot day and by the time we got there it was already past mid day so we were strongly advised not to start the 6km rim walk. Not feeling any burning desire to do the rim walk at the time we settled for the leisurely 2 km walk which traces the bottom of the canyon.







We got to see the beautiful rock formations from down below which was just as magnificent to us.

















WILD HORSES BABY!! My very first couple of horses leisurely chilling alongside the highway. How very excited I was after a good 3 months without horses to finally see some again and in the wild! Totally awesomesaus I'm telling you.

Alice, which is incidentally the geographical centre of Australia and the third biggest town in the Territory, was charmingly hot and dry as usual.

Our first night we slept at the tropic of Capricorn and saw (half of a) full moon eclipse ! Half because the clouds ruined it quite quick.

The following day in Alice we found our way to the information centre pretty quick, as usual.
As there isn't much to do or see in Alice we only spent about a day and a half in total there, mainly to restock.

No, I am sorry for lying. There are plenty of things to do in Alice Springs, the thing is you see, we only really found out about them when we had already left.
We knew about the Desert Park, but didn't really think much of it. How wrong could we be. As we were driving back South out of Alice we started reading Bill Bryson's Down Under which is about Australia. Anyway, he goes to Alice Springs to and goes to the desert park and tells about it. What a shame we didn't do it actually, apparently it is truly something awesome. So, naturally, is had made it on my TO DO list for my next Oz adventure.

So after a real bar meal (pizzaaaaaa) and a night at a really cheap (& recommendable!) campsite we headed of to the West MacDonnell National Park fully restocked again for yet another big outback adventure!

Thankfully this national park is free so we could chill as much and as long as we very well pleased.
Our first stop was Simpsons Gap, one of the natural all year round water holes.

Well, this would be the right time to tell you that we lost our little map somewhere halfway our first day. That's what you get with cursing with your windows open... So anyway our 2 day MacDonnell adventure is a bit hazy in terms of linking the right places to the right pictures. But we had a great time so that's all the counts for me.

Simpsons Gap

So here's yet another national park adventure of ours!

Glen Helen Gorge

Redbank

Gorge

It was with out a doubt another great outback national park adventure, swimming in ice cold natural water holes and some real rough unsealed driving. About 40km of bone rattling washboarded and dusty road, is, I can tell you know for a fact, quite exhausting.

I'll be back with more, outback adventures!

xoxo Lizzie

one Bilion flies

I shit you not when I say that as soon as you drive out of civilisation into the outback or even bush you instantly get attacked by flies. So much socially incompetent and rude flies it's hard to believe it's true but believe me when I say, it WILL drive you to insanity at one point. 

Coming from Port Augusta we drove up the Stuart Highway, a 2,834 km long highway that traverses the whole of Oz from South to North right through the middle of Aussie.

In short an immense stretch of highway through absolutely nothingness which is, as you can imagine, quite impressive.

We stopped somewhere on one of the rest areas along the highway between Port Augusta and Woomera for the night and woke up to a beautiful sunrise over the absolute nothingness was quite magnificent.

Coober Pedy, the Opal capital of the world.

With over 70 opal fields it is the largest opal mining area in the world. What we found quite peculiar about the town is that most of the houses were/are built underground, this was introduced to succumb the scorching daytime temperatures. (highest temp recorded in summer (Jan) was 47.1 °C !!)

Fun fact! the word 'Coober Pedy' is derived from the Aboriginal term kupa-piti, which means "white man's hole"

Coober Pedy

Being in the opal capital of the world we kind of felt obligated to go noodling, the process of searching through heaps of discarded mulch for pieces of opal missed by miners. In short, picking through dirt on a great dirt mound in the hope of finding something shiny. There is a public noodling area on the edge of town where we went and had a go at it.  The experience was, how shall I put this, hot and dusty and without much success. Obviously we had come utterly unprepared as we had nothing to actually dig with into the dirt. 

The picture is titled "Noodling" and goes with the conversation; "act as if you're noodling, Liza" "how? we don't even know what to do" "yes, I know that but just kneel down and pick something up will you."

Border hopping time!

the bottom part is South Australia and the top is the Northern Territory.

My 7th state, aw yeah!

If I was to describe the territory in just a few words I think I would go with; flies, heat and endless roads.

We only saw the southern most part of the territory obviously with not going higher up than the tropic of Capricorn which is just 30km North of Alice (Springs).

fun fact; before 2007 there was absolutely no speed limit enforced throughout the entire territory! 

 But in January 2007 the traffic laws got updated to be similar to Australia's other states. This meant enforcing speed limits on all road, including the highways which was set at 130km/h. Which is still 20km/h faster as other states. In February 2014 the NT Government set an open speed limit on the 200km stretch between Alice Springs and Barrow Creek.

So the trip from the NT/SA boarder to Uluru, our first destination was hot and empty. 

When you're driving through kilometres and kilometre of flat nothingness on end 1 kilometre seems like 10, an hour seems like 3 and 130km/h seems like 50km/h. 

600 km per day had become a normal days driving between the two of us, every two hours we would swap so that the other could have a rest or do just anything but concentrate on the road which is pretty tiring in the blithering hot sun and on the endless road.

 Before Katrien was in Oz and I was still making my way up and down the east coast I drove nearly 700km a couple of days. Believe me when I say that when you get our of your car to pay for petrol or what ever and you can't function properly anymore because you are so disorientated it is time to stop driving.

It's hard to explain what driving in Australian conditions do to you but whatever it does to you, if you're not Australian (and therefore not used to the conditions) you're not capable of driving 6-7-8-9-10 hours on end in this country. 

That's my opinion at least.

So anyway we made it up the Stuart highway until Erlduna where we turned onto the Lasseter hwy, which would bring us straight to the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park.

We stopped at a free camp spot about 28km of Yulara, which is basically a gigantic resort with town facilities. The township has it's own primary school, child care centre, police station, medical centre and ambulances, fire station, post office, bank, new agency, servo and a small supermarket. The resort holds no less than 5 different ways to stay there, a campground, 2 hotels & a lodge, apartments and the resort it self. It's insane. Everything is super expensive because they have monopoly, obviously, this is the only place to eat and sleep within a 84km radius.

Palya!
Welcome to Anangu land

“I'm suggesting nothing here, but I will say that if you were an intergalactic traveller who had broken down in our solar system, the obvious directions to rescuers would be: "Go to the third planet and fly around till you see the big red rock. You can't miss it." If ever on earth they dig up a 150,000-year-old rocket ship from the galaxy Zog, this is where it will be. I'm not saying I expect it to happen; not saying that at all. I'm just observing that if I were looking for an ancient starship this is where I would start digging.” - Bill Bryson, Down Under

On our first day there we did the 10.6km loop walk around the base of Uluru. It was quite interesting to see it from up close for starters and even more interesting to find out that it isn't really that smooth of a rock!

What a fascinating thing that is!

Day 2 was the 3rd of April, my 19th birthday-day!!

I had a birthday of a life time!

Starting with a magnificent sunrise over Uluru followed by a big breakfast brunch in the Outback Pioneer Hotel&Lodge back in Yulara. 

After we had eaten absolutely everything and as much as we could we drove back to the National Park but this time toward Kata Tjuta, often more commonly known as Mount Olga or the Olgas.
Special thanks go to my awesome sister who surprised me with the cake and candles presented above at Uluru. <3

Kata Tjuta by sunrise

Kata Tjuta is a group of 36 domed rock formations located about 50km west from Uluru. We did the Walpa Gorge Walk and the walk up to the Karu lookout. 

After our visit to Kata Tjuta we drove to the sunset point where we spent most of the afternoon reading, sunning, eating cake and getting harassed by flies on the bonnet of the car with an absolutely  famous view of Uluru at our feet.

What a day. What an adventure.

xoxo Lizzie

Decision time

Next stop, Gladstone Gaol

On our way up from Adelaide we made a little detour to Gladstone where there is a gaol open for tourists to go in and have a look around. 

In 1881 this gaol opened its doors for both male and female inebriates and debtors, during the second World War it became a internment camp for Italians and Germans.

After 10 years of not using the prison it became a corrective training camp for young adult offenders in 1953
Somewhere in the year 1975 the last prisoner was transferred to the still existing gaol in Port Augusta and by 1978 it was open to visitors.
The only current inhabitants is a mob of kangaroos which just lay around casually in one of the courtyards.

So anyway we went and have a look at the gaol. Like all old jails it's always a bit eery in there, I always feel like I'm not supposed to be there. Not that I've been to that much old jails but still, I felt the same the one other time I went to one.

This woman scared the shits out of us. They had put some dolls in some of the cells for some extra excitement I think... Not that that's what you need, feeling uncomfortable enough as it was we were now squinting around every corner and very precocious with looking inside the cells.

After this, uhm, pleasant day trip we headed for Port Germein where we knew yet another free place to sleep near the jetty.

This jetty, built in 1881, was the longest one in South Australia and at some point the longest in the Southern Hemisphere even. By 1883 the jetty was about 1,664 meters. After the last ship had laid anchor at the jetty in 1947 storm damage reduced the length to 1,284 meters. Which is, if you ask me, still quite a length. Certainly for a morning walk.

After that pleasant walk up and down the jetty we made our way up to Port Augusta, the decision making point. 

Driving into Port Augusta we went straight for the information centre (of course) but only to arrive at the Wadlata Outback Centre. Which was totally awesomesaus because they held all the answers to our million questions.

As soon as we walked in there we (that is to say, Katrien) knew which direction we wanted to go. And as I really had no preference as to where to go I though it was a great idea. 

So after almost an hour we walked out the door quite satisfied. First of all we had established that we would go North, up to Alice Springs! Secondly the very friendly woman who helped us at the information centre had laid out a big plan for us to go. 

The plan started with the Flinders Ranges Nat. Park.

So from Port Augusta we headed North-East toward the Flinders Ranges, spent 2 nights in the park, did an awesome dirt road drive and went hiking. Because we were heading north the climate obviously became much warmer again and the flies started to come without going.

hence the second photo where we got driven so close to insanity by all the flies flying right in your face we had to make ourselves a safe cocoon under my big mozzie net.

After our three-day national park journey we headed back to Port Augusta to restock on food and fuel  to head up up up North!

So much exciting times!

xoxo Lizzie