r ellenberger

So had a really nice nights sleep and woke up to the sun shining into  my tent and the noise of birds chirping in the trees. Not bad.  Was ready to roll at 8, as google maps told me shortest way to Sydney  was through a town called Menindee that's where I was heading. There  are two big lakes near Menindee and it's the town at the start of the  Darling River. Checked out the lakes which were cool but as usual many  many flies. I think there were big rains two weeks ago and the flies are out in force.  From Menindee I was heading to Ivanhoe, I didn't realize it was a  dirt road but turns out it is, 200km of shity dirt road woohoo. The  other bad part was today was very warm, driving on dusty roads I keep  the window closed so it doesn't suck dust in, was uncomfortable. From  Ivanhoe 50km of highway and then another 100km of dirt to Hillston.  From there it was onto the Western Hwy to West Wyalong. Only eventful  thing of t...

The last place just past Elliston turned out to be a bad place to camp; vampire fucking mosquitoes people, and hundreds of them. Because it was dark by the time I left Elliston i stopped at the first place I could which happened to be next to a lagoonish swampish area. Trying to set up your tent and eat food while being ravaged by bloodsuckers ain't fun. I made a small fire to try and smoke them away, next thing picture me eating my tuna sandwich dinner while standingnover the fire smoking myself. It's called an adventure people. As a side note a lot of the time I find myself doing stupid things to keep amused and in good spirits. A lot of off key singing, me talking to myself and having simple conversations, talking or mostly yelling at the flies (usually something about now you're trapped in the car... GET OUT OF MY CAR), lots of me speaking in various accents repeating one phrase, lots of crazy behaviour... So not to b...

Not sure where I last left off but I think it was just before the SA border. Since then I've crossed into South Australia, driven about 1200km, finished the Nullabor and decided to head down to Port Lincoln before reaching Port Augusta. As for the Nullabor I really enjoyed it. The scenery is immense and often changing; forests of stunted gum trees followed by low lying scrub followed by empty spaces with the occasional tree. You vary from following the coast and seeing the blue blue sea to moving inland where salt pans line the side of the road. Although it is a vast drive it's a really good taste of the real outback. The drive up until the town of Ceduna was pretty uneventful, I drove along at about 85km/h most of the way because im time rich but money poor. From Ceduna I decided to head down to Port Lincoln rather than cutting directly across to Port Augusta. So far it's been worth the extra km's, the coast is magni...

I lie in my tent looking out over the Nullabor (more like Nullawesome... more on that later). Three days have passed since I left Karrak Reach. I've left behind a place and period in my life that has been much more than bricklaying, travellers and karri forests put together. Somewhere in the simplicity of waking up in the morning, having breakfast and then trudging up a hill to lay bricks for five hours, I've found a perspective on life that is much more fullfilling than the one I arrived with. It might be that the complexity of life back in Sydney will smother what I've learnt, but I hope not. So I began the final stage of my Australia trip on Friday driving from Denmark along the South Coast Highway to Albany. It's a town with a lot of heritage especially the buildings close to the water. In Albany I went looking for someone to share fuel costs with but the backpackers were bare so I'm on my lonesome. From Albany it was...