Mind you, despite a 19-hour bus ride we are still in the same state (i.e. Queensland), but we have made our way from Far North Queensland to North West Queensland and it sure feels like a world away.
The bus ride itself was surprisingly comfortable, although I did leave a Very Important Bag behind in our first bus (from Cairns to Townsville) stocked with back-up medication, amongst other things. I keep forgetting and misplacing so many things lately that I start to feel like Mag! Hopefully I’ll be able to get the bag back from Greyhound tonight.
As I wrote in my last blog, we decided to make a quick stop in Mt Isa, which is about halfway between Cairns and Alice Springs, because spending 33 hours on a bus wasn’t something we were willing to do. We ended up having a nice time here in ‘the Isa’, which is how the locals lovingly call their hometown. You’ll see posters everywhere saying: ‘Remember: You’re not a real Aussie ‘till you’ve been to the Isa’. It’s very cute.
I like the Outback! Once again I’m reminded of how much more I enjoy the back country of a place rather than its beaches (unless, OF COURSE, we’re talking about Nusa Tenggara. I LOVE Nusa Tenggara!). Mt Isa is a beautiful place with a perfect color palette of red earth, green fauna, blue skies and white clouds. It lives and breathes ‘small town’, but with its 41,000 square kilometres it’s equivalent in size to Switzerland.
Take a moment to let that sink in: the CITY Mt Isa is as big as the COUNTRY Switzerland. We’re in the Outback alright, where only superlatives apply.
We spent a couple of hours exploring a small part of this big town. We went to the Australian Tourism Award-winning Outback at Isa for some background information on the region.
One late afternoon we walked to the City Lookout for a beautiful sunset overlooking the mines in the valley.
Most of the time, though, we spent relaxing at our hostel the Travellers Haven. It’s an old and worn place, but the rooms are cool and there’s a nice swimming pool that we spent quite some time in.
I relish the dry heat in the Outback and can’t wait to explore more once we get to Alice Springs. Our bus leaves tonight at 7.30 PM and we expect to be in Alice Springs at 9.15 in the morning. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to catch up much once there, because we booked a 3-day camping trip to Uluru on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and will be on another tour to the MacDonnell Ranges on Sunday. At 10.30 AM on Monday morning we’ll take another overnight bus to Adelaide. I'm so excited!
If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!
No comments:
Post a Comment