Boobook and Lawrence

Lire l’original en français

Our last adventures date from a month ago. Let me draw you a picture of some of the landscapes we crossed.

Exhausted from looking in vain for a job, but filled with our new-found friendships, we left Melbourne to tour the famous Great Ocean Road so photographed. The next morning, our crew was adorned with a French hitch-hiker, who happily filled our ears with expressions we had never heard. The magnificent 12 Apostles are seen under a stormy sky; these pillars defying the ocean seem greater than life, under grey light turning silver with unprompted passages of the Sun. That night, we achieved a big dream: to sleep in an old Winnebago, decorated with a kitschy design of the sixties! The next morning, even more gigantic waves shatter on the yellow and ochre stratum of the sea cliffs. Monoliths resemble sentinels posted to protect treasures buried for millenniums.

We say goodbye to Xavier and wish him good luck with his hitch-hiker desert crossing. We arrive at Anna’s in Adelaide. She is a friend of a friend from Melbourne and has generously offered to harbour us. Wham Bam! Sudden friendship. The two days spent with Max, Anna, Nico, Mia, the chickens and the garden are unforgettable.

After many days of arid budgetary labour in the cold of the new winter, we finally leave for the Australian apotheosis: the Red Centre, the desert of the middle, the flat, flat, flat away from civilization. But, the First Nation has a story for every hill, every dry river, every tree tuft and every rock. The Australian continent, for them, is a huge “géophonic” map, if I may propose a new term to French legislators. Aborigines can find their way through orally transmitted “roads of songs”. Every element of the ground is sung as we approach it, songs based on the speed of walking to know how many verses to compose between every important relief feature. I wish I could have learned some of them, but this millenary culture is more than rugged and the asphalt is too much of a speedway.

Each time I’m back on secondary roads, throughout the world, I’M filled with joy. The nature of human beings to celebrate their sense of belonging is really fantastic. Motor bikers salute one another, backpackers say Hi and often times, people with hair “stuck slump” like mine smile at each other. It’s the same on less busy roads: we smile and wave at each other in a brotherly manner.

On the rocky mountain roads to climb, we crossed many super heroes: cyclists riding thousands of desertic kilometres and hikers ready to climb cliffs to admire the beauty of their country … and all of them already in their sixties. Such a lesson for us, who consider ourselves adventurers!
Rare wallabies, surprised kangaroos, curious emus, protective owls, wild horses and camel HERDS where there… Really! 200 years ago, Australians used the help of Afghans to build the famous Darwin to Adelaide railway line. Well adapted to the desert, these huge softies multiplied and now, it’s like being in Lawrence of Arabia in the middle of Australia!

We took the train on that line and at 10:30 p.m., in the dark, without lighting or roads miles around, a lady detrained with her suitcase. In the middle of NOWHERE! A 4X4 came to pick her up and headed through the bushes. There, I really felt I was “Down Under”.

See HIS View
See His and Hers Pictures