Pretend Grids

Often there are cattle grids in the highway on the way to Alice Springs. They make a distinct 'zing-zing' rumble as you speed over them. Then sometimes you drive over them and there is no noise and no bumps and you wonder what happened. Then you stop to look and discover they are pretend grids. Paint on the road and signs to make them look like grids.

Speed

Outside of built up areas, the speed limit in the Northern Territory used to be unlimited. Now it is limited to 130 kilometres per hour. Previously, the real limit was that if you drove too fast you would not have enough petrol to get to the next fill-up. 130 is a good speed, you can do 400km in 3 hours.

Road to the Red Centre

I just took a short break for 6 days and drove to Uluru in the middle of Australia. On the way, just 150km or so out of the Isa, was this very large windmill. More photos and story to come.

Mount Frosty

An old mine called Mount Frosty. It used to be mined for limestone to use for smelting copper. Just out of sight was a dead cow carcass. It didn't smell as nice as it looks.

Sky

The outback sky is magnificent.

Outback Dunny

Classic outback dunny. This old tin dunny (dunny means toilet in Australia) was not far from the machinery you saw yesterday. It's rough out here. The seat was a hole cut in an old 44 gallon steel drum.

Old Mine

If you go about 47 kilometres east of Mount Isa you'll come to a turn off to Mount Frosty. Head down the road for a while till you see a drum at a fork in the road. Turn right and you'll find an old mine. This is where I saw these old workhorses that had seen better days. You'll need a 4wd to get there.

Toys

A Geomag toy. It glows in the dark. It's magnetic. It's great.

Blue Sky

Endless blue sky and contrasting landscapes. This is just 3 kilometres out of the town centre down Duchess Road.

Life On The Edge

Another tree in the 'life on the edge' series. This tree once had its roots nicely covered in dirt. Then a road was cut through next to it up the hill. And then erosion set in.