Jen and friend

Today was a strange day. I guess most days are pretty strange for me now, but this one was especially so. In a good way, though. This morning Peter & Dan, a father/son team from England and myself hired mountain bikes and went for a pleasant, mostly downhill ride through the Flinders Ranges. The weather was beautiful, the sky was blue, the rocks were red, and the trees were green. It was some very surreal landscape. En route we came across a lizard in the road, which we chased to safety.

Then we drove several hours on nice, smooth sealed road until we reached the start of an Outback track, complete with "warning, remote area" signs. From then on we traveled on bone jarring unsealed roads. The landscape became more desert-like with shrubs replacing trees and the soil becoming redder. The landscape is mostly empty, but every once in awhile there you come across weird stuff. We stopped briefly at a crazy guy's homemade house in the middle of nowhere. his claim to fame is his carvings made from talc stone, which surround his metal house. I was in a slightly bad mood after almost getting left here while I was using the toilet.

Ghost town

Then it was a couple more hours until our next stop, lunch at a ghost-town. The desolation of this place was pretty overwhelming. Another long ride and we stopped at Lake Eyre South, a dry salt lake. It was totally flat as far as you could see, and was like walking on the moon. On our final stretch we stopped at some sculptures made from vans and airplanes, and the "Pussy Willow," a tree with cat skins hanging from it. The cats are feral, and are a threat to the indiginous life.

Finally we made it to Williams Creek, the smallest town in South Australia, which was basically just a pub. I had read about places like this: the walls and ceilings were covered with ID's, photos, tee-shirts, and bras, and there were a few Outback characters about. The Irish woman was pretty crazy, Riverdancing and shouting to country music. I wasn't in the mood to get too pissed, though. Then we went to bed in swags under the stars. For the uninitiated, a swag is a canvas bag with a mattress. I didn't get a sleeping bag, so I froze me arse off.