Seeing how the outback makes up such a large part of Australia, I have decided to break this subject into 3 separate parts. Our trip was only a week-long, and since the outback is so large, we only saw a very small part of it. I am sure in the future we will be seeing more of it, so as expected, I will report on those trips also.
It had been a while since our last trip, so Gene and I decided that it was time to head out again and see what we could see. I had not really seen much of Australia outside of the Sydney area, so Gene decided to show me part of the outback.
Now I know what you’re thinking. What’s so great about a steakhouse, and why would I want to see one. As a matter of fact, the first month I was here, we did go to one of these restaurants so I could see if it was the same as they are in America (They are, but the portions are a little smaller). Gene was not speaking of this outback, of course, but instead of the REAL Aussie outback, which is part of the country. About 30 years ago, Gene lived and worked in an outback town called Broken Hill, and he wanted to show me the town and part of the outback in the process.
Broken hill is the purple splotch on the map
Even though Australia is about the same size as the US, there is a lot of space that is not really used here. As you can see from the map, the majority of the major cities are on the coasts, and not many are in the middle of the country. The reason for that is the middle is all desert, and not many people want to live there.
Since it is so huge, the outback covers several climate zones and experiences a wide range of temperatures. In the central deserts, it can get as high as 120°F in the summer, and drop to 15°F during the winter nights. In the central desert regions, they do get on average 8 to 10 inches of rain a year, usually in the summer months. The northern Australian Outback has a tropical monsoon climate, bringing lots of rain and high humidity in summer. When it rains it pours, and all outback areas can experience floods. So you can see, it’s not just your average desert.
Now, don’t get me wrong. There are some towns in the desert, but not many. Broken Hill is one of those towns, so that’s where we were headed.
With 3 knitting projects to keep me busy, we headed out of Sydney, and the first thing we had to do was cross the Great Dividing Range. (It’s circled on the map). This is where the Blue Mountains and a lot of other mountains call home.
Very nice trees everywhere!
It’s a nice drive with a lot of very nice scenery everywhere you look.
Once you cross this range, the land starts to change into what is known as “the bush,” or what we in America call, the country.
Not as many trees, and a lot more grasses.
More and more of nothing begins to show.
Pretty soon the bushes outnumber the trees.
There are some hills, but nothing like the mountain range.
Gradually, the land gets flatter and flatter, and larger plants seem to get fewer and fewer. This is what is known as the Outback. It is also a desert, so having lived in the Mohave Desert when I lived in Las Vegas, I was expecting a few things, like sand and cacti. As you may be able to see from the photos, this desert has very sandy soil, but it is covered with grasses and small bushes.
The only cacti that I found were ones that people had planted in their yards.
There weren’t many at all even though they would thrive in this climate.
Nice Aloe Vera bush.
Even though the outback is a desert, some of the land is owned by private individuals, so there are some animals to look for, both wildlife, and domesticated.
There were a lot of cattle, goat, and sheep ranches all along the way, and the farther west we got, the fewer animals we spotted.
Seeing how steak is one of the favorite meals here, it made sense to see all those cattle. I just thought it was funny how they all mooed with an Aussie accent.
There were herds of goats all over the place! This is where cashmere and mohair come from, along with goat’s milk. (No kidding!)
Merino Sheep
Seeing all those sheep was not a surprise either, because Oz is the world’s largest producer of wool, producing 21.5% of the world’s wool.
In Australia there are over 73 million sheep that give up their coats for us, and that weights in at over 750 million pounds of wool each year. Talk about giving of yourself! Not baaaaad.
In the way of wildlife, we saw a lot of emus. It is amazing that such a large bird cannot be seen that well even though there is not a lot of cover for them. The couple of times we stopped and I asked them to smile pretty for the camera, all I got was a look at their tail feathers. Guess they are just camera-shy.
Emus are the largest birds native to Australia, and is second in size to it’s cousin the ostrich.
These are wild Emus looking for lunch.
We did see a lot of red foxes, but they were very quick, so I didn’t really get that many photos of them. This one thought he would just sit there and watch to see what I was going to do before he decided to run off to find lunch.
Even thought there were signs all over the place, I am sorry to report that the only kangaroos we saw the whole trip were busy being lunch for the foxes and birds. (Personally, I think they put these signs up just to pull a joke on the tourists.) I found it rather interesting to see that the foxes had set up little barbies on the side of the road, and were drinking beer out of little coolers. Gene reminded me that after all, this was Aussie wildlife, and an Aussie does love his beer at a barbie.
Next time, we finally make it to Broken Hill. Watch this space.
American Aussie 