Barramundi bite

woohoo! - we finally reached Darwin after travelling for 12 days and 4200 km's through the australian Outback!! And it is damn hot and humid here, but as far as I heard it is not a bit better in Germany, so I won't complain too much. :) We have our "lazy day" today, which leaves me with some time for internet access to provide you with a few updates.

After we started our outback trip in Cairns twelve days ago, we first visited the Undara Lava Tubes - a giant system of underground tubes in the rock that were formed when the lava of a local volcano ran through several river-beds and other depressions about 190.000 years ago. The surface then cooled off, leaving behind the giant empty tubes - which originally extended for a total length of 160km over the country, making it the biggest system of its kind on earth. The tubes have collapsed at many places, but there are still long parts that you can walk through (the longest part that is still intact runs for 3km, though it is not open for public access). The tubes can in fact - due to the danger of collapses - only be visited by a guided tour. Neither I, nor the pictures can give you an impression of the size of the tubes or the feeling we had, when standing inside this 20 meter diameter tube, that was once filled by a stream of thousands degrees hot molten lava. At one part, the roof had come down into the tubes years ago and the tropical rainforest had found its way down into the underground, with huge fig trees extending their massive roots 20-30 metres deep into the tubes. The tubes were also populated by a few bats that hung down from the ceiling and eyed us closely as we shuffled past.

Undara Lava Tubes. Picture is not from us but from the internet.

Hm, I just realized that you will probably not know what a fig tree is. It is a bit hard to explain, as there are several types, and I am not sure whether I understood the whole concept completely myself. :) Fig trees start out as what you would call a "Liane" in german. Usually it grows from some point in a tree downward, getting bigger and bigger as time passes by (though some can also grow up from the ground into the treetops), turning from a small string into a huge wooden stem. One of the most famous fig trees - the strangler fig - is a somewhat destructive plant, as it grows around an already standing tree, finally killing it. It then can grow to an even bigger size than the tree it was originally a parasite on and sometimes grows into the the most weird shapes and forms.

This is the so called "curtain fig" near Cairns (picture is not from us but from some internet source). We did not stop at this tree, as we saw several very similar ones before.

After Undara, we continued through the outback to Karumba, a small town up at the Gulf of Carpentaria - actually the first place where we could watch the sun set above the ocean, as it usually sets above the countryside on the australian east-coast (unless mother earth decides to move the other way round for a change, at least). Karumba is the place to be, if you are into barramundi fishing. We were not, but we were absolutely satisfied with eating it, as it is the most delicious fish I have ever eaten in my whole life (!). After watching a few kangaroos, wallabies and exotic birds at a local billabong, we bought lots of Barramundi & Chips, drove our campervan up to the seaside and dined on the fish and chips as the sun set above the Gulf of Carpentaria. This was Ulrikes "dead animal day" by the way, as she spotted dead animals everywhere that had slipped my attention totally. The list included a snake (we were not sure if it was just the skin, or whether the snake had been overrun by cars thousands of times), a bat that had accidentally (and fatally) touched two overland electricity cables at once (part of it still hung from one the cables, as the rest had kind of exploded), several dead fish and the usual roadside kangaroos. Well, back to more pleasant topics: turtles! Living ones, that is! :) As we drove away from Karumba, Ulrike spotted a turtle on the other side of the road, that quickly vanished into its house, as we drove past. It must be said, that the road we drove on was the main highway connecting Karumba with the rest of the world and that it had more traffic than the usual remote outback road. While we stopped at the roadside, several Jeeps with trailers passed us on the other roadside, and by that time I was sure that we might have another sad casualty to add to our little list of death. Surprisingly, as we approached the turtles house it seemed absolutely intact and a few seconds later, the turtles head extended from the front of the house, curiously looking up at us. We heard another car approaching us and I grabbed the turtles house at both sides, bringing her to the safety of the grass at the side of the road. The car stopped and two friendly Australians asked us, whether we would be in need of any help (By the way: I believe in Germany I could have laid for hours bleeding in the grass next to the road with a huge sign in my hands saying "HELP! HELP! I AM DYING!" before anyone would have stopped). We explained the situation, laughed together for a while and discussed what an enormous luck this turtle had during its brave road crossing. The Australians drove away and I gave the turtle a final lift to a nearby billabong (a small lake), where I placed her right at the waters edge. During the whole process she curiously looked out of her house again. We waited a few minutes afterwards, to see if she really was not injured at all. She looked into our direction for a long time, drinking some water from the billabong, then extended her four legs and vanished happily into the waters. Mission accomplished ;)

Next stop on our tour was Lawn Hill National Park - a very remote national park that was as close to paradise as it can get, but sadly, this will have to wait until my next update, as Ulrike is pulling me out of the internet cafe at my left arm, with my right one typing these last words... (with the intent of making me write all these postcards to you, that I had no time to finish, yet) :)

PS: I found no WLAN accesspoints so far, so the uploading of pictures might still take some time (keep checking back!).