Desert Venturer Bus Tour

By: Kristin

From Carins we decided to take a 3 day bus tour into the centre of Aus. We could have flown for the same price so thought it would be fun to get on a bus and drive the 2100km. There were 32 other people on the bus (mostly in their 20's and 30's) from all over the world..Korea, Canada (a couple from Montreal), France, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, England, Ireland..so a really interesting mix. Each day we spent the whole day driving leaving before sunrise and getting to our night accomodation after dark (around 6:30 or 7pm)...so it was a driving marathon. But we had lots of chances to get out and do some short walks and see some small towns (and I mean small...like population 6) along the way.

The first half of the first day was driving south and west through the rainforest and Atherton Tablelands so very green forested areas and huge trees. The next day we had less and less trees, just little bushes. Then on the last day it was pretty much red sand desert for the whole day. To actually see the change in geography was really interesting.

Many of the roads we were driving on were dirt roads and they ran through cattle "properties" or stations or ranches. We saw some "ringers" (or cowboys) mustering some cattle. And we saw a helicopter mustering the cattle too. it is very common to use helicopters when mustering catttle because the properties are so big out in the outback (avg. 50 000 sq km). That was cool! All of us got out of the bus and pretty much took over the road as we took pictures (don't worry there wasn't any traffic)!

We stopped at a couple working cattle stations along the way for a short pit stop and to pick up snacks. These are the only places to get fuel and food along the way and you could also camp at many of the stations.
We saw many kangaroos, cockatoos and wedge tailed eagles along the way. And lots of red dirt! Our bus driver was lots of fun and organized some games for us to break up the many hours just sitting (and the tv was broken so no movies). The best game was bowling down the aisle of the bus with water bottles and an orange.

Crazy outback ute (pick up truck).

Paved road meets dirt road.

The bus on the side of the one lane hwy at sunrise.

At Wirrelyerna Station where we stayed the night and dined with kangaroos and puppies.

Flat as...no trees...lots of dirt!

We went on a "nothing" walk along this road and saw nothing.

Giant termite mound.