het ongebaande pad / the road less travelled

the disadvantage of the east coast of australia, and to a certain extent of all the travels before, has been that everyone goes there. why? because there's a lot to see.
laurian kindly had planned to hand in the camper van in alice springs so that a lot of outback would be seen and inherently not many people. looking back, the road less traveled started north of port douglas. there you can drive with a four wheel drive 800km all the way into cape york but since the camper van was four wheels but not drive, cooktown was the furthest possible.
it's obvious that cooktown is the end of the east coast world because the campgrounds got more and more empty on the way, the cooktown big4 campground, with it's three(!) swimming pools, was completely empty. james cook repaired his ship the endeavour in cooktown on the river the endeavour from june thru august 1770 after having sailed from the town of 1770. of course all these places weren't called like this back then.

finally, this is area is also the start of some 19 aboriginal communities, more than anywhere along the coast. laurian and tom both read a book about aboriginal history. it outlines how alcohol, petrol sniffing and other drugs are a problem (still) nowadays. while driving 45km from cooktown on unsealed road, there was a sign saying: welcome to hope vale, alcohol restrictions are 30 cans of low to mid strength beer or one bottle of unfortified wine.
since obtaining alcohol is a right, these are selfimposed restrictions by the elderly to push back the alcohol problems. the state of queensland helps all these 19 communities by having the local police enforce these rules.
the reason why hope vale was the destination, was that willie gordon, one of the elders of hope vale was going to give a tour in the land where his father grew up. we're talking caves, trees, plants and bush animals here.
willie showed the rock art, drawings by his ancestors. one was like a schoolboard with all the lessons in life and another one was about the afterlife. he showed how you could use some leafs as soap. and which plant was the highly poisonous ironwoord. he explained that aboriginal people weren't used to looking people in the eye because they were always looking down tracking for plants and animals. the afternoon tour was short, otherwise he would have shown the ancestral birthing cave, where the mother that would deliver would go with other women, who would assist her.
altogether, it was a truly terrific experience to be educated for one afternoon by an aboriginal elder (www.guurrbitours.com).

about 300km inland from cairns is ungara. where 180,000 years ago lava would flow from a vulcano through a lava bed that was 16km long. the outside of the flow would harden into a rock formation and the inside would flow away. this would make a lava tunnel. it was quite impressive to see these cave-like hallways along the course.
that evening there was a campfire talk in this national park about all feral (non-native) animals. captain cook was responsible for the enormous issues currently with wild pigs. cook would leave some behind and so that next time europeans would come they'd only have to shoot them and eat fresh roasted pig. now they destroy basically any crops and they eat lambs and turtle eggs. thank you, captain james!
the other non-australian animals the ranger disliked were wild goats, wild horses (200,000 throughout australia) and wild camels. the latter used to work in the desert in the northern territories and when they were substituted by trucks, they were just released and turned all wild.
on the way back from the campfire talk tom saw a rat kangaroo. never seen before: a big mouse dressed up like a kangaroo.

another 200km down the road (of which 60km unpaved i.e. red dirt) there's cobbold gorge. that's why the outback is so cool: there maybe no mobile phone coverage anywhere, but in this national park there was a crack in the ground and you'd get shown around for an hour in an electrically powered - hense silent - boat. the tour is not much more than colored cliffs and the occasional crocodile but the cliffs took 25 pictures to get the feeling that they were captured appropriately and the crocs were freshies. you can even swim with fresh water crocodiles as opposed to 'salties' who gladly eat you in your swimmers.
on the way back at around five it turned out to be true that kangaroos get out at dusk because there were 20 or so spotted. also two huge birds: a brownish stork-like bird and a black bird of prey with a whitish stain by his head, seated he measured perhaps almost one meter from beak to tail. anyone any idea? (@werkloos?)
when it turned dark, the 70km final stretch was quite spectacular. laurian and tom knew for sure they would hit a kangaroo while driving in the pitchdark. there were at least 30 kangaroos sitting by the side of the road. we're talking within the light beams of the van. who knows how many more invisible but really close by? the visible ones would sit there and often turn around as the van passed. but then there were also the suicidals. the first one showed up and would cross the road leaving about a meter between him and the campervan. the second one would sit on the road, stay there and decide to hop away just a few seconds before he'd get crushed as would probably the 5000 aud deposit for the camper van. the third one did a number one, but slightly further away.
laurian had found a rest area by the river where you could stay for free. upon arrival it turned out the area was just a sandy place and there was no one there. it looked a bit spooky. then two people walked up and it turned out this elderly couple was there with a caravan. they said they were so happy to have company because they'd been a bit scared being there all by themselves.
also they were a bit upset because for the first time in their lives they had just hit and killed a kangaroo. they had a four wheel drive with a pushbar. the whimps. that's what them pushbars are for.

mette has some quotes too:
* ik ga weer fietsen, jongens / i'm off biking, guys
* pipo de clownert en mamaloe
* mette: kangaroo!
tom (all excited because the family was in the tree kangaroo area and hadn't spotted one yet): do you see a kangaroo?
mette: yes
tom: where do you see the kangaroo?
mette: there, in the car
it was a stuffed one
* (laurian: look, that tree has many roots. he can eat with them) ja. met zijn mondje / yes. with his little mouth (about the curtain fig tree. see picture)
* mama, wil je hier ook een foto van maken? / mommy, do you also want to take a picture of this? (about some cattle by the side of the road 5 minutes after the van stopped and laurian got out to shoot a picture of some kangaroos)
* dag lieve schat! / bye bye, sweetheart (to laurian who goes off taking a shower)
* toet toet! mag ik er langs? / toot, toot, can i pass?
* het hondje gaat naar de bakker. maar naar een andere bakker dan wij. hij gaat een ijsje eten / the doggie is going to the bakery. to a different bakery than we are. he's going to have an ice cream