Just add water!

For a refreshing change from our 2 weeks in the desert, we have emerged from our journey across the Outback unscathed, and tomorrow morning we sail out to the Great Barrier Reef for three days (and two nights on the boat on the Reef) to get our scuba diving certification! We figured this would be a good way to commemorate our seventh anniversary, and a very refreshing way to wash off the desert dust we’ve been covered in since the first morning we leapt out of the campervan to wonder at the desert at dawn; that very first dry-air sunrise smile cracked my lip!
The last four days driving from Uluru and Alice Springs through the Outback that separated us from the Cairns coast were long days of driving from dawn till sunset, sometimes on single lane roads that demanded us to pull over onto the shoulder and stop to allow the road trains roar past us. We spent the nights curled around a fire camped at springs at the edge of the road, marked by windmills pumping water up from bores that we could wash our dishes in. The great horizon was broken by millions upon millions of waist-high termite mounds, and very few road signs (all of which had been blasted by shotguns), and our attention by the occasional country music station that might buzz into reception. Apart from that we just had our three charity shop cassette tapes to amuse us, a varied compilation: Neil Diamond, Bobby McFerrin, and the Best of Mariachi music. The moment we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, the air temperature began to warm, and life began to return to the landscape after a few thousand kilometers. Mike’s surprise of the week was the 1.5 meter long lizard crawling across the highway ahead, and mine was the green frogs that clung desperately to the inside of the outback toilet bowls as I flushed them! I can’t see that that is their ideal habitat, but I saw three!
After only four rock chips in the windshield and a broken headlight from a spit-up stone, we reached the high altitude rainforest near the Atherton Highlands for a day to refresh beside waterfalls. Mike has driven us 7403 kilometres in the last three weeks across this great country, so he deserves this break by the sea! We’ll be in Taiwan in six days!