Marsha's Blog

Good Morning Fellow Sojourners,   When we checked in with you last week, we were on our way to Darwin, hopefully to pick up a modest-sized motor home to begin our trek through the Northern Territory Outback. Just before we boarded the plane in Brisbane, we got a call, saying that the rig we had booked had been in “an accident”, and they might have to cancel our booking. We arrived in great trepidation, only slightly alleviated by the news that, no, they didn’t have to cancel us, but woohoo! they were assigning us the biggest rig on the lot. We’d have to come back two days early, but we were getting a huge discount for our trouble. It was a behemoth that left us speechless and Tony with one foot on the sidewalk, ready to make a run for it. He manned up though, and after a few near-death experiences, he actually began enjoying being the biggest kid on the block. It was a little embarrassing whenever we pulled into a campsite and people would look it over ask, “So… it’s just the TWO o...

  As I was saying goodbye to my daughter-in-love on the phone, just before starting out on this “Darwin E scape” trip, I was whining that we didn’t know if we’d get on the plane (standby) or if they’d let us into the Northern territories (Covid).  To add to that (without taking a breath), I grizzled that the motor home people had emailed us to say our particular van that we’d ordered had ‘been in an accident’ and we might have to cancel. Kylie, calm as ever, answered in a way that I could hear her smile, “You wouldn’t have it any other way”.   So we’ve been in Darwin three days now, having had a pretty smooth trip. I have my doubts about the couple behind us on the plane, tho. We could just overhear them saying to the policeman in the terminal, “Yes, we drove thru Sydney but hey! We never got out of the car!”   I’m guessing they’re now enjoying a two-week lockdown accommodation  at their own expense in a government appointed hotel.  I just hope they avoided...

  Today I want to begin to tell you a story about two young PK’s (that’s Preacher’s kids if you’re not familiar with the title).  Their names are Aeneus and Jeannie Gunn and they’d been married a few weeks when he took her and travelled through the Australian Outback, thousands of miles north to became the sole station manager of a very large cattle property called “The Elsey”. The year was 1902.  When I say “large”, I mean a 5334 square kilometer property.  That’s 2059 square miles for us non-metric folks. That’s 1,393,600 acres (That’s one million, three hundred thousand and change), which is about on par with several properties that still exist in Australia today.  One property that operates to this day, and borders on the one I’m talking about, is Brunette Downs, and has 110,000 cattle and 50 employees. The history of this property began in the 1880’s with its “acquisition”  by a certain Abraham Wallace.  He lived there with his wife, and 13 childr...

So … if you wanted to drive from our house to Darwin, the capitol city of the Northern Territories, that would be like going from Charleston, South Carolina to Salt Lake City, a distance of 2,174 miles (just under 3500 kilometers). That mileage (to Darwin), is pretty well set, since there’s only   one  two-lane road. But there are plenty of variables along the way, such as kangaroos, camels, dingos and anything else that can run/hop/fly into your car. My map program happily says it’s only a 36-hour drive, but I think it may be discounting the occasional human presence that could slow you down considerably. “Road trains”, for example, are those notorious 5 and 6 trailered trucks that take up both sides of the road, and likely your windscreen, if you ever meet one. There are the rare road stops where you can buy gas, but to get to some of them, you need to enter tribal lands where necessary permissions must be obtained. On the other hand, I hear that those few outposts are requ...