Local driving conditions

Last updated on July 27th, 2017 at 05:04 am

Stunning outback Australia photo blogging from Bilious Young Fogey. It’s difficult to explain why or how massively these desolate-seeming regionslure and inspire Australians; they just do. Please enjoy.

1. The beauty is astounding. I fondly remember the first time I drove across the Nullabor and later from Adelaide to Darwin. The days are beautiful, but the nights even more spectacular.

   Posted by swassociates on 10/25 at 10:46 AM • permalink

1. It is precisely the desolate regions that gives me such a strong desire to visit Australia. When I lived in Arizona, it was the same feeling: the palpable silence of the desert, the “perfume” of sun-baked rock, mesquite trees and clean earth, the genuine solitude. Great photos.

   Posted by paco on 10/25 at 12:12 PM • permalink

1. The trees are a little different, and there aren’t any camels, of course, but it looks a little bit like southwest Texas.  I’d love to visit it, I love the wide-open arid places, and it’s been way too long.  Ohio is just a little too green, IMO.

   Posted by RebeccaH on 10/25 at 02:47 PM • permalink

1. Interesting question.

   Of course, many an Australian film would have it that most of us do not know when we are getting ourselves into when we head out bush.

   They invariably have us pitted against nature. I think there is something about teh bigness and isolation and grandeur of it all that puts things into perspective.

   Posted by Darlene Taylor on 10/25 at 04:33 PM • permalink

1. It’s difficult to explain why or how massively these desolate-seeming regions lure and inspire Australians; especially ones like Ivan Milat and Brad Murdoch.
   I hate the fucking outback- mile after mile of bloody nothing (except plagues of flies).
   Admittedly it’s nice after rain when all the wildflowers come up, and you can harvest them and flog them off to German endangered species fans, otherwise, a perfect place for a radioactive waste/landfill site.

   Posted by Habib on 10/25 at 08:32 PM • permalink

1. I can remember a trip on the old Ghan through central Australia.  Sunrise over a sea of ochre sand and saltbush.  You’re in the middle of a Dali painting. Brilliant.

   Posted by Inurbanus on 10/25 at 09:27 PM • permalink

1. Ahh, Habib you old romantic!! 🙂

   Posted by TonyP on 10/26 at 04:54 AM • permalink

1. Are you implying I’m a member of Spandau Ballet?

   Posted by Habib on 10/26 at 08:13 AM • permalink

1. Tim, the “lure of the outback” is a myth.  It used to be true:  our heroes were the pioneers of the desert – Eyre and Giles the explorers; we loved Jolliffe’s outback cartoons; enjoyed Len Beadell’s yarns; but not any longer.  The beach, the winery and the cafe strip have a much more powerful lure.  Fewer Australians than ever go where the dead men life; except, for some, on a grey nomad victory lap.  I for one like it that way; but the population statistics reveal the true story.

   Foreigners who read this site should realise that there are no great desert metropolises in Australia – no Phoenix or Palm Springs – just a few thriving large towns – Alice (25,000 folks), Mt Isa (20,000?), Kalgoorlie (30,000?); a greater number of small dying ones, some disfunctional Aboriginal communities, and with the exception of Antarctica the emptiest places on earth.

   Posted by Alan Dungey on 10/26 at 10:05 PM • permalink

1. #9 No Alan, that would be Phillip Adam’s brain

   Posted by larrikin on 10/27 at 02:55 AM • permalink

1. Larrikin, I stand corrected.

   Posted by Alan Dungey on 10/27 at 03:58 AM • permalink