The Outback

I loved the outback. It was very flat, dusty and dry with scrubby bush and a few red rocky hills amidst the sandy soil. I admit, it does remind me of my home province Saskatchewan. It's different in a lot of ways but evokes that sense of spaciousness and the wind was ever constant.




This deisel drum is one of the outback mailboxes. Remote stations (i.e. big ranches) and national parks like this one get mail delivered weekly, as long as roads are passable.

Ohh laa laa, the view from our tent in the morning at Mungo National Park. While chilly, it was at least dry enough to sleep with the fly off and the screen open--divine! Look at the red red earth!





Scrub, scrub, scrub and one very long fence just out of Silverton. Some of the stations are millions of acres big.

Interesting but sad fact: it's so dry and dusty in the Outback that kids often get ear infections that, if untreated, cause them to go deaf. In a town near Uluru, a good chunk of the little kids have hearing aids. The solution? A community salt water pool like the one in Jigaloo (a town featured in Rabbit Proof Fence). See all the interesting things you learn as a Social Studies teacher watching the weekly news program with the kids?