This is in fact a turning point in our journey: Faster than expected we are now entering the “real Australia”. 85 percent of this country’s population live on its coastal fringes, not more than 50 km from the sea. The part that we are now driving through is characterised by savannah: The road leads through a landscape covered in bushes and thin trees. Most of the trunks are blackened by previous bush fires. Countless birds of prey feast on the road kill, mostly kangaroos. Millions of termite mounts make the countryside look like a historic graveyard. A beautiful scenery from the air-conditioned seat in your car, but harsh and unforgiving outside.
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| Rural backyard |
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| Highway (not kidding!) |
Some nice travellers at Lake Eacham camp ground had told us that Undara Volcanic National Park is well worth a visit. The area is dotted with 164 volcanoes, some of which were active until (in geologic terms) only “recently”, around 190,000 years ago. The Undara volcano itself is a so-called shield volcano, i.e. it didn’t erupt in a sudden and intense explosion. Instead lava boiled over like milk in a pot on your stove.
We are actually talking lots of lava, around 1,000 cubic metres per second, which due to the slightly sloped landscape formed trails, dozens of kilometres long, the longest of their kind in the world. (Actually Undara is the local indigenous word for “long way”.) On its way, the lava cooled on the surface and, in doing so, formed a crust under which the hot lava kept flowing. Until eventually the whole performance was over and all that was left were those crusts, tunnels in the landscape. Though many of them collapsed thanks to erosion or tree roots finding their way into the ground, there are still some sections that can be visited today. Which is what we do, of course.
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| Subway station (under construction) |
[Undara Volcanic National Park, 8.-10. August]
