Outback Road Trip

A small group of us really wanted to try to see the outback while we were in Australia, so our first free Saturday in Brisbane we rented a van, piled in, and just drove west.

The first thing we came across was what I believe was a truck parade. For about a half an hour, the entire left lane of the highway was full of semi-trucks. There were also people lined up on the side of the road eating food and drinking beer in lawn chairs, waving at the drivers who in turn would honk back to see the people cheer. It was the most redneck event I’ve ever accidentally participated in. It definitely slowed down the beginning of our drive, but it was good for a laugh.

You will never see a road as straight as you can in the outback. It goes straight so far that you can see multiple road crests in the distance. It wasn’t the most exciting activity we’ve ever done, but it was really cool to see things like the trees getting progressively smaller the further west we got. All the exposed dirt began to look red. Even though we didn’t make it out to the part of the outback most people think of (red desert with a random old wooden building in the background), I’m really glad we did it.

Once we turned around, we found a nice open field to test out our boomerangs. Most of us were able to at least get them to go in a circle, but none of us were able to really catch them (although the guy we bought them from said “if you throw it and catch it on your first try, it’s a fluke”, so it wasn’t surprising).

We were able to catch a beautiful outback sunset. The sky was lit up with almost every color of the rainbow. I would say it was a great way to end the day, but I think I still had 4 more hours of the 11 hours I drove that day left to go. Luckily, at least part of the drive I was entertained by the rest of the car making a “Call me maybe” parody that I’ll probably link on here once we have a strong enough internet connection to put it on YouTube.