Monthly Archives: October 2015

Officially the Xtractor’ journey ended at the foot of the sacred monolith Uluru, but actually we need to take our tractors (and ourselves) to Alice Springs. We decide to choose a dirt track apparently shorter than the comfortable – but boring – motorway. In the process, we find we made a bit risky choice risky which on the other hands shows, if ever we need more evidence, that there is no obstacle for our tractors. We arrive late at night in Alice Springs after seventeen hours of driving. So the first chapter of Xtractor comes to an end. See you to the next adventure!

Today we wake up at 6 and as always, and until sunrise the air is fresh and cold. The temperature on board of our tractors is red-hot instead. This is the last day of our adventure, at least according to the roadmap. Our goal is the red monolith, Ayers Rock or Uluru, how local Aborigines call it – the symbol of Australia. Just after breakfast we set off to our 250-kilometer leg, which means an almost seven-hour drive – and we don’t want to risk missing the sunset at Ayers Rock! The unmistakable profile of the sacred mountain suddenly appears a few dozen kilometers before the destination, hidden by a chain of red dunes, still in the distance, while the afternoon light begins to turn golden. We arrive at the bottom of the mountain just in time to see it glowing in a complex play of lights and shadows while the sun goes down. In a perfectly clear sky perfectly clear a crescent moon rises slowly. Mission accomplished!

Today is the second last leg for the crew of Xtractor. Desert, here we go again. But here the landscape is different, much less desolate as compared with last days’ burned moors. The blackened trees were replaced with low bushes, deep green against the bright red of the sand dunes. Day after day, the temperatures are grown up to 37 degrees, fortunately dry and always a bit windy. Probably the environment seems to be less hostile simply because are get closer to the civilized world, starting from an excellent highway which goes ramrod straight to the south. This time we chose the most direct way to the goal post, the amazing landscape of Ayers Rock. Thanks to the tens of thousands of tourists that follow our today’s 200 km. route every year, we will find at least three places to stop on our way. A real luxury!

The plan was to stop at another farm – again in the middle of nowhere – in Tobermoray, the only option in hundreds of kilometers. We are on Road 12, obviously dirt, also known as Plenty Highway although in fact the only thing there is plenty of is… the nothing. Or perhaps the name refers to the incredible amount of dust and flies. As a matter of fact, at around 2pm we get to the ranch of Jervois and no one is prepared to spend the rest of the day here in the hot sun, covered with flies, watching the wind raise dust devils in the withered bushes until time comes to get into the sleeping bag. No discussion, we decide to refill the vehicles and leave immediately, no matter if we need to cover another 340 kilometers to Alice Springs, which add up to the 228 of this morning. We skip lunch, we skip dinner too. Anything to get away from this nothing! We keep travelling till sundown, astounishignly beautiful, and keep bouncing on the bumpy dirt road, then after dark we hit tarmac and get to Alice Springs at around midnight. What a relief! 570 km, 15 hours of driving: it was worth it.

The journey into the nothing continues, this time down a narrow road, paved, which after a few dozen kilometers turns dirt. Apart from that, the scenario does not change: the desert. Then suddenly road works materialize – lots of signs and graders at work. The track becomes even for a while, then everything falls back into nakedness. It’s back to nothing.

Another hundred kilometers and a tiny town appears. An oasis of life gathered around a bizarre little bar that looks straight out of a movie. Veranda discolored, old saddles thrown around carelessly, a few sleepy customers with Aborigin traits. We stop for a cold drink and then – again – we are in the nothing. Flies, warm wind, silence. We feel like we are the only humans in this planet, yet after a hundred more kilometers there is a farm. In front of the house, side by side, a few cows and a small helicopter (everyone has a small, for emergencies). There is a petrol pump, a surprisingly green lawn for camping, a few trailers with toilets and showers. Unbridled luxury over here. We set up out tents under a sky glittering with stars.

One day’s journey through the usual bleak monotony of the dry flat, and we cover the distance between the small rural town of Julia Creek (two roads, a pub, nobody around at seven o’clock in the evening) and Mount Isa, one of country’s main industrial centres. In over 250 km. we cross only one town, then the traffic increases, mostly made of trucks and special vehicles for transport of mining machinery. Founded just ninety years ago around a mine, Isa is the center of a region that produces copper, lead, silver and zinc, as well as high-quality beef. We frankly do not like it so much, but probably tomorrow we’ll miss all this. We hit again our dirt roads where human settlements can be counted on the fingers of one hand – eight hundred kilometres in the middle of nowhere with a specific goal: Alice Springs. The finish line is approaching.

We take the Flinders Highway, the road that we will follow for hundreds of kilometers, an asphalt ribbon that from the coast points to west, straight to the red heart of the continent. The landscape can be even more desolate than yesterday: no more trees in the scene, leaving behind an ocean of yellow grass. Traffic today is a bit more sustained, roughly fifty cars in total. The big event of the day is the passage of two trains. It’s hot, the wind rolls dry bushes like in western movies. But when we complain about the temperature with the locals, they look us with fun – is this hot? Try to come back here in summertime…

If yesterday it seemed we were travelling in the middle of nowhere, now it is even worse (or better, depending on your point of view). The road started well, but a few kilometers from the roadhouse where we spent the night the asphalt ends and begins a long dirt track, perfectly straight, flanked by the usual vaguely spooky landscape made of withered trees darkened by some old fire. For all the 263 kilometers of today’s leg the road alternates asphalt and dirt sometimes white, sometimes red, but does not meet any towns. We meet a dozen of vehicles, including a huge truck. For the rest just lean cows, termite mounds and several kangaroos crossing the road hopping. Dry wind, dust and silence.

The first surprise of today is the cold: at 6am, at the alarm ringing, the air is definitely cool, but within a few hours everything is back to normal and at midday there are the usual 28 degrees, perhaps slightly more. We drive along a secondary road with very little traffic. Mount Garnet, the tiny village where we spent the night, is the only town in the next four hundred kilometers. The landscape is dead dry, dotted with withered trees and huge termite nests made of red earth. It’s the drought. It didn’t rain for three years – according to an old farmer we routed out of his ranch down the road – and the cattle starts to suffer it. The rainy season should start in November: hopefully this year our friend Don (and everyone else) will get rain… Tonight we sleep in a roadhouse, a kind of inn that combines gas station, restaurant and rest area with a few rooms and pitches for campers. Literally, in the middle of nowhere. We share the area with giant trucks: 3-4 trailers, 18-wheeler beasts. It’s the outback, baby!