The Outback
1. Quotation
"There is no time in the Outback.
Only the tyranny of the distance and the control of the width.
Either you hate it or you love it.
There aren't any compromises"
2. Where and what is the Outback?
The people of Australia call their country, as you know Down under. This continent is nearly 8 Mill. square kilometres large and a little bit smaller than Europe. Endless deserts cover 80% of the whole country, but however only 4% of all 18 Mill. inhabitants are living here, they call it Outback.
The Outback is translated as "the land outside the door". There is no really civilization because most of the inhabitants live on the coast. On the south and east coast they live between Adelaide and Cairns, on the west coast in the area around Perth and on the north coast around Darwin. The Outback is often dangerous, because it is unusual hot and dry, but still there is a fascinating beauty.
3. Deserts and Lake Eyre
Great Victoria Desert - 350.000 km2
Great Sandy Desert - 260.000 km2
Simpson Desert - 000 km2
Tanami Desert - 184.500 km²
Gibson Desert - 156.000km²
Little Sandy Desert - 111.500km²
The Lake Eyre is the biggest salt-lake in the Great Attestation basin, one of the regions where it doesn't rain a lot. It covers 9325 square kilometres and it is 14 meters under the sea level. It is the deepest place of Australia. Mostly it's not filled with water. After his discovery the Lake was filled with water for 3 times.
4. Informations
The Red Desert - Hot hell of Australia
Second largest desert of the world
Landscape predominated by the colour red
Low mountains; biggest mountain in the Outback: Mount Zeil (1531m)
Large stream of red sand from northwest corner of Australia to it's heart in southeast direction
In the heart of the Outback there is the gibber-plain the so called Sturt Desert with polished stones the "gibbers". Area turns into a glowing furnace during summer
Sturt nation park in the centre of Australia
Southern part of desert low-growing bushes, northern part persevering grasses
Aborigines immigrated from Southeast Asia 40.000 years ago
Outback mainly inhabited by aborigines, only a few settlements of white people
Large number of low-growing trees offer food, resting and nesting places to great variety of birds
Eucalyptus tree belong to the most resistant trees we know
If you cross the Outback with a plane you fly hours and hours over a huge dune sea. The deep red sand sea is what the Outback is like and because of this it is so interesting for the Europeans: no people and a breath-taking landscape with huge dimensions
Many different kinds of reptiles
Some snakes in the Outback count to the most poisonous in the world
Thorny Devil: spines are arranged that water runs to the mouth
Kangaroo is the biggest animal in the Outback; some kinds of kangaroos live in the mountainous country of the Australia desert
Animals
Kangaroo
Koala
Pelican
Emu
Tasmania Devil
Thorny Devil (Moloch)
Bilby
6. Alice Springs and the Stuart Highway
Alice Springs is in the middle of the continent. 27.900 people live there. Alice Springs is near the famous Stuart Highway (from Darwin to Adelaide) and has got an airport.
The Stuart Highway, also called "the Track" is about 3000km long. The Stuart Highway goes through the Outback of Australia from Adelaide to Darwin. The Scott John McDouall went this way in 1862.
7. Life in the Outback
Live in the outback is difficult especially for the children. In the outback there aren t any schools. The children have their school lessons per radio (funk). Their service of broadcasting is called 'Schools of air'. The 'Australian Broadcasting Corporation' sends also programs for children in the age of 3 till 6, who can t visit a nursery school. Only one or two times in the year the pupils meet with their teachers. They meet for five or six day to see each other and to work a little bit. A lot of the outback-families have to drive one, two or even more hours for arriving at their next neighbours. On an Outback farm, there are big water tanks and the children often have their own horses. The important economic factors are the sheep breeding, the oil promotion and the precious stone mining.
The medical supply of the widespread farms in the Outback is the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
The Flying Doctor Service don t have only broadcasting stations, they also have a hospital with personal and air-service for the ill people. Each family in the outback has a box with medicaments, which have numbers and in the case of an emergency, the doctor only has to give the number.
8. End
Because Australia's nature is segregated from the other continents, it developed strange ways to survive in the hot climate of the Outback. This is one reason why people are fascinated of the Outback. For many people the Outback is an adventure. They drive with trucks or caravans through the Outback to see the empty wilderness. At night they sleep under the Southern Cross and the huge ocean of stars.
The people who go there want to get away from the hectic atmosphere of big city life. And there is no better place to do it than in the central deserts. In the Outback you can enjoy the nature and you can leave the civilization behind you. It doesn't matter if the hot sun is shining or if it rains:
"In the Outback you can't run for shelter, you have to wear it!"
But the land is part of the Aboriginal dreaming and it's easy to understand why they want it back.
