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Thursday, May 6, 2010

Down Under......

Greetings from the land of roos, roadtrains, and roadkill. I’m writing this from Nundroo, a very very small town (roadhouse, caravan park, garage, gas station) on the eastern boundary of the Nullabor Plain, South Australia. Last Sunday an Airbus 380, the largest passenger airplane in the world carried us to Oz (aka Australia). We arrived Tuesday mid-day in Adelaide (Monday having mysteriously evaporated through the peculiarities of datelines). We is three geologists embarking on three weeks of field work trying to figure out how high sea level was (= how big the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets were) the last time the atmosphere had this much CO2 in it (about three million years ago).

approaching Melbourne...from the tail cam!

From the airport we picked up our beast of a 4WD, a Nissan Patrol, then headed to Adelaide Uni to pick up some gear that was shipped to us from various places. By 3pm we were headed north, seriously jet-lagged but happy to hit the road. It is now the evening of the next day and we’ve driven ~1000 km to the eastern edge of the Nullabor Plain. 

Next morning….don’t know when I’ll be able to get posts up---no cell phone or internet signal in last night’s town and we are heading into an even more remote area. But I’m getting great pics that I hope you enjoy as I eventually get them up.



Perfect example of the architectural vernacular of the outback.


And in case you are wondering what a road train is here is a “double” that had a bit of an accident.   I’m guessing the driver's dream of piloting a “triple rig” someday went out the window with his windshield!