19-20.June.2016 (Day 14-15)

Good news, bad news

What a whirl-wind of a past few days it’s been. 

On a map of Australia, where we were headed didn’t look that far away.

 As it turns out, driving 2,300 kilometers (~1,500 miles) in a few days can be a bit exhausting.

Before I came to Australia I had a mental image in my head of what it would be like. Around the coasts would be all the major cities. Sprawling metropolises full of people with charming accents. In the far north-east corner would be lush jungles.And everywhere remotely towards the middle would be endless badlands (with a great giant red rock smack in the middle).

Would you be surprised to hear I was wrong?

We had a looong drive ahead of us with the ultimate goal of being fairly far into the interior, at the southern-most edge of the cane toad invasion.

The route

The first six or seven hours of the drive weren’t at all what I expected. I wouldn’t call the forest thick by any measure, but it wasn’t the rugged Australian outback I had stored in my imagination.

The outback

After another two or three hours, the undergrowth gradually disappeared, the number of eucalyptus increased, and the climate started to feel more and more outback-ish.

Getting there

Finally, we arrived at what I was sure is the picture-perfect Australian center-lands. A few trees, off in the distance, and grasslands as far as the eye could see.

Big sky country

With so much land and an almost complete lack of shade, I was pretty surprised to find life finding a way.

This place was big cattle country. And with all that open space (and rarely a fence in sight) the cows could wander off any which way they please.

But I think we both know their very place to stop and stare at you, especially when you’ve been driving too long and in a bit of a rush to get where you’re going.

Move it or lose it

It felt certain that we’d reached the end of the world and our destination was just over the horizon.

But it kept going….

And going…

After a little over 13 hours drive time we finally came to a spot where nothing but cracked mud and rocks live. I didn’t see any per se, but in my head there was a group of vultures circling me the whole time.

If I haven’t put enough emphasis on it already…we were in the middle of nowhere!

Missing the 'lush' grasslands from 2 hrs ago

Rather than camp-out (and explain to people what we were doing with bags of cane toads) we opted to stay in a hotel room. But being Australia, they’re not called hotels. Instead it’s a hotel/bar/restaurant/gas-station/library/grocery-store called a roadhouse. Every 200 kilometers, no matter how desolate and isolating it looked, would be this wonderful little oasis with green lawns, a swimming pool, and warm food.

Every place we stopped for gas or food was different and they all had their own rustic charm

Some were a little classier than others

Yes, those are women’s underwear on the wall…

After settling down for a good meal (the first non-rice and beans I’d had in a while) it was time to go looking for cane toads.

During the wet season, there are huge, shallow bodies of water everywhere that allow them to spread. Most don’t make it if they’re stuck in the outback when the water dries up. A lucky few make it to a road house though and have more than enough water on the grass, leaky faucets, or outdoor showerheads that are the norm out here.

We spent almost an hour combing the ground and couldn’t find a single toad. I’d been swimming in them at middle-point and now I couldn’t find one!

We decided to drive down the road a bit to check a local pond that was on our map. We couldn’t find any water, so decided to ask some campers on the side of the road.

Me: Excuse me, have you been here since the daytime? We’re looking for the pond that’s on our map.

Ozzie: Pond then? Didn see wata ‘round ear mate. Ben round’ since nooners.

Me: Shoot, I’m a biologist studying cane toads and we can’t find any.

Ozzie: Good news, bad news mate.

Me: Excuse me?

Ozzie: Good news, no cane toads. Bad news fo’ you mate. Cheers’

Try as a I might, I can’t pretend not to be a little heart-broken to have driven 3,000 miles for a bust.


And I know what you’re thinking so stop it. Don’t think it or speak it.

Ugh, she’ll be alright.

Tomorrow morning I’m waking up first thing, hoping in a car and going to a known cane toad hot spot (this one only 950 kilometers away), and come hell or high water I’m finding some toads.

Until then, I’m fully embracing another well-loved Australian tradition.

Goin’ on a walkabout.