First few days in Australia!

By: Brady Flinchum

Travel Day 

Melyssa and I enjoying my last day in
 Wyoming in Cheyenne.

So Andy and I left Laramie and arrived in Sydney Australia this morning. Since I am going be away from home without cell service or internet for 3 weeks I spent a few days of uninterrupted time with my wife, Melyssa. Since she will be following the blog I really wanted to let her know that I love and will miss her tremendously and will be looking forward to returning home and telling her about all of the stories.

Over the last 20 hours we have ridden various different sizes of airplanes from the small plane we took from Laramie to Denver and a Boeing 777 we are on from L.A. to Sydney. As we were boarding in Laramie was able to snap of a quick picture of the small plane. I am almost positive that the jet engine on the 777 could fit the entire plane we rode out of Laramie inside of it! Unfortunately I couldn’t get a picture of the 777 because we had such a short layover (only 35 min). This is the biggest plane that I have ever been on and it is also the longest flight I have ever been. I was delighted to see how much legroom I had on this long 14 hour flight. I was expecting to have my own television but I wasn’t expecting it to have games, puzzles and recently released movies.

The small plane that we flew on leaving Laramie, Wyoming

First Day in Adelaide

We met up with Denys in Sydney and took a Boeing 737 to Adelaide, SA. I have to admit I was extremely exhausted because I was unable to sleep on the 14 hour flight. Luckily I did catch a few z's on the short 2 hour plane from Sydney to Adelaide. In order to make sure I got caught up to the right time zone I decided to have a cup of coffee and try to make it until nightfall. On our way to our hotel in downtown Adelaide it was weird for me sitting in the passenger seat as Denys drove because we are driving on the left hand side of the road. Every time I looked up I flinched a little bit thinking were were going to get in a head on! I am still getting used to it, but I am adapting quicker than I though I would.

In arid regions, Aboriginal people had many
ways of finding  enough drinking water.
They cared deeply for their water sources,
often giving them important religious and
social meanings.

Since we flew all night we arrived in Adelaide to early to check into our hotel. We decided to find a place to eat and walked around downtown Adelaide. We made it to the South Australian Museum to learn a little bit more about the aboriginal culture. It turns out they had a special exhibit from the APY lands that we were able to look through. Unfortunately this zone was no camera allowed but the artwork was very colorful and beautiful. It is amazing to me how the aboriginals did and still can live in such a arid place. My favorite exhibit at the museum illustrated how important water is for their survival. They and all kinds of tools to store and cary water one of which included an inside out wallaby! Not only did they use the water to drink they would actually poison surface water, so they could catch and kill wild emus. While the surface pond was poisoned they would depend on on water gathered from roots, or other sources.

Andy (Left) and Denys (Right) looking at the map of the 

Aboriginal boundaries of Australia.

4WD Training

Denys (Left) and Andy (Right) hanging out prior to doing
driving.

Since we will be traveling way out into the bush safety is very important. We will be driving a long way and be very isolated so it is important that we understand how the vehicle we are driving works and functions. For us to be confident in our driving and off roading skills we are taking a 2 day course. . We started this morning and went over the basics of 4WD vehicles. I really learned a lot about tire pressures and how reducing them can really get you out of a sticky situation.  After a few hours in the classroom we drove out to a beach where we got to play around a bit. The point of the exercises were to demonstrate the benefits of 4WD. We did three different exercises today, mostly concerning safety. The first exercise was to weave through cones with and without 4WD and stability control. In order to be safe on the back roads it is important to put the vehicle into 4WD as soon as you hit the dirt because it gives you so much more control when steering and braking, not necessarily because the road is rough or steep. The next two exercises involved braking. For example out where we are going there are wild emus, kangaroos, cattle, and camels. If you see one of these you don't want to swerve off the road (unless it is huge like a cow, camel or another vehicle), you want to stop and hit it at the slowest speed possible.  We traveled 60 and 80 kmh and tried to stop. One of our vehicles had anti-lock brakes (ABS) and the other didn't. I was driving the one without ABS and was able to stop faster than the one with ABS, which really surprised me. It was really an eye opener to see how that extra 20 kmh dramatically increased the distance required to stop. When you got out of the car and looked at the distance required it blew my mind! To say the least when traveling in the back country we will be taking our time and driving fairly slowly. Even after the first day I am already feeling so much better about driving to our destination and we haven't even received all of the behind the wheel training yet.

Andy decelerating from ~80 kmh to 0 kmh in the shortest distance possible.
This vehicle does NOT have ABS.

Denys hitting a cone without the 4WD drive turned on.