PiX of the month: November

Soooo, I am sorry, that this news is so "old", but parallel to the GIBSON DESERT EXPEDITION - "Lost in Time" - the German project "Soot in the Ruhr Area" ("Coaching": "Beer, Bratwurst, French Fries with Ketchup and Mayonnaise " [John Travolta was right in "Pulp Fiction"!]) kept me busy and running on all cylinders after my return.

We really DID the "Gibson" in only two months - more then 10.000 km mostly off-road. Our Landrovers honoured their name and fell slowly apart like our clothes, but at the end they survived like us, well almost.
Our daily routine was the opposite of the planned "vacation" and R&R: Getting out of bed at 5:00 am in the dark with stiff backs as a result of sleeping most nights in the Landrovers and not the tents. The Gibson's spinifex and stony surface is not tent-friendly.
After a quick muesli and a heart attack coffee German style we'd take off on foot off loaded with water, cameras and TV equipment "Into the Wild ... uhhmm ... desert" to look for old and forgotten wells, springs, animals and evidence of the ancient inhabitants. Early afternoon we'd return, have an even stronger coffee and a few nuts we push on to our next camp with the Landies into the "Beyond the Behind", "where nobody has been before" ... well, not a white person at least. A feast for dinner (steaks or prawns instead of the dried camel & horse meat of the 19th century explorers) and sundowner finished us and our day at about 8:00 pm.
What we discovered is being monitored and processed at the moment but we have to check what we can show as we don't want to stretch our permits' conditions too far (...). On top of that we are not sure if the world is ready for things we learned about Aborigines and Australia which is not the usual stuff from the tourist magazines.
Despite that, what intrigues us is that nobody is really interested in our "Lost in Time" data while an English tourist who was lost in the Blue Mountains near Sydney for two weeks was paid 200.000 AUS $ for his story ...
We only found paradise-green islands in the outback with really undiscovered "things" besides the usual "Australian wildlife" - camels, dingos, donkeys, weird birds and of course the topical "climate change" weather caprices - hail, fog and sand storms.
The highlight of this journey was the night where we rummaged around in the "Diebiel Hills" with a "1 Mio. Candlelight" lamp in search for Yellow footed Rock-Wallabys. A wasp flew right into my eardrum. I almost freaked out, fearing what felt & sounded like an alien munching into my brain.
After attempted murder with a cotton bud, the creature crawled in my inner ear. Light couldn't lure it out, so Alex drowned it with water, then with warmed olive oil together with ointment. The pain was an eight on my scale to ten and I had a fortnight of intermittent nose bleeding. (Back in Germany an ENT doc removed the corpse out of my eardrum where it was stuck on its way into my brain or what's left of it.
"Orreithdenn" one day after my touch down in Germany my plane, the "Spirit of Australia", an Airbus 330, had a forced landing with a burning engine, but honestly not my fault, ... I promise ...!

So what's up next?
Well, first I will dive into my 44.000 pix collected during the last years and get my gallery updated as well as cut 110 hrs of TV material into at least three movies. The Baikal movie will be worked over completely and translated into different languages (due to my budget). My printed books will be put on this page as e-Books all available by download.
-and Yes! Next year will see a much longer project - it's much too hard for me to stay seven months in a row in the "most beautiful country in the world ... (hmmm or so) ". Haven't decided where destiny will take me, but on the schedule are 6 months of salt water paddling à la "DAF*" or a 6 months "gourmet hiking trip" (and NOT gourmand!) like "Holiday on MaRterhorn*". Besides, the Outback is still in my vision, because it's very hard to digest what we experienced in that short time - but maybe it's still the humming of the wasp in my skull. On the other hand three of my Ozfriends retire next spring to focus on a different lifestyle - so there must be something out there!
(*Speculation is fashionable nowadays because the competition doesn't sleep dott " ...)

Here is a LIVE diary of our last projects and pix to follow up
Expeditions or Diary!!!)

"Footprints" thats all we leave behind

"Ancient tracks of the "New World"
30,000 mi Off-road on ancient tracks in the Australian Outback;
5000 mi walk across the North American continent 2007

Oct. 26^th, 2007: "The End" (Mile 4726)

Oct. 14^th - Oct. 20^th, 2007): "More rain, hefty wind, and much more frost"

Oct. 6^th - Oct. 14^th, 2007): "Rain, hefty wind, moose, bears and much more frost"