Open space, nothing and no one in our sight, just the long, empty road laid before the far-off horizons. If we thought we were in the middle of nowhere before, we were quite mistaken.
When we turned west at Townsville we had no idea what we were leaving behind and how our journey would now be taking us through a very different Australia. More and more Kilometres passed into our rear-view mirror as we swapped the tropical north east coast of Queensland for the hot dry centre of the Northern Territory.
Our destinations changed too, there is very little 4G to be found on this stretch of earth and we were lucky if we parked for the night somewhere that had a toilet! But, what we got in exchange was some magical, untouched views. The benefit of flat barren land, is the majestic sunset, it seemed to encircle us, filling the whole sky, not only in the west, 360 degrees of falling colours. That horizon was now a line of technicolour.
As the sun bade us goodnight and darkness began to fall, twinkling lights popped into view above us, then before our eyes more and more and more appeared. from the east to the west the sky shone and sparkled. We distinguished our own torches and candles, opened the doors of the car and lay with our heads outside, our eyes gazing upward, fixated on the magical depths above. Occasionally a gasp would escape one of us as we witnessed a streak of light flying across the glittering heavens. Then, a silence, as a secret wish was made, or maybe just a thank you, for the blessing of a shooting star and the blessing of being exactly where we were.
Comments