Nine reasons you should not travel overseas

IT IS one of the biggest tourist destinations in Australia, yet there is a fair chance you’ve never been. Here’s why you should stop snobbing your own backyard.

Nine reasons not to travel overseas

IT IS one of the biggest tourist destination in Australia, yet if you are under 60 there is a fair chance you’ve never been.

When you ask the general youth population why this might be, you are greeted with groans. “I might as well fly to Mexico”, “I’ll go when I’ve retired”, “That’s where my parents would travel to”, they say.

So why has the Northern Territory got such a bad rap?

Sure, it feels like an elderly-need-only-apply trip as we hobble into our Britz camper van, complete with a portable shower, a barbecue that pops out from the side and a broken MP3 player. The species of aged folk who are travelling across the sparse desert of Australia — more commonly known as Grey Nomads — are buzzing like blow flies around the Red Centre. They tell stories of their “grown up children” and chat with wine in plastic glasses next to their RVs.

They know the drill. 464km to Uluru. Cleaning out your own toilet container. Eating your national emblem. Wearing a ridiculous net over your head so you don’t eat a fly for dinner. Corrugated roads that go for hundreds of miles. It is pretty obvious why kids would rather go to Bali — or Uzbekistan.

But there are some things you can learn from the wise old nomads steering through our most isolated areas — some pure gems of outback gold that you just won’t find living in the big smoke or flying over the ocean. How can you call yourself a traveller when you haven’t seen the most incredible place in your own backyard?

Wills and Kate are more adventurous than you. Sad.

Here’s a bunch of reasons why the NT is perfect for you — and with bargain basement flights this month, you’ve pretty much got no excuse left.

1. IF YOU HATE PEOPLE

The Northern Territory is the least populated area in Australia, so if human interaction sucks the life out of you it is perfect. There are small cattle farms, such as Kings Creek Station, where only one mail delivery arrives a week, there is no phone network and it takes eight weeks to hear the news Tony Abbott is our new prime minister. Going camel chasing on a quad bike through soft red sand for five hours is not an experience someone who has their face in Facebook has experienced. This whole no-people policy works well until you get a flat on a road going to nowhere and you can’t phone home. Welcome to the outback.

You’re not a local until you’ve eaten a fly. But if you can’t hack it, get a net.

2. YOUR FOOD TASTES ARE ABOVE THE NORM

One tasting plate of camel tartar, tempura crocodile, house-cured kangaroo, please. Who knew that eating a platter of ocker Aussie animals could be so delicious? This is an entree not seen on the streets of Sydney. Most of it tastes like chicken, but if Kale is boring you to tears, there might be a place in the desert suited to you.

Eating crocodile under a clear sky is better than Messina.

3. CONSPIRACY THEORIES KEEP YOU UP AT NIGHT

About 18km out of Alice Springs there is a secret place known as Pine Gap. It is run by the CIA and the Australian government. What actually goes on there has been shrouded in mystery since the operation started in 1970. What we do know is that spy satellites are controlled from the facility, which has more than 800 employees.

The strange place with 18 antennas in the middle of the desert was mentioned by ex-CIA employee and global leaker, Edward Snowden, as involved in a surveillance program run by the US. The government has always been shady on the exact work Pine Gap carries out — but if you swing your campervan by, you might see a drone take off.

There’s weird stuff going on out there.

4. YOU THINK PETROL PRICES ARE OUT OF CONTROL BACK HOME

You’ll never feel ripped off again. At around 1.70 cents a litre, driving through the wilderness can be pretty costly but damn you’ll feel rich when you get home. Just make sure you don’t try and go the distance with that petrol light flashing. With 100km-plus between bowsers, there’s a good chance you’ll be a character in Wolf Creek by the end of your holiday. If you don’t like planning ahead, be prepared to fail.

Nothing will seem expensive again after this trip.

5. ROCKS BORE YOU TO TEARS

So when you was young, you got dragged to the National Rock Garden in Canberra. It gave you a lifelong hatred of geology and those kids hanging out in the lapidary club at school made you sick to your stomach. Sure, rocks are generally not that inspiring and that is why you should see at least one good one in your life. Enter, Uluru. This rock isn’t your standard blob on the ground. Standing at 860m above sea level, and with a circumference of 9.4km, it is a daunting beast that will demand your respect.

The Rock uses its age — the formation of which began 550 million years ago — to put your mere mortal life into perspective. And if you have only been to the rundown “fake Uluru” service station on some NSW highway, with its fading red paint and interesting characters serving rotten hamburgers, it might be time to get out more.

Just be careful to take the sealed road to Uluru and the also mind-blowing Kings Canyon if you are heading out of Alice Springs in an RV — or sh*t will get real.

This ain’t just any rock.

6. REALISE AUSTRALIA DOESN’T SPEAK ONE LANGUAGE

In the depths of the desert towns, you’ll hear a variety of dialects. There are between 100 to 120 Aboriginal languages spoken in the NT, with tens of thousands of Aboriginal people stating their mother tongue is not English. If you think you speak “Australian” or the nearest different language is across the seas, get on a plane to Alice Springs and sort your education out.

You’re too old to not know about your own culture.

7. YOU DON’T RECKON ANYTHING COOL HAPPENS IN AUSTRALIA

More than 142 millions years ago, an out-of-this-world impact happened in the middle of the Red Centre. A meteorite came crashing down from the sky, pummelled hundreds of metres into the Earth and exploded. It left a crater 20km wide which can be seen from space. The area is known as Gosse Bluff and although not the most famous (Wolf Creek crater comes to mind), it has the richest mythology. The local people believe a group of women danced across the Milky Way, and when one put a child in a wooden baby carrier it toppled over the edge of the dancefloor. Crashing to Earth, this is how “Tnorala”, or Gosse Bluff, was formed. Who doesn’t love an alien encounter?

Did you know a meteorite landed in your backyard? Picture: NASA

8. YOU THINK NO ONE IS AS CULTURED AS YOU

So you’ve critiqued all the art at the Guggenheim in Spain and New York, you’ve discussed the perils of Communism while dancing the tango in Cuba, you’ve ridden on camels with the lost Afghan tribes. Oh, the things you’ve seen! Then you drive into the centre of Australia and realise we have wild horses, insane rock formations, and a people who have built a society over 50,000 years. People that are inextricably linked to you. How can you claim to be cultured, when you have yet to discover the culture of your home? Find the spiritual beauty in the sacred sites of Uluru, Kings Canyon and Kata Tjuta. Walk the trade routes, touch the child’s footprint carved into a rock thousands of years ago, learn how to read the stars. If an American has experienced more of your own history, than you, wipe that “culture” title off your list.

The art you’ll find in the waterholes will put the MET to shame.

9. IF OFF-ROAD IN AN RV IS YOUR IDEA OF FUN

It was an accident. 144km of hell on a dirt road with dinner plates flying across the inside of our mobile home for the next four days. There were prayers, worried glances at the 4WDs pulled up on the side of the road with busted tyres, and clinging on for dear life. Don’t click the button on the GPS that says unsealed roads are OK. Hell, use a map. It will save you dealing with void insurance and save the life of at least three butterflies, two kangaroos and five birds.

It is all style and nice things, until you take the wrong turn.

Jenni Ryall was a guest of Tourism NT.