The World's Most Useless Stoplight
You can never be too cautious, eh? 
But wait, I am getting ahead of myself. We decided to take a trip into the outback one weekend with one goal in mind . . .kangaroos, kangaroos, kangaroos. Unfortunately, to do that, the best route seemed to be a 7 hour drive due west of Brisbane, and even that barely got us into the outskirts of the outback. (for some reason, we just forget how big this place is!) To make matters worse, once you get out of greater Brisbane and Toowoomba (yes, that is the name of a real city), the roads turn into the straightest thing you have ever seen in your life. Like someone just drew a precise line between two cities hundreds of miles apart and then built a road. So we are in the a
bsolute middle of nowhere and come upon what is supposedly a construction site, but not a soul as far as the eye can see (and that was a long way). And yes, they seriously had a stop light where there was no cross street or anything and not even a curve in the road for miles. We had to get out of the car and take a picture because it was just that ridiculous. I kept waiting for the candid camera guy to jump out and make us look stupid for even stopping at the light. But sure enough, the light did eventually turn green and off we went. And getting back to these straight roads (because words can't really stress how straight these things are), these roads were so straight that we got excited when there was just the s
lightest of bends to them (so sad!). And because these roads are so straight, the only other vehicles we saw on these roads were these things that they call road trains. They look like 18 wheelers, except they have 2 or 3 or 4 or more trailers attached to them. It is apparently the most efficient way of moving goods cross country. They are absolutely crazy and can only be used out here because I can only imagine that taking a turn in one of those things is lethal! Ok, so we're driving hours and hours into the middle of nowhere, being entertained by our excitement in the 30 degree curves in the road every 45 minutes, a nice game of name that song off of the ipod, and an occasional stop in these little towns that are most easily described based on the number of pubs in the area (i.e. there were a lot of "1 pub towns" where the 5 guys in the pub were probably the same guys that went there every day, so the sight of a couple of Americans, a Brit, and an Irish woman must have been the talk of the town). But the good news was. . . as we got closer to our final destination and the sun began to set, out came the kangaroos! They were everywhere! (Ok, they had actually been everywhere throughout the journey, but I count the roadkill we had seen every 10 feet.) So high off of our kangaroo sightings, we pulled into the nicest motel Mitchell, Australia (a 3 pub town) had to offer for a bit of R&R and hanging with the locals. All I have to say is that you guys would have been proud of us because we were actual willing to stay in this place, and I can guarantee you that it was no Four Seasons. ;) In any event, it was all good fun, until we had to wake up the next morning and make that trek back. Ugh! 
But wait, I am getting ahead of myself. We decided to take a trip into the outback one weekend with one goal in mind . . .kangaroos, kangaroos, kangaroos. Unfortunately, to do that, the best route seemed to be a 7 hour drive due west of Brisbane, and even that barely got us into the outskirts of the outback. (for some reason, we just forget how big this place is!) To make matters worse, once you get out of greater Brisbane and Toowoomba (yes, that is the name of a real city), the roads turn into the straightest thing you have ever seen in your life. Like someone just drew a precise line between two cities hundreds of miles apart and then built a road. So we are in the a
bsolute middle of nowhere and come upon what is supposedly a construction site, but not a soul as far as the eye can see (and that was a long way). And yes, they seriously had a stop light where there was no cross street or anything and not even a curve in the road for miles. We had to get out of the car and take a picture because it was just that ridiculous. I kept waiting for the candid camera guy to jump out and make us look stupid for even stopping at the light. But sure enough, the light did eventually turn green and off we went. And getting back to these straight roads (because words can't really stress how straight these things are), these roads were so straight that we got excited when there was just the s
lightest of bends to them (so sad!). And because these roads are so straight, the only other vehicles we saw on these roads were these things that they call road trains. They look like 18 wheelers, except they have 2 or 3 or 4 or more trailers attached to them. It is apparently the most efficient way of moving goods cross country. They are absolutely crazy and can only be used out here because I can only imagine that taking a turn in one of those things is lethal! Ok, so we're driving hours and hours into the middle of nowhere, being entertained by our excitement in the 30 degree curves in the road every 45 minutes, a nice game of name that song off of the ipod, and an occasional stop in these little towns that are most easily described based on the number of pubs in the area (i.e. there were a lot of "1 pub towns" where the 5 guys in the pub were probably the same guys that went there every day, so the sight of a couple of Americans, a Brit, and an Irish woman must have been the talk of the town). But the good news was. . . as we got closer to our final destination and the sun began to set, out came the kangaroos! They were everywhere! (Ok, they had actually been everywhere throughout the journey, but I count the roadkill we had seen every 10 feet.) So high off of our kangaroo sightings, we pulled into the nicest motel Mitchell, Australia (a 3 pub town) had to offer for a bit of R&R and hanging with the locals. All I have to say is that you guys would have been proud of us because we were actual willing to stay in this place, and I can guarantee you that it was no Four Seasons. ;) In any event, it was all good fun, until we had to wake up the next morning and make that trek back. Ugh!
posted by DaKleins in Oman @ 7:13 AM
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