Its a big country, mate.

[il padrone]

For those who might be planning a tour of Australia these maps might give you some perpective.






Only 2% of Australia's population lives in the yellow area.



Uluru compared with Central Park



Great Barrier Reef compared with Western Europe

[in4]

I think I'm right in saying that Switzerland is about the same size as Kakadu National Park ( horrible idea, national park) in the NT. One of the big joys of Kakadu and a lot of the NT is that it is sparsely populated, save for the Crocs!

[jags]

Ah my post vanished start again

That's very impressive Ireland looks like a dot on the landscape ,but tell me this would you prefair Australia or Europe to tour.

jags.

[John Saxby]

Great visuals, Pete.  Love the superimposition of Uluru over Central Park.  We used to live just a wee bit towards the Hudson on the other side of Broadway, just W of the northern tip of Iluru, as it were.  NYC has its attractions, but it's sooo urban.  The rock outcrops in Central Park don't really measure up, for sure (tho' the neighbourhood cafés are probably better...)

Planning some rides in the Eastern parts of the yellow bits of Oz in the next few years, when we visit our kids and grand-daughter in the Gold Coast, likely in the NSW/QLD border areas, and maybe into Victoria too.  Doubt I'll venture into the Big Central Bits, though. I get a bit edgy facing a shortage of hills-trees-water -- felt "exposed" on my ride across the high deserts of Wyoming-Nevada-Utah in the States last summer, even though I've spent some time in those parts over the years.

[Andre Jute]

This is a wonderful way of showing how big the Big Country is, Il Padrone. In 1971 I travelled all around the coastline, from Sydney and back to Sydney, the entire circumference; that was six months by automobile, touristing, not hurrying, just getting familiar with my new home, healing in the clean air (I arrived in Australia with a bullet wound picked up in South America when an excitable Latin whose team mine beat at polo too often put a price on my head).

Doubt I'll venture into the Big Central Bits, though. I get a bit edgy facing a shortage of hills-trees-water -- felt "exposed" on my ride across the high deserts of Wyoming-Nevada-Utah in the States last summer, even though I've spent some time in those parts over the years.

Man reaches an age when he's comfortable with himself, when there's not much point in accepting challenges merely for the sake of challenge, because he's proved it all. Personally, I'm too young to be there yet, but I'm not planning on sailing around Cape Horn again, that's for sure!

I don't feel threatened by open spaces, even deserts; I grew up in them; when a convoy was washed away in a flooded river in the Caprivi I walked out through the Namib desert and stuffed my pockets with uncut diamonds on the way. Nor do rain forests bother me; I survived those when I was still in my teens. But in the forests of the icy tundra in Alaska I can never forget that on the third day Wendigo, the evil spirit of the forest, comes for those who linger...

[Danneaux]

Pete,

Big thanks for these brilliant and hugely interesting visuals. Make the comparisons "real" in local terms and give a much better grasp on just how vast your continent is.

Best,

Dan.

[John Saxby]

You're right, Andre -- it's partly a matter of what you're used to living with, the strategies & reactions you need and acquire. I've trekked through the Naukluft in Namibia, for example, but still feel a bit out of place in such settings, no matter their beauty & grandeur. My wife, from the US, has lived in New Mexico, Utah and such dry places, but still feels a little ill at ease with Canadian forests and winters, even from the inside of our very reliable Subaru station wagon.  Mind you, I still carry sleeping bag-shovel-sand-metal traction aids-extra food & drink on winter journeys.  My kids think I'm daft, of course, a relic of rural Ontario in the 1950's. (I just shrug and say, "Well, if you ever have a breakdown at 25 below and the sun's going down, better make sure it's on a well-travelled road.")

After a while, it also becomes a matter of what you want to do, much like your choice about not sailing in wild and dangerous waters: I turned down a chance to go paddling for two weeks this summer in North-Central Quebec, remote & beautiful though it is, because I'd rather go pedalling in Scandinavia.