When Big is Big

Australia is a big country. Huge, in fact. One doesn’t quite get a sense of its size until one actually attempts to cross it.

The road across the Nullarbor (plain located between Adelaide and Perth) is 2,700 kilometers of almost endless pavement stretching gracefully along the most isolated areas I’ve seen. Far from boring, the scenery is a quad-tonal parade of dark and light green, grey, and red. Some sections find the road lined with stunted trees of gnarled trunks and parched foliage. Hours pass without a break in the forest until suddenly, the trees are gone, only to be replaced by dry grasses. Nothing reaches past kangaroo knee height on the vast plain. Looking ahead, you can see the distant shimmering shape of a road train or campervan on the pavement. Ten minutes pass before you fly past one another, only lifting a finger to acknowledge the other lonely traveler.

Every twenty kilometers or so, the Australian government has built rest stops along the great desert highway. Less frequent are turnoffs with toilets and a tree to offer sleeping areas for tired drivers. Driving at night is risky business. Although rare in some of the driest parts, kangaroos line the road in the dark. Seemingly confused, they wait until the very last second to leap out into the path of oncoming traffic. Sleeping through this dangerous period saves many an old campervan. More numerous still are the pesky introduced rabbits whose nocturnal behaviour has obviously been influenced by their marsupial neighbours.

At one point along the treeless desert, we (Myself and a good friend, Michael) camped out at a rest stop near the Western Australian border. We were the only people at the site and so had no one around to offend us with their bright lights or inane banter about the size of their caravans. After dark, Michael and I sat in chairs and looked at the stars. One thing that has always struck me about Australia is the sky; a reflection of the immense country, the celestial view is truly spherical and offers uninterrupted horizon to horizon stargazing. On this moonless and cloudless night, my retinas were privy to an entrancing treat, as we were a few hundred kilometers from the nearest settlement. As I focused on the sky, I began to realize how much I was seeing. The immense void of the Universe beyond our solar system is boundlessly packed with myriad objects shining across light years to our measly little planet where we hardly take notice. Remove the distractions of civilization, however, and the picture becomes clear. Never have I experienced so much of the night sky – few things have so taken my breath away.

As we leaned back and reveled in the immensity of all things, I began to notice some clouds. Apart from the familiar smear of the Milky Way, the night sky to me has always been star-filled. Faint, these new clouds were, and I could see some stars through them. They were patchy and I asked aloud why I hadn’t noticed them before. Michael, paused, and then answered: “Those are galaxies,”