Thursday 26 November 2009

The painted Desert;

Please click the pictures to realise the vastness of the desert and to see the colours.


The bitumen road turns into a desert road.


Very picturesque.

The stones are millions of years old, slowly integrating, not in my lifetime or the next...next...to us humans whom are only a short time walking this planet it is infinite.

The painted desert comes into view, it is breathtakingly beautiful in its abstractness.


Where does it begin and where does it end?


After taking in all this strange beauty, our driver asked us would you like to have lunch here?
We all said, yes it would be nice to have lunch now. He, Guenther, started to prepare the table to cook on, the food etc. only one little thing was missing the frying pan, it was forgotten to be packed! Meant as a joke, I said we could go to the next homestead and ask for a frying pan, as we had driven many hours without seeing a house or people. Guenther said, ok, packed everything up and off we went. We drove and drove and drove, the only sound some rumbling tummies! Suddenly like aFata Morgana a homestead and outbuilding came into view.
Guenther went to the door, knocked and came back triumphantly waving a huge, black frying pan. Well to make a long story short, we had a good lunch, even as we had to hold on to the lettuce leaves, as it was so windy.

Patsie's car is another story; Patsy was a Governess and drove for many years every Sunday, attired in her sunday's best, hat and white gloves to church. When she died, they left her car on the side of the road where she used to drive to church.
Sometimes there was a grave along the road; this one was for a little boy, only four years old; so sad.
Plants are very tough buddies in the desert. They have adapted to hot and cold, strong winds and no water.

The stony desert is an awesome place.


In the desert this is a good way to go; home!

20 comments:

Tatyana@MySecretGarden said...

Amazing! This place helps us realize that we are only guests on this planet. We'll be gone, but this desert will be there for zillion years. Unless we manage to cover it with trash...
Love the purple blooms. Didn't expect to see purple in a desert. Thank you Titania!

Stephanie said...

What! Forgotten the frying pan! Glad you all found one in the end. I hope the cooking was done super fast he he...

Btw, nice pictures! I enjoyed looking at them very much.

sweetbay said...

Beautiful. The landscape reminds me of our Badlands and desert Southwest.

lotusleaf said...

Really lovely colours. And the vastness! It is so humbling. Thanks for a lovely post, Titania.

easygardener said...

Fascinating post. The distances involved are hard to imagine from this small island. The car in the desert was an inventive memorial!

diane b said...

Your photos show the beaty of the desert even though it is a desolate place. (Where was it?)

Pietro Brosio said...

Wonderful wide desert sceneries, Titania. I enjoy very much this interesting post. Thanks for sharing and happy weekend!

Peter said...

What a beautiful country. I love your pictures.

Janie said...

Thanks for the introduction to your painted desert. Beautiful photos. Interesting story about the governess, and so sad about the child's grave.
This area reminds me of the desert parts of Utah.

Laura in Paris said...

So dry, so inhospitable .. and yet, here and there, a plant, a flower ... incredible nature!
Your shots are great, and the tale as well!

Janie said...

Hi,
To answer your question about how close we are to our desert area, we live in NE Utah in a semi-arid basin surrounded by mountains. Southern Utah (100 to 150 miles away) has less rainfall, and looks similar to your photos. Arches and Canyonlands National Park are in that area. There also is an area called "the painted desert" in Arizona, not much south of Utah's southern border.

Kerri said...

You certainly saw your share of desert.
I can see now why they call it the Painted Desert. Fascinating place with it's ancient rocks and those rich earthy shades.
I remember those vast distances between towns, or any sign of life when I was traveling from QLD up toward Darwin. Is that the Hume Hwy? I'm not sure my memory is serving me correctly.
I hope you're enjoying the spring colours and blooms in your beautiful garden, Trudi :)

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

So beautiful surroundings! So different from my part of the world way up in the north!
Have a great day!
Christer.

Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪 said...

Oh the blue blue sky, not a drop of water.
I hope you are not getting a bush fire this year.

Beautiful photos, that rock will last another million years?

Unknown said...

Great desert views, Trudi! I've only seen a sandy desert and only a bit of it. But this has so much variety! The stony desert looked interesting! What a wonderful journey that must've been!

diane b said...

I haven't seen a post from you in a while. I hope you are OK. I asked you about the name of a tree some time ago and you asked me to show you the leaves. At the time it didn't have leaves but now it has and I have put some more pics of the tree on my recent post. If you have time take a look amd see if you know it, please.

Martin said...

Thank you for these impressive photos, Titania! They remind you how valuable the environment of our planet is. I recently came across an interesting link, which I thought might interest you as well. It is plantthis.com.au - a website for gardening especially in Australia. It has some useful features and nice videos and photos as well. Hope you enjoy it!
Best regards

vincibene said...

Vielen Dank für diese faszinierenden ausdrucksvollen Fotos! War fast wie ein kleiner Ausflug.

LG
Chris

club penguin cheats said...

The rock formations are great to look at! Wish we have them here as well.

gum problems said...

TRUE! I wonder how old are these now? Its an arid land, so perhaps older that the dinosaurs, I presume.