In March 2006 I got to go to a scientific meeting in Sydney to present my Ph.D. research. Below are a few pictures from Sydney and some from my vacation to the outback of South Australia.     For my vacation I flew from Sydney to Adelaide, where I rented a car and headed into the outback. Adelaide, state capital of South Australia, has a population of just over one million people. South Australia is about the size of Germany and France combined, or about one-and-a-half-times as large as Texas, but has fewer than 500,000 people outside Adelaide, mostly concentrated in a few mid-sized cities. So, there's obviously a lot of open space, which is what I was looking for.     From Adelaide I headed north to the Flinders Ranges National Park, where I spent 2 nights. After that I drove up to Marree, the small town at the start of the Oodnadatta Track. From there I headed west on the Oodnadatta Track to William Creek. After spending a night in William Creek I went to visit Lake Eyre North, before returning to the main highways at Coober Pedy and heading south towards Adelaide.     To help orient you before you look through the photos, I have a few maps to look at. A map of Australia has the areas I visited marked in red. Australia is almost as large as the continental US, but has less than two-thirds the population of California. The shortest distance from Sydney to Adelaide is about 1150 km (710 miles). There are also two maps of South Australia (both PDF files; you can zoom in once they open in Adobe Reader), one with my route highlighted and one without the highlighting. I followed the highlighting from the south to Port Augusta, then counterclockwise back to Port Augusta, and finally back to the South.

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Page created 05 April 2006, Last modified 05 April 2006 19:27 Pacific Daylight Time