DAY ONE

Our RTW ticket included a won­der­ful flight over the out­back from Cairns to Alice Springs. The land­scape was how you may, and we cer­tainly, ima­gined Aus­tralia to be, red dusty and dry as a bone. Awe­some moun­tain ranges rose out of the end­less flat plains of the out­back with the occa­sional line of trees denot­ing where an under­ground river flows.

We arrived in Alice on a downer, dis­cov­er­ing my con­tin­ued afflic­tion of loosing/mislaying/theft of my wal­let had fol­lowed my to the other side of the world. Sadly it had been nicked at Cairns domestic air­port lounge, which included ALL my cards; bank, credit, driv­ing, YHA and even the global gos­sip card too. You name it and it was gone. To make things worse we did not have the tele­phone num­ber for Sen­tinel 24hr inter­na­tional can­cel­la­tion ser­vice and so had to wake Ara­bella in the middle of the night to can­cel them all. Thank­fully no one has tried to use any of them and I ima­gine it was dumped, fleeced of the small amount of cash before we left the lounge!

Hav­ing missed our free ride to the hostel quite unex­pec­tedly we secured a lift in a private hire taxi to Annie’s Place. Our driver preached of his friend the tal­en­ted Abori­ginal opera singer which made for an entirely bizarre jour­ney. Annie’s Place is a great hostel inclus­ive of tow­els, some­thing that has become a priced lux­ury since liv­ing out of a back­pack and keep­ing a towel dry is a con­stant chal­lenge these days. Alice, as it is affec­tion­ately known, was a strangely deser­ted place on the after­noon we arrived. We saw few people and even less Abori­gines. The sandy river basin, where some of the Abori­gines live, was dry, wide and littered with large trees. Wan­der­ing down the main street the cinema was screen­ing ‘The Dark Knight’ which made James intensely happy, so we caught an early sup­per (avoid­ing the Kangaroo, Camel and Emu on the menu) and watched Keith Ledger enthrall us with his final per­form­ance. Des­pite my dis­like of ‘dark’ movies and a child­hood fear of clowns/jokers, since watch­ing IT at too young an age, this was a mas­ter­piece of act­ing prowess and very enter­tain­ing. I both stayed awake through­out and didn’t close my eyes more than once!

DAY TWO

Up before dawn along with the entirety of the hostel for our three day out­back adven­ture tour with Way­ward Bus (now Adven­ture Tours). Around town we went col­lect­ing our com­rades and the shoe left behind on the pave­ment by our Italian con­tin­gent. Blow­ing up my neck pil­low and strap­ping on my eye mask I drif­ted quickly back to sleep as we jour­neyed into the out­back and towards Kings Canyon.

Our tour bus com­prised of a mix­ture of Ger­man, Pol­ish, Italian, Eng­lish and Japan­ese and the two Ozzie guides. By mid-morning we were finally com­pos mentis and by way of an ice-breaker an intro­duc­tion of ourselves to the rest of the bus was reques­ted by our hosts. We each in turn took too the mike and wrote our names and nation­al­ity on our win­dow for famili­ar­it­ies sake. Swiftly the cul­tural and lan­guage bar­ri­ers were bridged. Ben proved to be a char­ac­ter with no fear of embar­rass­ment and a love of the lime light and who gave us all an edu­ca­tion in pop­ular­ity… Tongues wagged between us about a Ger­man girl who appeared a little famil­iar with our senior guide. Brett, our guide, was a new­bie and so we had Spud to super­vise the trip. Brett did a great job des­pite his nerves.

Stop-offs were reg­u­lar, but sadly just the same as the road side cafes on the east coast with bad food and worse coffee/tea. Some road­side cafes kept wild­life, but per­son­ally this was not much fun for us or the anim­als involved.

Kings Canyon

With walk­ing boots, a wide brimmed hat, 1.5 litres of water and factor 40 on all our exposed pink parts we ven­tured up the steep face of the red rock. The view from the top was spec­tac­u­lar. A moun­tain range that just appears out of the end­less flat expanse of the out­back, mak­ing trees look like bushes by its mag­ni­fi­cence. Kings Canyon used to be under­wa­ter evid­enced by the sea­shells and ripples made by the ebb and flow of water in sand fos­sil­ised in the rock. Amongst the undu­la­tions of the moun­tains and canyons was the Garden of Eden. This is a small water filled val­ley, reflect­ing like a mir­ror the rich angu­lar red rock and the deep blue hue of the cloud­less sky, which con­tras­ted beautifully.

As even­ing fell we drove to our camp­site deep in the bush. As time-honoured tra­di­tion would have it sup­per was pre­pared by the girls and the fire stoked by the boys as even on the other side of the planet some things never change. The stew was cooked in cauldrons around the camp­fire as we sat around on benches in eager anti­cip­a­tion that it would soon be ready. Another girl and I attemp­ted to make smores with only marsh­mal­lows and chocol­ate, but they were still yummy. Our group was mainly single men and the one next door mainly single women, but the cold night pre­ven­ted any cross pol­lin­a­tion! Weirdly  ‘happy birth­day’ was being sung repet­it­ively in the dis­tance as Ben enter­tained us all.

Sleep­ing options were min­imal, swag or hut, take you pick. Brett per­suaded us that swags are indeed warmer in the cold out­back nights. James needed more con­vin­cing to sleep out­side with his fear of spiders and war­i­ness of snakes, but as luck would have it these creatures hibern­ate in winter: happy days! Swags are army green can­vas bags that encases your extremely thick sleep­ing bag and includes a flap to cover your head too. They aren’t the most invit­ing of sleep­ing arrange­ments but I was happy to be able to sleep under the crys­tal illu­min­a­tion of the beau­ti­ful south­ern con­stel­la­tions and Milky Way. Quickly the dubi­ous head flap found its way closely cov­er­ing my head to retain even a modicum more of my heat.

DAY THREE

James woke to find a dingo steal­ing my remain­ing marsh­mal­lows! Brav­ing the cold of the morn­ing the hot showers were extremely wel­come and the break­fast even more so.

Kata Tjuta (The Olgas)

Made from the same rock as Kings Canyon and also red through the oxid­isa­tion of its iron con­tent Kata Tjuta is a com­pletely dif­fer­ent form­a­tion. The rocks are much more roun­ded than at Kings Canyon. This walk was equally beau­ti­ful as we learnt more of the his­tory and flora of this place. In dra­matic fash­ion as our walk fin­ish so did my zoom lens. Effect­ively the auto­matic zoom stopped work­ing and had to be manip­u­lated manu­ally. This was a moment of intense dis­tress for me as we boarded the bus for sun­set at Uluru. See­ing Uluru has been a life ambi­tion for me since my child­hood geo­graphy classes. Why, why, why had this hap­pen now? Per­haps the Abori­gines were pro­tect­ing the sac­red nature of their iconic rock. Whatever the reason it brought tears to my eyes.

Uluru (Ayres Rock)

With Abori­ginal music play­ing we drove towards Uluru as the sun slowly lowered in the desert sky. Impress­ive is an under­state­ment. Trans­fixed as we came closer, it is as I had always ima­gined. I was at once immersed in a deep con­nec­tion with the cul­tural sig­ni­fic­ance of this place. Trudging through the deep sand with cham­pagne laden igloo (ice box) we found a spot away from the throng­ing spec­tat­ors. Ignor­ing the plastic ves­sels which con­tained our cham­pagne we toasted this per­son­ally unique occa­sion as I tried to remain calm as our tour mem­bers jumped the fence to have their pre­cious photo taken. Strug­gling with my broken lens I found it hard to both cap­ture this won­der­ful pho­to­graphic oppor­tun­ity whilst exper­i­en­cing this moment romantic­ally with J. It was a little haphaz­ard, but we man­aged to do both. The chan­ging col­our of Uluru is unbe­liev­ably rich and mes­mer­ising at dusk. Hav­ing done the Abori­ginal walk in the Blue Moun­tains this gave us a greater under­stand­ing and respect of this ancient and prim­it­ive cul­ture than those in our tour group chose not to respect. Dark­ness falls quickly here and like a blanket it blinds you. Reflect­ing on our exper­i­ence we wish we had driven there inde­pend­ently, but none the less this was amaz­ing. Back at camp we made sup­per, enjoyed a few beers and some camp­fire banter before opt­ing for a (hope­fully warmer) hut for some pri­vacy. The was indeed the warmer option, Brett!

Before dawn we were up and ready to see the sun rise again on Uluru whilst com­plet­ing the base walk. You can climb Uluru, but we were urged not to in respect of the Abori­ginal cul­ture that sur­rounds this sac­red place. Sadly the Ger­man con­tin­gent opted for the climb too the dis­taste of the rest most of the group. We per­son­ally hope this will soon be banned.

My exper­i­ence of cap­tur­ing Uluru at dawn was not as I had ima­gined. We arrived only a short time before the sun bathed the rock in light and much of the begin­ning of the base walk was pro­tec­ted as pho­to­graphy was pro­hib­ited. So we ran from vista to vista seek­ing the optimum spot to record this spec­tac­u­lar moment. Without a tri­pod and with a zoom lens sound­ing like an extremely expens­ive rattle, I was glad of my wide-angled lens and am under the cir­cum­stances, pleased with the res­ults. We were of course blessed with a beau­ti­ful sun­rise and blue sky which set the scene perfectly.

The base walk is amaz­ing giv­ing you a real under­stand­ing of the size, shaped, struc­ture and spir­itu­al­ity of this place. Uluru itself is stun­ning. Made of beau­ti­fully shaped mol­ten lava flows and like an ice­berg most is hid­den under­ground. In winter Uluru is warm and invit­ing when bathed in sun­light, but cold in its shad­ows. Abori­ginal stor­ies of the Rain­bow ser­pent, cere­mo­nial tra­di­tions, man’s and woman’s busi­ness and edu­ca­tion are illus­trated along the way.

Brett and Spud then enlightened us about some of the his­tory and cul­ture sur­round­ing Uluru. Most Abori­ginal stor­ies told to ‘White Folk’ are sim­pli­fic­a­tions of their beliefs and thus come across as child­ish. In fact many of their stor­ies are like fables inven­ted for chil­dren to keep them out of harms way. Abori­ginal draw­ings were used to edu­cate their chil­dren. Young men were made to stand alone, without speak­ing for days as a test of their matur­ity, before their walk­about begins.

We learnt of man’s busi­ness and woman’s busi­ness of which I will not write/speak out of respect to the Aborigines.

The Abori­ginal cul­ture centre brought all this together in a simple clear exhib­i­tion, though the film fell short in its attempt to com­mu­nic­ate what an Abori­ginal life con­sti­tutes.  My under­stand­ing is; a woman’s role was to bear and nur­ture chil­dren, pro­tect the men from snakes, col­lect bush tucker and edu­cate the girls and a man’s role was to pro­tect their skin col­our, hunt and make men out of boys. The com­munit­ies also had vari­ous lead­ers; admin­is­trat­ors, medi­cine men etc. They are a nomadic cul­ture, though this seems to have been all but lost in recent times.

Sadly we had lim­ited time here before our long trip back to Alice in the heat of the winter sun.

Regards,

Cesca

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