Here's my running journal of my time in the red centre, the great trek from Ayers Rock to Darwin! Sorry it's a little long, I just didn't want to leave behind anything, it was all so cool. It's in 3 parts: around Alice springs, Alice to Darwin, and then around Darwin.
Day 1- we landed at Ayer's Rock after a really turbulent flight. Also no one was in my row on the flight which was strange. Landing though, all I could see out the window was red dirt and scattered scgraggly bushes. The terrain is honestly Christmas colors.
We were quickly bussed to the Ayers Rock Resort, the only civilization anywhere near Uluru or Kata Tjuta. Our driver pointed out the only stop sign within 400km in any direction.
And we thought Blacksburg was in the middle of nowhere. Our adventure is with one of the local agencies Wayoutback Safaris, and our guide Kate met us as soon as we arrived on the resort. And this wasn't the Disney interpretation of the word resort, here it just refers to the dusty area of land where people can stay indoors and find food that isn't living. So Kate took us from there to a campsite to pick up the last 4 people to complete our group: two Korean guys working in Adelaide, Phillip and Lee, and two Belgian twins studying English in Sydney and Brisbane, Eudore and Gaspard. We immediately went to Uluru, honestly one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I feel like I've been saying that a lot this month. Uluru [ooh-luh-roo] is a enormous sandstone, standing solitary and massive in the otherwise completely flat outback. That's why it's so shocking, it looks as if God himself just stuck it in all the red sand.
The only thing like it is the other object that breaks the flat outback horizon, Kata Tjuta [kat-uh jew-tuh], stands about 30 km away, a collection of 36 domes of rock. But Kata Tjuta isn't until day 2. We walked around much of Uluru, standing just at its base as Kate told us stories of the people that live there. The Aboriginal people here, called Anangu lived here as we imagine the first American peoples, only far more recently. There are cave drawings by the Anangu on caves around Uluru of camels, which were introduced to the land by Australians after they settled the coasts and began exploring the outback, in the 1930s. That's incredibly recent.
They still live in and around Uluru in communities, but only after terrible legal battles trying to get the land back from government, as it is extremely sacred to them. Kate told us several stories, like children's stories, that explained features of the faces of Uluru. In Anangu culture, everything is learned through stories, but only certain stories are told at each age. As we are not part of the aboriginal people, we can only hear the stories for children. We saw cave paintings, we saw a cave where the great demon dog chased all the women out of the women's cave and left his paw print on the wall, we saw where 5 men remain as stone on the wall of the men's cave, refusing to flee from the dog.
Demon dog print! Run women run!
We saw the rocks that are the snake's eggs, we saw where the Lyri man was hit on the head and bled, and then where he fell and died. It was amazing to have Uluru illustrate the stories. There was a sad thing: there is a climb open on Uluru.
It's a very tempting thing to climb because it is so tall but slopes down just a bit to meet the earth, and it looks like it would be really cool to see the top. But it hurts the Anangu people deeply for it to be climbed, it's so sacred to them. There are even sections of the walk around Uluru where photography is forbidden because its impossible to capture the essence of what's there. The climb is this chain linking poles 15 feet apart that comes to med thigh. It starts after quite a walk up a slanty bit, and then the chain is there as Uluru slopes up steeply to meet the sky. 45 people have died climbing, either from falling off, heart attacks after reaching the top or bottom, or other ways. The tour guides ask people not to climb, the rangers put please not to on the maps you get after entering the park, and the Anangu have a sign asking people to understand the importance they place on treating Uluru correctly. Unfortunately, people can still choose to do the climb because part of the deal handing the land back to the Anangu was leaving the climb open to attract tourists. Luckily, the climb was closed for expected rain when we came by, because some people in our group still wanted to climb. Then we moved on to watch an Uluru sunset! Unfortunately that same expected rain made the sunset a bit anticlimactic, as the sky was cloudy. There were some brilliant colors though and we had a beautiful view of Uluru and Kata Tjuta both.
Next was camping! It was a wonderful night where I talked a lot with Phillip, Lee, Gaspard, and Eudore, they're so wonderful. Phillip and Lee had a workout for their English, but it was so fun to guess at finishing their sentences. They're Christian! We talked a ton about the bible, I quoted the Romans verses Lucas and I have been learning [6:12-14!] and Phillip and I even harmonized on some worship music! He plays the guitar and sings for worship at his church. We said grace together before dinner too, a delicious meal of spaghetti Bolognese, prepared by Kate and helpers chopping veggies for the sauce. We found out midmeal that it was made from kangaroo meat, which only made us feel really hardcore. I helped out with the fire and garlic bread cooking, making those 11 years of girl scouting really work for me.
At dinner Gaspard and and Eudore finally told us all of their names [they have seven!]. They speak French, so they have crazy tricked out names. But Gaspard would only tell us his names if I drank a beer [he was appalled to meet an American that didn't like to drink. He and Eudore are taking a trip to Vegas when they turn 21 so they can "make party"]. I refused until he lowered the price to one sip of wine, a deal I had to take. Woo wild and crazy in the outback! Worth it. They also spent a long time taking guesses at what kind of guy my boyfriend would be, they liked that game a lot. At last it was time to sleep...in SWAGS. They're canvas sacks that are pretty sturdy and zip up around you; we unrolled them, stuck a sheet inside on the mat, popped in a sleeping bag and BAM. Warm and toasty on a pretty darn cold winter night.
All 17 of us [the twins and Dr. Geyer opted for the little platform tents a ways off] were strewn around the dying fire, it was adorable. I stayed up a long time peering into the clouds trying to see the frillions of stars up there, but it was still cloudy. Come on outback, that's the number one thing I was excited about. We saw some during dinner though, and there are 5 more nights out here. Thus concluded day 1 in the bush.
Day 2- we arose at 5, rolled up our swags, and had hurried breakfast of cold oats, canned peaches, and toast toasted over a fire! It was quite fun, but I was toasting so much toast for everyone I didn't have much time to eat. Worth it. Then we headed out to catch sunrise at a dune overlooking Kata Tjuta quite nicely. Except it was really cold and windy and Kate had recommended shorts. So I got some morning aerobics in while I hopped all around. The other tour groups around thought that was pretty weird and/or obnoxious. But sunrise was nice! Then was the Kata Tjuta walk itself! We took a lovely 3 hour walk through and around the domes, and climbed up one in a valley between two huge ones, it felt really good after all the city walking.
The climb
Phillip, me, and Lee at Kata Tjuta!
Kate told a few more Anangu stories and gave the geological explanation for how Kata Tjuta and Uluru were formed. Apparently, millions and millions of years ago, central Australia would fill with water and be a sea. The water flowed in to hang out for about 50 million years, then would empty out, then flow in again, and so on. It happened 4 times, the last one about 450 million years ago. The first time, a lot of sand was swept up and all deposited in a fan shape in one spot because of some shifting of plates creating ridges. In another spot nearby, tons of tiny stones were swept up and deposited together . Then when the sea flowed in a second time and so on, a ton of pressure was applied to the mound of sand and the one of stones. Then, another shift happened, shifting these two giant mounds. The sandstone, Uluru, was tipped a full 90 degrees, so it now sits on its side. It rises 1,100 feet up but has 7 kilometers more buried under the red earth. The stone of tiny stones, Kata Tjuta, was shifted some 9 degrees, so now it's just slanted. So yeah! They're incredible looking and incredibly old. So old that the wind itself has swept caves into the sides of Uluru. CAVES MAD BY WIND. This place is insane.
I wanted to bring this beautiful blue rock home for someone but Kate soon warned us of what happens when people take away pieces of Uluru or Kata Tjuta. Misfortune follows them, and the park has gotten over 6,000 "apology rocks" in the mail in the last 10 years because people have had house fires, plane crashes, family deaths, layoffs, and general consistent bad luck after taking away these stones. After Kata Tjuta we had lunch of sandwiches and went to the Anangu culture center. It was several large huts around a courtyard, full of several Anangu children stories, the book of sorry rock apologies, artifacts and news stories from when Uluru was first discovered by white people, and my favorite room, the gallery. It was FULL if aboriginal paintings and wood works, each with the name of the Anangu artist and a description of what is happening in the picture. Even better, three Anangu women were sitting on the floor in the corner painting on big canvases in their laps, talking among themselves. It was really cool to finally witness the people I've been hearing so much about. They didn't acknowledge I was there but the gallery staff spoke to them with lots of kindness and familiarity, so it's clear the tourist part of the national park has a good relationship with the Anangu. Then we had to hit the road for Kings Creek, the spot where we'd swag up for the night, close to the next day's hike. It was a 4 hour drive with some neat sights: a group of wild horses ran across the road close in front of us, with two little foals. We stopped at a minuscule town called Curtain Springs momentarily and saw the town Emu wander around on the road before we could get past it. We also stopped to collect firewood out in the brush by the side of the road. You should visualize here how the roads are the only thing you can see, everything else is ragged bushes, dead trees, and dirt. One of the best sources for the wood was climbing a bit up the dead trees, grabbing a sticky out branch and letting gravity pull you both down. I was pretty sweet with the climbing bit, but when I grabbed a branch I just hung there for a while. I cut my hand on the tree and got best blood of the day. So Scott broke off half a tree for me, and I collected some more from the ground. There was a ton of camel poop here too from the wild camels. Camel poop is really big. We gathered all the firewood and Phillip and Kate were loading it on top of our little trailer when Nathan emerged from the bush on the other side of the road, carrying an entire tree. One end was covered in red clay where he yanked it out of the ground. It was hilarious, and he was devastated when Kate pointed out that we clearly couldn't put a tree on the trailer. Our campsite was sweet, they had a baby cow and a baby camel in a paddock, and I shared an apple with the camel. Awwwwww. Being accustomed to eating the whole apple has come in handy here, because the outback doesn't have many trashcans for cores and it makes everyone think I'm super intense. People even gave me their stems to eat. Mmmm. Camping was much like the night before, we had chicken and veggies and beans with rice! So good. I talked with Phillip and Lee for a long time, they taught me korean, Chinese, and Japanese, and I taught them german and french! And for dessert we had a damper, a floury cake made in a covered cook pot in the fire. But Kate smashed up choc chip cookies in it which was yum. That night my prayers were answered, there were SO MANY STARS. It was absurd, and the Milky Way was insane, I could even see It without my glasses. We all saw so many shooting stars we ran out of wishes to make on them. The best viewing was a bit away from camp in a clearing away from lights. Gaspard took me there to stargaze a bit which the group found pretty comical. But they were so beautiful. I was pretty chilly that night because my sleeping bag was really thin that time. But I got to wake up more to adore the stars that way! And that was day 2 in the outback!
Day 3- I need to inform you that I haven't showered these three days. There have been showers available at the campsites but I don't want to waste time washing when I could be doing other stuff. So my hair, formerly in a braid, is now just one dreadlock. So this third day is the last day of the first tour with Wayoutback. This means we're losing Phillip, Lee, Gaspard, and Eudore this evening. It's so sad, but thank goodness for Facebook! We woke
at 5 am again to clean camp, eat, roll swags, and peace out. We had a sunrise to catch! This one was spectacular: we would spend the morning hiking King's Canyon, a giant canyon carved out by the tiny trickle of a body of water at the top and the cite of much evidence of those past inland seas. But first we had to see sunrise! That meant conquering the hardest part of the hike: heart attach hill. Named for the heart attacks it has induced at the top, it's an incredibly steep climb that gives a wonderful view of the sun rising over the canyon.
From there it was a beautiful hike over the really rocky terrain around the rim of the canyon, about 6 km total, it took 3.65 hours. We saw some great things:
Ghost gum- a stark white gum tree that just looks so enchanting. The white color is a thin film of sunscreen that protects it. It can do cool things like shut off certain branches so they die and fall off and water is conserved. It also grows over these dead parts, becoming hollow in the middle.
Yippe yippie- not the technical name, it's a plant that can heal wounds. I offered my cut from yesterday. Kate snapped off a segment of he plant and dabbed the milky dew inside on the cuts. It burned like mad initially, but eventually soothed the pain and formed a skin over the bleeding area. It actually is healing the wound. It's only found in this are of the world and is what the spray on baind-aid is made after.
Spinifex- a spikey grassy bush that burns at low temperatures and houses many little critters.
Macdonald Range Cycad- one of the oldest plants, it's been here since before Dino times and is only found here. This one is 1,000 a 1,500 years old!
Fossils- one is the track of a sea cucumber and is one of the oldest signs of life on the planet! Another is the fossils of ripples where the shallows of the inland sea used to be! Way up on the canyon rim, high above the flat expanse of the outback. Maybe the canyon rose up after the sea fossil formed, I actually don't know. But it was sweet.
The Garden of Eden- an area enclosed by parts of be canyon walls containing the water that has been carving the canyon all this time. Lots of vegetation grows around the pools among the sandstone. We climbed down to the water and ate cookies and apples.
The way the canyon works is that it's two kinds of sandstone separated by a layer of silt. The water can't get through the silt, so the garden of Eden sits way up high there on the silt layer. Sandstone also retains a lot of water, so plants grow out of the cracks in it like fig trees and stuff. Sandstone is also super brittle, so people have died by going to the very edge of the canyon and standing on overhang accidentally, which crumbles beneath them. So the one time we were allowed to go to the edge, we crawled and lay on our bellies to stick our heads over the abyss. It was so cool! We did calls to the other Wayoutback group across the canyon, and then did a "Lets go!...Hokies!" And it echoed and all that. Woo so that was kings canyon! Lunch was on the barbie! Next we drove 4 hours to Alice Springs, where we're staying in a hostel. But then it's swags until Darwin! Dinner was at a neat pub called Uncle's, and it was our whole group of 20 plus Kate and 4 other guides. We were all pumped to have some camel burgers which we had heard was a specialty of the pub, but alas they weren't serving camel that night :( but salad was fun too! It was a lovely dinner and we learned all about Phillip's girl! She's really cute. We all swapped Facebook addresses so we can be in touch forever, what a wonderful thing. Then it was time to say goodbye as a group of us wanted to sleep, though some stayed to enjoy the cheap beer and camaraderie. There were hugs all around, and Eudore picked me up and tried to leave the bar with me which was a sweet sentiment. It would be really neat to see Belgium, but I have an adventure here to finish. We're at the half way point now, just over two weeks done and the same left ahead of us. This second half is jam packed though, so I think it might fly by. There's no relaxing in Sydney or shopping in Melbourne, just canoeing, croc hunting, Great Barrier Reef snorkeling, sailboating, tons of sights to see and many kilometers to cover. Starting
at 5:30 tomorrow! Goodnight day 3.
From there it was a beautiful hike over the really rocky terrain around the rim of the canyon, about 6 km total, it took 3.65 hours. We saw some great things:
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