Up at 5 AM. My room in the hostel was not heated and I only had my silk sleeping bag liner and one thin bed sheet to sleep under. I was astonishingly cold. I was warmer sleeping in my sleeping bag in the tent on the horse farm. I think it was only 4 degrees. I checked out of my room and waited for my pick up for my next tour.
I expected Nicole (the Australian girl) and Jan (the Czech guy) from my previous tour to be on my bus for the second one. It was not to be, however. They ended up on another bus. My new group was not nearly as fun as the group I had before. It was five French kids who traveled together and mostly chattered away in French to each other, two Swiss girls who smoked like chimneys and mostly kept to themselves, three more sociable German girls, and a friendlier English girl named Laura (though not as friendly as Claire was).
Our tour guides were Aaron (also known as “Azza”) and Brett. Azza was an experienced guide and Brett was the assistant who was still learning the ropes. Their music tastes were similar to mine and all three of us sat at the front of the bus blasting and rocking out to music. The self centred French kids kept asking us to turn it down so they could sleep, but Azza said he couldn’t since he didn’t want to fall asleep while driving.
Oh yes, this tour would involve a lot of driving, too... about 1400 km over three days. The land was even more rugged and barren that it was on the road to Alice Springs. The landscape was dominated by sand dunes, salt lakes, mountains, and huge areas of brilliant red sand and dust. The dust got on everything. I think my shoes will be permanently stained red now. I spent time starting out of the bus watching the desert-like landscape pass by, but after a few hours it got repetitive and boring.
We stopped at a few roadhouses on the way to our day’s actual destination, Yulara -- the town nearest to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. We stopped there for lunch before heading out to Kata-Tjuta (also known as “The Olgas” or “Mount Olga”) itself. The area consisted of a large area of many rock mounds that towering hundreds of metres above the landscape. They weren’t really mountains, but a large conglomerate of boulders and other smaller rocky material eroded off of older mountain ranges. From the distance, it looks like a huge pile of boulders huddling together on the horizon. Once you get up close, though, those huge boulders look like mountains looming above you.
We were constantly pestered with black flies while hiking through the valleys between the individual rock formations. These flies wanted our moisture and were constantly buzzing around your ears and face trying to get a lick of sweat off of you. They would even fly underneath my glasses and try to land near my eyes. I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of the starving children in Africa with flies all over their faces, constantly buzzing around? I kind of felt like that (though I doubt I had THAT many flies on me).
After Kata Tjuta, we moved onto the real star of the show, the enigmatic Uluru (also known as “Ayer’s Rock”) We didn’t visit the Rock itself that night, but went to the official sunset viewing area. The area was loaded with tourists drinking champagne watching the Rock change colours during the setting of the sun. We didn’t have champagne, our tour wasn’t so fancy. The Rock sure was pretty, though!
The visit to Uluru itself would have to wait until the next morning. We went back to campsite at Yulara for dinner. Our guides said we were having “Aussie Style Stir Fry.” Since they cooked it on the barbecue, I asked if that’s what made it “Aussie Style”, since none of the ingredients seemed particularly out of the ordinary to me. Azza said, yes, because of the barby, but also because an Aussie was cooking it! Ha ha. What a joker.
After the sunset, it started to get very chilly again. The campfire and alcohol kept us warm. I had a very expensive ($32) bottle of Amarula fruit cream to drink. I had enough of freezing during my other nights of camping and remembered how wonderful Bailey’s or another cream liqueur can be while camping, especially when poured into hot chocolate. We didn’t drink that much though. We had to wake up very early the next morning, so at 10 PM we got into our swags and went to bed under the stars.
What’s a swag? It’s the traditional Aussie bushman’s outdoor sleeping gear: a canvas bag with a padded bottom. You’d put a sleeping bag inside the swag and pull the flap of the swag over your head while sleeping. No sleeping bag. No tent. Even though it was approaching freezing temperatures outside, inside a sleeping bag in a swag with the flap pulled over your head, you could sleep in perfect comfort under the stars. What an experience!
July 11, 2008
Again, up early. This time at 5:30 AM: before the sunrise. That was the whole point, of course. We wanted to be back at Uluru during the sunrise. Totally worth it.
Our tour guides had done this before. As we drove up to The Rock with the sun barely above the horizon in the East, the guides played songs from the Delerium “Karma” on the bus stereo. First they played “Silence” (featuring Sarah McLachlan). They thought, though, that the song was called “Sunrise”! That’s why they played it. I’d been listening to the same CD for ten years, so I knew the real name. Ha ha. After Silence, they played “Enchanted” and “Duende” from the same album. Why do I remember the music so well? It was such a powerful experience. It was the perfect choice of songs, with tribal rhythms and chanting. I felt very moved. The moments would be burned into my memory forever.
Similar songs have the same effect with me. I associate Björk’s song “Isobel” with mountains, especially the Carpathian mountains in southern Poland. Everytime I listen to that song, I remember the day that we drove from the amazing city Kraków to the mountain town of Zakopane, far up in the southern Polish mountains. Why do I have this memory? I don’t know. I was listening to it on my sister’s CD player that one day while staring at the mountains passing while sitting in my uncle’s car. That moment, with the accompanying soundtrack, has been burned into my memory forever, too... just like now I will probably forever associate the songs Enchanted and Duende with that morning on the red dusty plains deep in the Australian Outback.
I wanted to climb Uluru (even though the Aboriginal people discourage it), but due to the high winds, the summit was closed. Instead, I went on the ten kilometre walk around the base of the giant walk. The wind off of the plains was cold and biting. I was wearing four layers of clothing: a t-shirt, a thin long sleeved cotton shirt, my hoodie, and my windbreaker jacket. I was still cold. The wind blew at my face so hard that tears were forced from my eyes. It didn’t matter. The sun was coming up and illuminated the clouds with a kaleidoscope of colours.
At the same time, Uluru itself was changing before my eyes. As the sun climbed above the horizon and peeked past the different layers of clouds, the massive monolith literally changed colours before my eyes. It started black, of course, before the sun came up, but then went through rusty and dark shades of red, brilliant fluorescent oranges, and ruddy browns. Later in the day as we drove away, it looked blue. Were my eyes playing tricks on me? No, this miracle happens here every day.
I was enraptured and overstimulated. The wind whipped around me as I took photos of the blinding sun, the silhouetted trees, the feather wispy clouds, and the monolith that dominated everything and everyone around it.
The walk was supposed to take two or three hours, but I was the slowest. The rest of the group got ahead of me. I was the last person back to the bus. Everyone had been waiting about twenty minutes for me. Ooops. I guess I got caught up in the moment.
The walk around Uluru was self-guided, but our guides took us on a shorter walk around a few of the special parts. The whole area was sacred to the Aboriginal people and was bound up in history. Many of the stories are kept secret by the local tribes, but some of their children’s stories and legends are public knowledge. Our guides showed us where the local tribes believed that their ancestors were bound up in rock formations and caves. No wonder the Aboriginals believe that Uluru is sacred -- they can see their own ancestors in the very living rock.
Unlike Kata-Tjuta (which is a conglomeration of many rocks fused together over time), Uluru is one giant rock, formed millions of years ago as sand from eroded mountains collected and pressed together into one giant mass of sandstone. Only a few hundred metres of this rock protrude above the surface of the earth. Scientists believe that the rock extends six kilometres deeper down. It’s believed to be the second largest single rock in the world (after a somewhat larger rock in Western Australia -- though less of that rock protrudes above the Earth’s surface, and it is not as steeped in legend and history as Uluru is).
I started the day with four layers of clothing since it was so cold. As the sun climbed higher into the sky, it got hotter and hotter and I had to start removing layers. First, the windbreaker, then long-sleeved shirt. Once it got to noon, it was hot enough that the hoodie had to go, too. The funny thing was, as the sun started to go down, the layers had to go back on, too, in reverse order. The temperature changed that much during one day. I always knew deserts (or “semi-arid areas”) were supposed to be like this, but it was the first time I had really experienced it myself. I hope I was up for eight straight days of it during the Burning Man Festival. I was going to need more clothes before I got to Nevada at the end of August.
After a stop at the Aboriginal Cultural Centre (basically a museum and cafe), we went back to Yulara for lunch. When we got there, I eagerly went to the refrigerator to get my Amarula to put into my cocoa. It was gone. Our guides neglected to tell us that its not legal to leave alcohol lying around where the aboriginals can find it. The owner of the campsite was notorious for taking the law into his own hands and confiscating any alcohol that he finds lying around. Shit. I wish I had known. Even though the aboriginals are notorious for not being able to handle alcohol and starting fights, I certainly can!!!
It really was sad. Many of them were uprooted from their traditional cultures and lives only a few scant generations ago. The aboriginal people in Australia really hadn’t adapted to Western civilization very well. The evidence was everywhere. I had seen many of them walking the streets (or more often, sitting around the streets) looking grumpy, frumpy, dirty and disheveled. Many of them didn’t have the proper upbringing to teach them which foods are nutritious in Western civilization and which ones, though easy to get and delicious, are terrible (i.e.: many fast foods). They hadn’t had generations of alcohol drinkers to give them the tolerance, practice, or know-how to handle alcohol and abused the stuff. There were many restrictions to buying or keeping alcohol in the Northern Territory towns I had passed through in the previous days. It was more expensive than other places and you always had to show your ID. It was illegal for anyone to buy alcohol and give it to an aboriginal. Many areas were completely dry. Alice Springs was known as the most dangerous cities in Australia, where the aboriginals often got in fights with each other and kids ran amok while their parents weren’t watching them. I saw more shopping carts on the streets of Alice Springs than I did anywhere else. Kids went for joyrides in them all the time.
So, my Amarula was gone. Oh well, I had already lost lots of things on this trip. Head phones, t-shirts, socks, books, whatever. I had given up on being too materialistic. It wasn’t worth fussing over in the end... even though it was a nice (and expensive) bottle of liquor. Oh well...
After lunch, we packed up and made the long drive from Yulara to King’s Canyon (about a four or five hour drive). We set up camp again. This camp didn’t have a barby, so we had dinner cooked right on the campfire itself: spaghetti bolognese. Oh yes, we were definitely having gourmet meals there in The Outback.
After dinner, we played some campfire games. Laura had an inflatable boxing kangaroo named “Skippy.” We passed the kangaroo around and took turns saying, “Skippy, we are leaving tomorrow. I love you and want to say goodbye by kissing you on the kangaroo part.” We would then each kiss Skippy in a different part. No one could kiss Skippy in the same place as anyone else. The game seemed very easy: a simple repetition game.
After we had passed Skippy around twice, Laura told us about the rest of the rules! We then had to pass our marsupial companion, say the lines again, but kiss the PERSON TO OUR LEFT in the same place we had kissed Skippy before. Oh, how risqué! The French kids protested! They should have been told before! Pfeh, then the game would have been boring... didn’t they understand? Sadly, no one picked any “interesting” places to kiss Skippy... if you know what I mean.
Again, we got to sleep in our swags. This time, however, our guides told us that we had to be very sure to put our shoes under the swags. They made useful pillows, but it also prevented dingoes from running off with them in the night. We were told that there were many dingoes in the area and they liked to prowl through the camps at night. Many times people woke up in the morning with a dingo staring at them in the face. They were harmless to humans, but they like to drag away your shoes for their own enjoyment!
July 12, 2008
Another 5:30 AM wake up. I didn’t see any dingoes, but I heard them howling from somewhere in the nearby hills. It was a lonely, mournful sound.
This morning, our destination was King’s Canyon, which was stunning. We clambered up “Heart Attack Hill (I didn’t have any problems getting to the top, but the Swiss Smoking Girls were definitely lagging behind. I wonder why?) to get to the canyon rim, then hiked around the rim for three hours. It was hard to take good photos here. It was way too large, and the lighting was difficult. Parts of the canyon were deep in shadow while the sky was brightly illuminated. My poor little camera.
It was stunning and pretty and spectacular and all that.. but for me, the magic was still all at Uluru. I was tired, dusty, and dirty. I felt so grubby. My jeans were covered with red dirt and dust. I had been wearing them constantly outdoors for six days (except when sleeping). My hoodie smelled pretty rank, too. I didn’t take a shower the night before since I don’t think it would have helped much since I would have to put the same stinky clothes back on again. Having exactly one set of warm weather clothes was definitely a hassle. I was eager to return to warmer climes again.
It was a LONG ride back to Alice Springs. We drove all afternoon. On the way, we spotted wild horses crossing the road, kicking up huge clouds of red dust into the air as the galloped into the bush.
We made plans to meet up that night at the bar of Toddy’s Resort (my hostel) for dinner and drinks (after getting cleaned up, of course). The French kids didn’t show up. They claimed they didn’t have enough money for a night out. I think they just didn’t like us. While we sat on the outside patio drinking beers under the radiators, a live band consisting of a didgeridoo player (with a kick-drum) and a guitar player played tunes for us under the stars. After getting us all psyched up, they had an amateur didgeridoo playing competition. I had missed the sign up sheet (I was talking on the phone with my parents), so I didn’t really expect to get a turn. I watched about thirty people try their hands and playing the didj. Many of them struggled, and could produce the characteristic droning sound, instead emitting a series of fart-like noises. When some people made a bit of progress, the professional player accompanied them with in song, kick-drum, and tambourine. Most people didn’t do well enough to get the professional accompinant, though.
As I watched people sputter or succeed, I watched closely. Playing the didj was something I was willing to try. As the last person played, I asked if I could try to, even though I missed the sign-up sheet. I was astonished! I actually did pretty good, for a newb! I got it to make the drone and some other cool sounds, too. I produced a good rhythm and tapped my feet as I got into it. The pro sprang into action with the kick-drum and tambourine. Yippee! I was doing it! I played a didgeridoo!
I didn’t win any prizes that night. Some of the other amateurs were pretty good (I’m sure they had played before!). But I did win a feeling of self-satisfication. I didn’t know how to play any musical instruments, which is pretty sad considering how much I’m into music. Now, I showed potential at one. I bet, if I had my own, I could get better at it! Maybe I’ll have to buy one...
Most of the group went to another bar to continue the party. I didn’t go, though. I truly was tired from seven straight days of bus travel and sightseeing. I was already at my hostel, so I let them go. They attempted to use heavy peer pressure to get me to go, but I wasn’t into it. Snore! When had I gotten so boring?! As I fell asleep in my bed, though, I could still here the didgeridoo music emanating from the bar and I felt that even though I didn’t go dancing on the tables at some bar, I still did something genuinely cool and unique that night.
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