The Red Centre or “Who the *#$! Is Alice?”

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15/11/06 - 21/11/06

After 3 days chilling out in Darwin, admiring the 80’s fashions, shopping and drinking cocktails in the Novotel Jabiru cocktail bar, we headed down south on a Quantas flight to Alice Springs.

Back to our grueling touring schedule, we grabbed a 3 day tour heading out to Uluru, leaving the next morning at 06:30. Although Alice Springs is the major town in central Australia, it’s still over 450km from Uluru (Ayres Rock). We left Alice and immediately saw a rare sighting of 2 Wedgies, Australian for Wedge-tailed eagles - Australia’s biggest bird of prey, perched in a tree by the roadside, obviously close to a kangaroo corpse on the roadside. On road to the ‘red centre’ attractions we stopped at Erlunda and Mt Eberneezer roadhouses. Erlunda roadhouse is allegedly the most central inhabited location in Australia.

The route from Alice Springs also passes Mt Connor, which excites the unbeknown tourist on the bus, thinking that they have spotted Uluru about 95km too early! Many photos of Mt Connor in the distance are taking on digital cameras from the bus window and subsequently deleted when people realize their mistake. You have to feel sorry for Mt Connor, in the shadow of it’s infamous rock neighbour, although looking like a large toothbrush, I’m sure that some photos remain. I remembered this event from my previous visit to the red center so was particularly amused by the excited picture taking on the bus.

Arriving at King’s Canyon at pretty much the hottest time of the day, we hiked the 5km (ish) Rim Walk, which started with the infamous ‘Heart Attack Hill’ - so named as the steep climb in the heat has claimed about 20 victims. The Garden of Eden was an oasis of different shades of green in amongst the red canyon walls and we swam in the murky waters of the pool with some huge tadpoles as swimming companions.

As usual, bush camping was the order of the day, rolling out our swags around the camp fire and staring up at the stars with bellies full of Camel Bolognese (veggies excluded).

Up with the dawn and off to The Olgas, known in the Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal language as Kata Tjuta - ‘Many Heads’. The many heads are 36 domes of conglomerate rock about 35 kms west of uluru and are a holy site for Aboriginal men under ‘Anangu’ or Men’s laws. Aboriginal women are not allowed on the sight, although concessions are made for female tourists! We walked the 7.5 km walk - the Valley of the Winds, passing 2 lookout points and rounding the domes. The highlight of the walk was the sighting of an ‘Ngintaka’ - Perentie goanna - the second largest lizard (The Komodo dragon being the largest). It had a spotted leathery looking body and long tongue and it skulked off into the bush when we got too close.

You can never really trust the guides in Oz. Knowing that there are so many bizarre creatures in the country, they take delight in fooling gullible tourists with stories of made-up creatures. i.e drop bears! Hence when our guide pointed to a small pit in the sand and explained that the pit is built by an ant-lion who sits at the bottom and waits for unsuspecting ants to walk in then flicks sand at them till they drop down into their waiting jaws - I simply didn’t believe it. But when we caught a small ant and dropped it into the pit, I watched with my cynical gaze as the struggling ant failed to climb the sides and then as sand started flicking up from the base of the pit till the ant disappeared. Even then in front of my eyes I was dubious. Finally, later on the walk, one of the ant-lions was dug out of his little hole and shown to us. Ok, now I believe it.

After the Olgas, we headed to Uluru for sunset.

At uluru we wondered around the visitor centre, learning about the Aboriginal Culture of the area. Our guide took us to see the stunning Aboriginal art at the Mutitjulu water-hole and told us Aboriginal stories about fighting snakes at uluru, explaining some of the cracks and features of the rock face. Then it was back to camp and our swags once more.

After a disappointing Uluru sunset, we emerged from our swags at stupid-o-clock to watch Uluru’s famous sunrise fire glow….

…which was also disappointing. (Having seen the glow before, I remembered how much better it could be). The Uluru climb was closed due to ‘High winds at the summit’, thus avoiding the need for us to face the moral dilemma of ‘To climb or not too climb’ and respect the Aboriginal request for visitors to stay off the rock. The base walk around the entire monolith turned out to be a 9.4 km trek in the heat of the day. Needing a pee half way round, we weren’t sure whether it was disrespectful or not to go near this sacred site but needs must and nature prevailed, besides I believe that the sacred areas are quite specific and mostly marked and fenced off.

With the Olgas and Uluru rock formations being so close (relatively) in such a barren area, you would imagine that they would be the same, however Uluru is actually course grained arkose sandstone containing the mineral felspar. It is actually dark grey in colour and the red colour comes from the natural weathering of rainwater and therefore the production of iron oxide.

The sacred sites for men and women around the rock have signs advising that no photography is allowed there and also that the stories regarding the sites are secret and only passed on to those that deserve the knowledge. We found this frustrating, as it would be fascinating to hear the cultural stories about the places and understand their significance. Some stories from the Tjukurpa (traditional laws) are public stories, and these are expounded in the visitor centre. One such story concerns the Woma python and her eggs fighting with Liru, the venomous snake. The Aboriginal painting for the story also contains paw prints of kurpany, a dog like creature and a particularly significant creature to the area - the Mala or rufus hare wallaby, but what the full story is - I have no idea!

Suddenly, on our journey back, our driver headed off the tarmac road and into the bush. He looked around the area and then stopped the bus in the middle of some barren scrub land. We were all curious as to the reason for our stop, as he stepped out the bus carrying an axe and shovel with the words “Witchetty bushes everywhere” It was a chance to sample some real Aboriginal style bush tucker.

You can see the places where witchetty grubs emerge from the ground by the small yellow looking shoots around the base of the buhes. The large moths lay their eggs, which live as larvae within the roots of the witchetty bush for 2-3 years before hatching out. They are very popular with Aboriginal people, either roasted in hot ashes of a fire or raw, straight from the ground.

After one unsuccessful attempt, our guide Shaun dug up another root and chopped into it with the axe. Sure enough we had 3 grubs for willing volunteers to sample. I have to admit that I wussed out. It wasn’t the though of eating a live grub but the description of it being like raw egg yolk that put me off. The willing and slightly pressed volunteers held their live grubs above their mouths and with a countdown of 3-2-1 they popped them in! Impressively enough, no one threw up!

Back in Alice Springs we spent a boozy Sunday session in Bojangles bar with Wild West style swinging saloon doors. The live webcams sent images of us propping up the bar across the globe. The toilets are meant to confuse both drunken and stone cold sober people by having handles on the hinge side of the door where you need to push, taps sending water into neighbouring faucets from the one you expect and the buttons on the hand dryers turning on alternative dryers from the one you expect.

We headed out to a Starry Night show at the Milky Way cafe, 12 km away from the light pollution of the town. Obviously the viewable sky differs throughout the year. Monday 20th November 8-10 pm saw Orion just rising and Sagitarius disappearing over the horizon. Those Zodiacal signs that could be seen were explained to us as well as other famous constellation such as the Seven Sisters (Pleiades) and Orion. The milky Way was low over the horizon and not viewable, neither were the Southern Cross, the rings of Saturn or any other planets, however we did see the Magellan clouds, the Tarantula Nebular, a Globular cluster, a binary and other specific red, blue and white stars through the powerful telescopes and binoculars.

Some famous constellations are reasonably obvious, whereas others require a huge amount of imagination. How my sign of Aries can be a ram from the 3 stars shown, I can’t comprehend. Jen was excited to see that the water vessel of her sign, Aquarius, actually looked a lot like an upside down martini glass!!

The moon had yet to rise and therefore provided an opportunity to see lots more stars then usual, and the night sky in such remote places on earth is a real bonus to traveling away from large inhabited cities, and is truly awe-inspiring.

We headed to Alice airport for our trip to Cairns and were requested by Qantas to be bumped and fly to Darwin for the night, free hotel and dinner and then fly to Cairns in the morning. Something to do with the heat and weight restrictions of the aircraft (Alice being officially 41 degrees Celsius) We had no accommodation booked and no pressing engagement in Cairns, so why not save the price of a night’s dinner and accommodation so we said OK. We hoped that the Qantas room would be better than a hostel, and still be in Cairns for 9 am Wednesday morning - in plenty of time for our Diving trip departing on Saturday.

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Photos

Many Heads
under a blue sky

Kata Tjuta
The Olgas

Ngintaka
The Perentie lizard

Ant Lion
...so it does really exist

Witchetty Grub
Yum Yum !!

Jen Dancing in Bo's
Doing her impression of a hair product advert

Our group at Bojangles
Going out live over the WWW

Nebula
Where stars are born (courtesy of staff at the Milky Way cafe. Alice Springs)

The Southern Cross
(courtesy of staff at the Milky Way cafe, Alice Springs)

Disappointing Aries
How can you make a Ram from those 4 stars??

Aquarius - The Water Carrier
with his Martini glass!