But He Doesn't Know the Territory!

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We spent our first night in the Northern Territory at the Threeways Roadhouse, at the junction of the Stuart and Barkly Highways, 27 kilometres north of Tennant Creek. We were in a motel unit, with shadecloth for a fly screen, a rattly, loud air conditioner and inoperable reading lights as someone had thoughtfully removed the globes.

Moving on to our first real stop, we headed south to Alice Springs, with a stop for a quick look at the Overland Telegraph Station at Barrow Creek and a glance at the Devil’s Marbles. There is a huge amount of popular history in the Northern Territory – what with The Ghan, the Overland Telegraph, John Flynn and of course all the early explorers and well-intentioned missionaries.

As we approached Alice we also noticed that the so-called red centre is at the moment something of a red-and-green centre. There has been a good deal of rain – Ormiston Gorge last year had its third highest total since 1972 - and the country looks good for it.

At Alice Springs we visited the Desert Park, a few kilometres out of town. It’s quite a fantastic place, with kilometres of paths through the various local climatic zones, and numerous talks given by the staff through the day. The highlight was the “Birds of Prey” talk, with birds zooming low around the audience seemingly on cue, and a recalcitrant owl that showed his face but “wouldn’t zoom if you put forty thousand volts through ‘im”.

We enjoyed the aboriginal culture talk, too. The guide demonstrated some tools and fire making and spear-throwing, then explained some of the rules for the conduct of the tribal unit – how disputes were settled, how the increase in the population in the tribe was managed, what the roles of each member of the tribe were and how they were kept busy all the time.

What he didn’t explain was how these rules fit with the large number of derelict aborigines that hang around Heavitree Gap, just south of Alice, sitting in the dirt, often drinking, never doing anything. There are warnings everywhere about taking alcohol or pornography into prohibited areas, and no alcohol can be bought without having your photo id scanned, so clearly there is a lot of government intervention, but equally clearly it’s not the entire answer.

We bought some booze in one of the shopping malls, queuing up with a lot of smelly, furtive-looking aborigines who clearly didn’t want to be subjected to the scrutiny of the shopping process but, judging by the way they clutched their bottles of cheap wine, were prepared to endure the humiliation to achieve the end result.

The MacDonnell Ranges – east and west of Alice Springs – were a fantastic trip out of the town. We went east to Trephina Gorge, Corroboree Rock and the Jessie and Emily Gaps. We went west 130 kilometres to Ormiston Gorge.

Ormiston Gorge is very scenic. Similar to Trephina, there is a walk that takes you up around the rim of the gorge and then down into it, following the creek-bed back while staring up at the sheer rock walls of the gorge. Ormiston’s walk, and especially the views from the top of the gorge, was fantastic.

Working our way back from Ormiston Gorge, we dropped in at a couple of other lesser sights then lastly walked out to Standley Chasm. Named after Ida Standley, not for her invention of the Ida Knife but for her role as the first school teacher in Alice Springs, it is a privately-owned park, and a bit steep at $10 a head to walk up a rough track to the chasm. When you get there, though, the rock formation is pretty special. Apparently it’s really good about an hour either side of noon, when the red-orange stone walls of the chasm are lit up by the overhead sun. Funnily enough that’s also when it’s filled with photographers.

Kings Canyon is another incredibly beautiful spot, a few hours drive south west. The Rim Walk took us up to the top of the canyon walls then 6 kilometres around the top, with red stone everywhere, either forming the vertical walls of the canyon, or piled up into hundreds of “beehives” ten or fifteen metres high. From the top looking down, or the bottom looking up the scenery is fantastic.

While the canyon itself is just brilliant, the accompanying Kings Canyon Resort is an exercise in extracting maximum cash out of defenceless travellers, with fuel at $2.09 a litre and everything else in proportion.

We went down to the “sunset viewing platform” to have a look at the setting sun reflecting on the cliffs of the range, along with quite a crowd of other travellers – a mixture of keen photographers, family groups and some couples enjoying the romantic atmosphere before heading up for their $7.50 VB’s and expensive barbecued fatty chunks of meat. There were quite a few European accents there, and quite a few Asians.

Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park, better known to us old people as Ayers Rock and The Olgas, finished off our dash through the Territory. The Rock itself is amazing, from the time you first see it from about 40 kilometres away. It never seems to move, and it never seems to get any bigger, until suddenly you realize that it is taking up most of the landscape.

This Rock is everywhere. We saw it at sunset. We got up early and saw it at sunrise. We walked around the base of it, a 10 kilometre jaunt with the jolly red giant staring constantly at you from over your right shoulder.

Maybe more scenic is Kata Tjuta, about 60 kilometres away. We drove out and walked into the Valley of the Winds, Walpa Gorge and a few other places and quite enjoyed it.

Then, to make sure we hadn’t missed a centimetre, we took a chopper flight. A great way to get some perspective on the whole outback thing, we flew out past Uluru and Kata Tjuta. It wasn’t the landmarks so much as the space in between that told the story. A salt lake on one horizon, South Australia on another, Western Australia on yet another. Not much else to see, apart from scrub and red dirt.

There is also a strong emphasis on the cultural and historic aspects of the site, well displayed in the Cultural Centre. They actively discourage people from climbing the Rock – maybe they’re afraid of losing revenue, but if they don’t like people doing it I don’t see why they don’t just ban it altogether. It’s either a sacred site or it’s not.

Anyway, enough of this rambling, we’re now heading south – should hit Coober Pedy sometime soon. Stay tuned.

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Photos

Threeways Roadhouse
Note shadecloth fly screen

Comments

[Jeanette and Chris Andrews]

NT - Wow !!!
Great comments and fabulous photographs - good to hear all is still going well and you will both be so fit. Keep travelling safely.