Advertisement
Published: January 23rd 2010
Edit Blog Post
We were woken early by a chorus of brightly coloured parrots in the trees around us and, after some breakfast, jumped in the bruck to explore Palm Valley. The road that took us further into the park could barely be described as such and we had to leave the trailer behind as we bumped over the large uneven rocks. We even had to jump out and watch Ian ease the bruck over some particularly bad patches and you can see a video I took of one of them here:
Eventually, and to much relief, we reached the car park and climbed out to start our now customary early morning bush walk. Palm Valley is the only place in Central Australia where various palm trees can grow due to some semi-permanent pools in the base of the valley that provide just enough water for them to survive. It is not until Queensland, 850 km away in the tropical north of Australia that you will find palms again.
After looking at the information board in the car park we decided to take the shorter of two paths around the valley, slathered ourselves in sunscreen and set
off on the loop. We climbed the nearby cliff face, spotting some lizard tracks in the sand along the way and stood for a while looking out over the surrounding area with it's luscious green palm trees. The walk took us along the top of the gorge for a while before descending into the heart of the valley amongst the trees and small water holes. It was quite bizarre being in such an arid and blisteringly hot landscape yet surrounded by palm trees, dragonflies, frogs and other wildlife that you would associate with wetter areas. We walked back towards the car park while keeping an eye out for snakes in the thick grass around the base of the valley. By now the day had really started to heat up so we decided to head out of Palm Valley and hit the road towards our next stop, Hermannsburg.
Ian had mentioned a couple of times throughout the tour that he wanted to give us a balanced view of the Aboriginal issue while we were in the outback. He had told us a lot about Aboringal history, the close relationship with the land that the people had always maintained and how
poorly they had been treated by white Australians in the past, whilst also trying not to ignore the negative things that you do hear about substance abuse and a reluctance to integrate into modern society. I'm not going to try and debate the whole issue now but I will say that I have realised that it is a far more complicated debate than I had first realised.
Hermannsburg is a small town that is almost entirely populated by Aboriginals. It was originally establised as a Lutheran missionary town in 1877 and was named after the area in Germany where the two missionaries had trained. Ever since, the town has been largely Aboriginal and was officially handed back to the people in 1982. They now receive a lot of funding from the government for things such as housing, cars and welfare. We discussed with Ian how this sometimes causes problems with local white people who are often poor and working class themselves but receive far less help. As we pulled into the town it looked very run down and it was clear as we climbed out of the bruck at the petrol station that the dilapidated conditions, feral looking dogs
and locals' curious stares were making several members of the group feel a little uneasy. We all went into the shop to grab a cold drink while Ian bought some extra supplies for lunch. We walked to a little picnic area across from the petrol station and made our sandwiches while trying to keep the unhealthy looking dogs away from us and the food. When we asked Ian why a white guy was running the shop in an Aboriginal town he explained that the owners had originally employed Aboriginals but then changed their policy. "Nappergy, Nappergy" is a traditional Aboriginal saying meaning "What's mine is yours" and a lot of the modern Aboriginals still live by this mentality. While this sounds positive it does not always work. Ian mentioned an Aboriginal friend of his who has a job and an apartment and often finds distant relatives and friends on his doorstep asking for money every pay day. It was this mentality that changed the shop owner's policy on employment. The Aboriginals who were employed in the shop simply let their friends and family take things for free and didn't understand why this was a problem. Although the town wasn't a
particularly nice place to be it was interesting to see and provided another insight into a complicated and very sensitive issue.
After lunch we took a walk through the original missionary buildings that have now been fenced off and are protected by The National Trust.
We then drove onto Gosses Bluff, a crater formed when a meteor hit earth around 140 million years ago. We pulled up into the car park in the blazing afternoon heat and piled out of the bruck. We stood around for a few minutes applying sunscreen and generally feeling the effects of the intense sun and the previous eight days of trekking combined and quickly made an executive decision to snap a few photos of the crater and give the bush walk around the base of it a miss. It was seriously hot and I think everyone was glad we were heading to a water hole for a swim next!
We drove for a little way until we reached Red Bank Gorge where we parked and made the short walk to a gorgeous little water hole that was shielded from the sun by steep rock walls. Most people changed into swimming gear
for a quick dip but Amy and I settled for lazing by the edge and dipping our feet in the lovely cool water.
After an hour or so we left and headed for our final camping site of the tour on the way to Alice Springs. We drove until nearly sunset along the dusty highway until Ian spotted a clearing in the bush and simply swerved off the road. One of the things I loved about the tour was the fact that, rather than having to head to a hostel for the night, when we got tired we just turned off the road and camped where we saw fit. While a couple of the guys set up a fire for dinner the rest of us set up our swags for the last time and watched the sun go down over the scrub before tucking into some food and heading to bed.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.096s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 11; qc: 29; dbt: 0.064s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb