The Australian Outback and Dreamtime

The signs about say it all. The Northern Territory outback is supposed to be some of the roughest country in Australia--tales of mass aboriginal murders, counter attacks on colonizers and cattle breeders and "explorers" and rather harsh weather at times have created a certain "don't mess with me"-ness about the place. The best example is in nature itself--the spinifex grass found throughout this area is called porcupine grass and with good reason as I found out charging my way through to see a few boulders and crying out all kinds of obscenities at the sudden sensation of one hundred needles being poked into skin.

But that of course comes with its own charms.

I decided that rather than fly directly between Darwin and Alice Springs (which most people encourage because there is very little in that 1500km that holds the interest of most tourists) that it would be interesting to see how the weather and ecosystems change as you head straight north down the Stuart Highway--a straight, 2 lane highway that runs straight from Darwin to Adelaide. First, we stopped off at Katherine Gorge in Nitmiluk National Park--with 13 gorges formed over the last 1-2 billion years of volcanic activity and eroson due to sea water ingression over time. We decided to kayak to at least the first three gorges but it took us so long to get to the first gorge, we had to turn around and head back before the park shut down--sadly, this isn't the most impressive of the gorges by any stretch, but with 1000 more km to cover in two days we had to get moving.

The next day, we stopped off in Daly Waters--permanent population of...five. Yes, that's right. And my guess is that all five of them work at the only pub in Daly Waters (which is also the post office, gas station, and supermarket, and likely also houses the local government, although I didn't ask. At least having the town meetings when beer is readily available would make for lively sessions when discussing what to do about the exploding cow problem. Although exploding cows could be interesting enough in themselves, really). It had Australia's first international airport (with the tarmac brilliantly built from termite mounds, as it was the only material they could find that could handle the torrential rains of the wet season). The inside of the pub is a wild international mishmash of old ID;s badges, tshirts, racy women's underwear, not so racy men's underpants all hanging from the ceiling--it seems every person from all parts of the world that made their way through Daly Waters left their mark (if you ever make it to this pub, I left a little US Liberty Bell stamp with my name on it by the first window at the entrance.)

Our last day, we headed out to Devil's Marbles, a place of great cultural significance to "Dreamtime" for the aboriginals, when the world was first being created--the marbles themselves are believed to be the eggs of a rainbow serpent during creation. The aboriginals also believe that there are secret people who steal their children away. One of the placards at the park had this quote from a Senior Tradition Owner:
"They're real people, like us. You can see them. A long time ago I went with my billycan down to the creek here to get some water. One of these secret people came out and started playing with me. I couldn't go away. My mother came and got me, saved me. After that we never camped at this place again, never. They're kind, these secret people, but they can make you mad. They can change you into one of them. They can say "follow me" and you can't go back. If happened like that for my cousin. He disappeared. The old people made a big ceremony, singing the ground and the rocks to make them let me cousin come back. We've lost that song now. We have no song to bring the children back."

This area was another that is hundreds of millions of years old--volcanic activity pushed the granite layers to the top, and the top sandstone layers eroded over time, exposing the granite layer. In the meantime, cracks formed in the earth, allowing water to trickle in and push apart the granite layers with deeper and deeper fissures. Once the layer was exposed, sand, wind, and rain eroded the granite layer, forming these gigantic boulders that are scattered throughout the landscape.

Our final stop on our tour down to Alice was to Wycliffe Well, the top spot to see a UFO, if you are alien-minded. The petrol station decided to make a business out of it and has developed a mini alien devotional, with play aliens, and articles covering the walls of their little station with purported sightings (it is worth noting that this place, like Roswell, is close to a military base so while there is the possiblity of little green aliens trying to mess with our heads, it is probably more likely that people are witnessing some kind of secret testing.)

We arrived in Alice just at dusk, and I'm now gearing up for the next foray out into Uluru and King's Canyon...

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