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Published: February 26th 2005
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Ayers Rock scenery
This is near a water hole, therefore there is a little greenery around. Most of the landscape is quite dry and arid. Sorry we haven't been in touch with Travelblog lately, but we've been roughing it in the Outback and just got back to civilization (meaning our beautiful ship!) yesterday. We have covered a LOT of territory. Australia is roughly the same size and shape as the US. Our tour guide compared our travels the last 4 days to starting in NY, flying to Colorado, then taking a hop up to Michigan, and ending up in Canada.
Some more interesting facts: the population of the US is about 280 million. The population of Australia is 20 million, with 85% living in or near Sydney, the largest city. Most of the rest live in several large cities around the coast. The rest - a mere handful - live in the enormous interior. In Alice Springs, one of the largest towns in the interior (pop about 27,000) we visited The School of the Air, which is an extensive home schooling radio/tv facility set up for isolated station (ranch) families in the Outback. It serves an area of thousands of square miles (it takes 2 sq miles to support one cow). This school, for ages 6-12, serves only 119 children. (High school students go to
Ayers Rock
This is the scene most often shown in pictures - the bare rock sprining up from the desert floor. It's about 5 miles around the base. It's possible to climb it on one of the slopes, but this is not encouraged as the entire rock is sacred for the Aborigines. And the climbing slope was closed when we were there because temp was over 100 degrees. Not many of us were seriously disappointed! residential schools.) Not very many kids, considering they are as much as 1000 miles apart.
More facts: Australia is the flattest continent on earth, with a few mountains along the east coast. Eons ago the interior was high as the Himalayas, but the mountains eroded into a flat inland sea basin with a large expanse of salt flats, like Utah. The last remainders of the mountain ranges are Ayers Rock and “The Olgas,” which are monster rock formations 1000 feet high that rise straight up out of the desert floor in the center of the country. They only cover a few square miles, so they are very striking indeed. The Aborigines, who have been in Australia for something like 40,000 years, consider them sacred and have legends that explain every crack and crevice, especially on Ayers Rock.
Anyway. There were 28 of us from the ship who made the 4-day overland trip to the Bush and out again to the coast at Darwin. After leaving Sydney on the east coast of Australia, we sailed up the coast to Hamilton Island (Great Barrier Reef) and Cairns in the northeast. There we left the ship and flew to Ayers Rock
Dick and the Olga Rocks
This formation is a few miles from Ayers Rock, bigger but not more impressive. About 19 miles around the base. Dick has on his fly netting, which was essential. The "Aussie Salute" is that characteristic flycatching gesture across the face to ward off flies. for a day of sightseeing and hiking in 100-plus temperatures. The worst part was the sand flies, which were so bad we had to wear fly netting over our hats. There were a handful of hotels in the Ayers Rock community, which is a company town administered by the resort development company which is the sole provider of amenities like water, sewage and electricity. Near the Rock is a community of Aborigines who live more or less as they have for quite a long while - and who don’t like tourists, so we didn’t see much of them, aside from a cultural center with art and other artifacts. We had a BBQ dinner in the desert out under the stars after watching Ayers Rock in the sunset. (Thankfully, the flies went to bed early).
The next day we flew to Alice Springs, really in the heart of Australia. We toured the town and that evening rode out to a camel farm where we (or most of us) had a 45-minute camel ride out in the desert. (Camels were imported many years ago, as only marsupials are native to Australia.) Then we dined on bush tucker like kangaroo sausage and
Aboriginal Cave Art
This was seen among the Olga Rocks. Not necessarily all that ancient, as the Aborigines still make drawings very similar to this and still use these sites for ritual purposes. We saw some of their modern art work in museums and cultural centers, and it was strikingly beautiful. smoked camel, plus a few side dishes that I frankly found more palatable.
Next morning it was up at 4:00 am to ride hot air balloons in the desert. There were 3 of them pulled on rigs behind the vans we rode in, and we earned our ride by helping the little crew inflate and then deflate the balloons after the ride. Takeoff was great, but the landings were iffy and one of them turned over on its side as it was dragging across the desert floor, but fortunately nobody was hurt. The ride was of course beautiful, with the sun coming up and kangaroos hopping about under us.
Finally, we flew on to Darwin, on the “Top End” north coast of Australia, where we rejoined the Crystal Serenity after touring the city (about 100,000) and taking a short boat cruise down a local river to see the famous jumping crocodiles. They did indeed jump their entire length out of the water, to snatch pork chop bait the crew held out on long poles. Darwin was a typical tropical coastline city, with abundant greenery and rainfall. Quite a contrast with the interior! Its name comes from Charles Darwin.
School of the Air in Alice Springs
This was a mural on the entrance wall to the School of the Air building. It had a staff of professional teachers who were busy televising the day's lessons, using a couple of local children as representative students. He never visited there, but the captain of the HMS Beagle was his good friend and admirer, and he named the harbor after Darwin when he discovered it in 1838, so they say.
We’re on our way now to Brunei, which is a small Muslim nation on the same subcontinent as Borneo and Malaysia. More later, as we're going to be late for the morning lecture if I don’t stop. . . . Mary and Dick
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