A Taste of Outback Culture

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I went back to slumming it on a back-packers' tour to see King's Canyon. The tour company offered a choice of a three day tour to Uluru and King's Canyon or a two day tour just to King's Canyon. They did this by taking the two day people with the three day people and leaving them at a pub on the way to Uluru where then would then get picked up by the trip which was a day ahead and on its way to King's Canyon.

I was the only person who wanted to do this, so I got dropped off on my own in the middle of no where.

Whatever your views on Aboriginal rights, they sometimes don't do themselves any favours. Probably due to their way of life becoming obsolete and them being forced into a culture to which they cannot adapt, many of them have basically turned to the bottle in a big way. Large groups of them spend the day getting ratted, whether it be on the dry river bed at Alice Springs or in pubs like this. They were getting into huge arguments with the pub's owner who, for some strange reason, was not prepared to give them any alcohol without them paying for it.

Controversy aside, it was a long wait until the next bus turned up and I eventually joined a group on their way from Uluru to the place we were going to spend the night, Wellera Ranch. This was the outback culture at its most extreme. It was exactly like the pub in Walkabout Creek (as in Crocodile Dundee) but with a lot more character. They had a rule that, when playing Pool, if you potted the white then your underwear ended up hanging from the ceiling, which was covered with pairs of grots in various states of cleanliness.

The group I had joined up with were fantastic and after some serious drinking we settled down for the night under the stars in a 'swag', which is basically a rolled-up canvas and sleeping bag.

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Photos

Wallera Ranch
An outback ranch, complete with underpants