Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We are sitting in the little airport lounge waiting for our flight to Perth and reflecting on our stay in the outback of central Australia. We are so pleased we came here to experience the more remote areas and get a glimpse of what it was/is like to live in such an extreme environment.
A few facts I wanted to get down before I forget.
Last night we had a dinner in the desert starting with fizz and canapés (our first taste of crocodile!) whist watching the sun set with Uluru in one direction and The Olgas in the other. We then had a starlight dinner all beautifully presented by our Australian hosts followed by a talk from an astronomer and a chance to look through a couple of powerful telescopes. We were show how to find the Southern Cross (not as easy as our North Star) and then taken on a guided tour of the skies above us. Conditions were perfect with a clear night and no light pollution. The sky really did twinkle with millions of stars. The most amazing fact I remember is not that our galaxy contains more stars in it than there are grains of sand on earth but that there are more galaxies in the universe than there are grains of sand on earth. That really does make you feel small and there must be other life forms out there somewhere?
The other bit of trivia is to do with boomerangs. There are many different types of boomerang for different hunting situations. There is only one that is a returning boomerang like the style familiar to us. This design is used as a decoy when hunting wild fowl. It is not for killing or felling prey but is thrown out above flocks of wild fowl that are on the water in an attempt to mimic the flight of a bird of prey. The fowl take fright and fly towards other hunters who are ready with heavier boomerangs that are designed to kill or stun. This style of hunting is not carried out if course by the desert aborigines as no water. They use their own type of boomerangs along with spears and sharpened flints for catching kangaroos and other smaller mammals. The men hunt for meat and the women gather seeds, fruits, berries roots and grubs. It's pretty much all hand to mouth with no storage if food due to the heat and nomadic life style.
Well our flight is about to be called, we are particularly excited about this one as we were for the first time offered the seat with more leg room. We do have to take charge of the emergency exit though so no snoozing on the job.
See you in Perth
- comments
Min That supper under the stars and talk sound wonderful.Quite humbling really to think how insignificant we are within all those galaxies out there.Hope you had a good flight and enjoy Perth.