Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Monday 8th December
Today I got collected by Adventure Tours at 5 am, a very early start! It was still dark when Brett, our tour leader, loaded us up onto the bus before setting off on our 6 day trip through the Australian outback to Adelaide. Today we were going to be covering 850 km to get from Alice Springs to Ulara (our overnight stop) via Kings Canyon. This might seem like a huge distance to many people but, in reality, it covers only a tiny part of Australia. Dawn was rising as we pulled out of Alice Springs, producing a beautiful red sky, while patched of low-lying cloud were resting at eye-level along the main road. This area of the Northern Territory is classed as semi-arid and what is more striking is the red colour of the landscape. This is due to the very high iron content of the soil. It is mainly used for cattle stations which began after the installation of the main telegraph line by a Scot called John Stewart, after whom the main highway stretching from North to South is named. After he died a man named Todd visited Alice Springs to complete the installation of this line. At the time Alice Springs was called Stewart but Todd renamed the town after his wife, Alice. The native aboriginals were nomadic and lived off the land. When the white men arrived with their cattle, these natives got very confused and, thinking these slow animals were easy food, they began to kill them for their families. The white men therefore began to throw the aboriginals out of the land or shot them for theft. In fact it was only until 1960 that the aboriginal people were no longer classed as animals. Up until that point it was legal for any white man to shoot a native on sight...and people wonder why there is so much hatred towards white men from the aboriginal population! There are many aboriginal groups scattered across Australia with over 250 dialects spoken, but their traditional way of life is gradually getting lost. The majority now live in communities out in the bush, which could number between 50 and 2,000 people, and they generally prefer to be left to their own devices. Our first stop of the day was at the River Finke, named after its founder, William Finke, in the 18th century when he was attempting to reach the West coast. Due to the huge, and very unusual, amount of rainfall in the last month - the most this area has seen since 1964 - the flow of this river was very large. We then made a quick fuel stop at a place called Eirunda where there were a couple of captive emus, before heading on to Kings Canyon. Luckily for us, it was a beautiful day. The previous three tours to this area had got stuck in the recent floods, but it was hard to believe it when we reached our lunch stop. After lunch we began a 6 km walk around the north and south rims of the canyon. After a 100m ascent up the rather aptly named Heart Attack Hill, we began our walk along the ridge past a scenery of beehive domes, waterfalls and a strangely lush Garden of Eden. After about 4 hours spent wandering around these rock formations, we hopped back on the bus, a little hot and weary, for a 4 hour drive back to our campsite. We eventually arrived after a few cow obstacles, cooked some dinner on the BBQ and went to sleep in our huts, exhausted after a very long and active day.
Tuesday 9th December
Brett woke us at 4.30 am in order to catch the sunsrise at Uluru, more commonly known as Ayers Rock. This is apparently the most popular tourist destination in Australia, with millions visiting it every year. Uluru has great cultural and spiritual significance to the local aboriginal tribes, acting almost as a church. The Australian government had originally given the land to the aboriginals to use as they pleased, but in the 1950s, when they realised that they could make a lot of money through tourism at the rock, they chucked them out of the land. In 1985 the government, in apology for their actions, returned the land to its traditional inhabitants but with a 99 year lease over the national park. Unfortunately sunrise at Uluru is very similar to a cattle market with way over 50 buses packed into the car park and, although the dawn was very beautiful, personally it wasn't worth all the fuss. The rangers had closed the hill climb due to windy weather conditions so the whole group set off on the 10 km base walk. In fact the aborginals ask that tourists do not climb the rock firstly because they view it as a sacred place where their ancestors walked and secondly because it is a very dangerous climb (over 30 people have died there). Ayers Rock stands at 348m above se-level and has many holes on its sides, created by wind and water erosion. Despite the Lonely Planet raving about the base walk, I got rather bored and so raced around in just over an hour. To me it really was just a rock! After a brief trip to the aboriginal cultural centre, we made our way out to Kata Tjuta ("many heads"), aka The Olgas. This is a striking group of domed rocks which dominate the landscape. Tourists are forbidden from climbing this area due to its very strong cultural significance. We were planning to do a walk however through the Valley of the Winds. On the drive there, we discovered that the rangers were closing the main section of this hike due to severe weather conditions, but as we arrived just over 15 minutes before it shut, Brett decided to go ahead with it anyway. This 5.5 km walk was not too arduous but the valley definitely lived up to its name with strong winds blowing in from all directions. We were rewarded with some fantastic views of the surrounding desert at the top, well worth all the effort. Tired and hungry, we returned to our camp for lunch and a spent a few of the afternoon hours chilling out beside the swimming pool. In the late afternoon we returned to the rock to complete another short walk before sunset. This was called the Mala Walk ("mala" means a small wallaby) and contained many features that were part of the aboriginal traditional stories about the rock's formation. According to legend, it was formed by 2 boys making mudcastles. The lines that are now visible down the rocks sides were apparently where these boys slid down to the ground. Along the way there were various sacred men and women sections into which, in the ancient times, the opposite sex were not allowed to enter. The women's secion was also thought to increase fertility There were several pieces of aborignal art work on the rocks along the path as well as the "wave rock", a hollow barrel totally eroded by the surrounding wind. At the end of the walk was a watering hole surrounded by the rock's sheer slopes, a sacred place used by the natives for ceremonies. By the time we had returned to the bus it was time to head off to the sunset viewing point. This was the same circus ground as there had been at the sunrise, with hoards of people gathered around the car park. We were treated to some sparkling wine, biscuits and dips while the sun set and the rock changed from red to dark, looking fairly ominous by the end. It was a lot more spectacular than the morning's experience with various lightning storms flashing on the horizon and 2 rainbows appeared over the top of the rock...it was awesome! Afterwards, we returned to the camp for dinner and an early night.
- comments