P-J's Trip Home - Central Australia
So I am the First one of the Four Amigo's to return home! How sad for me, but i am not coming straight there! I am leaving via Alice Springs and Uluru, then a quick stop over at New Zealand before i start my next big adventure, with Kathryn, travelling Asia.
These Pages has been set up for me to blog on my travels and i have my own Photos Folder for Pictures i take!
Alice Springs -
So here I am sat in Alice Springs! Kathryn and I left Melbourne this afternoon via Tiger Airways. Our tickets cost us $30 each (which is around GBP13), for a flight the equivalant of flying to the Costa Del Sol! At Melbourne Airport we were dropped off at terminal 3 and expected to check in there, but to our suprise Tiger Airways was nowhere to be seen! We asked a Virgin Blue staff member where it was and we started on a trek down to flights of stairs, out of the terminal building and walked 500m to a new building that was not connected to the main terminals and therefore meant we had one of the shops to pass the time in! As we checked in and went through baggage check we were asked if we had any aerosols in our luggage which we both said no to (Kathryn saying it very convincingly), unfortunately Kathryn did have an aerosol can in her bag, so they made her take back her bag and take it out! Then as were given the all clear to carry on, Kathryn got bomb searched for looking like a terrorist, haha not really for looking like a terrorist but for being Female as it proved the checkers were checking all the women and none of the guys. which brings up the question, if they only check women why is Osama so scared to fly anywhere? The flight itself was uneventfull until right near the end where we suffered the worst turbulance i have ever experienced on a plane and it actually felt like a rollercoaster ride on the way into Alice Springs!
Alice Springs is the heart of Red Australia, it is the closest town to the centre of Australia enjoying summer all year round with temperatures rarely dropping below 20C. Alice Springs is known as 'The Gateway to Uluru' even though it is still a good 800km away! Alice Springs is situated on the Todd River but looking at it you would wonder why they call it a River at all as there is no water running along it, that is because the water is actually running underground to avoid being evapourated, Alice Springs is home to the only Boat Race in the world that is actually cancelled if water is flowing in the river!
DAY 1 - 500AM isnt a myth it is a real time! And that is what time i woke up to get ready for our tour. We had packed everything ready for the trip on the previous night so it was just a quick 'get our stuff together and check out' senario before helping ourselves to a free breakfast and cup of tea as we waited to be picked up at 615AM. Our tour bus arrived on time and i threw my bag into the trailer while Kathryn brought hers onto the bus, we were second to last pickup so only the front seat behind the driver was available so that we could sit next to each other, which would turn out to be the best seats on the bus! Our first stop was to the company office to finalise anything for the trip, like park fees and extra water, before back on the bus and on our way! Well almost as the bus driver had to go back to our hostel as some dimwit had left their phone there, so once I got my phone we were off and away!
Our Bus Driver/Tour Guide was called Dom, (and he would slowly become the best damn tour guide anyone on the bus has ever experienced, which is why sitting behind him were the best seats as we were closest to his magic!) and the bus was called Bob. Dom did a brief introductory to himself and the itinerary for the next few hours, which was pretty much drive for two hours before we stop to refuel and go to the toilet. So the journey began with my ipod pumping out some soft tunes for people to fall asleep to until we arrived at our first destination of Erldunda.
The trip to Erldunda was interupted on the way by a dead kangaroo in the middle of the road. Dom pulled over and got out to drag the kangaroo out of the way behind the bus, which of course created jokes about finding dinner for tonight! When Dom got back on he explained to us that he moved the kangaroo for three reasons:-
1. It is dangerous to drivers as it could cause an accident.
2. If it was a female there could have been a Joey in the pouch that was not killed, therefore he would take it to keep it alive - He had already saved 8 or 9 Joey's since he started 10months ago (which promted Kathryn to actually want to find one so she could hold it and wrap it in MY hoodie, not hers but mine! fortunately for us we didnt find any joeys
3. The Wedge Tailed Eagle is the main predator in Central Australia and fears nothing, so if it was in the middle of the road eating a dead kangaroo it would not fly away until the last second with the likelihood of it also getting hit and killed, which is made worse by the fact that Wedge Tailed Egles mate for life so if one of the pair got killed the partner would starve itself to death!
(Wedge Tailed Eagle - 2m wingspan!)
We arrived at Erldunda after 2 hours of driving listening to Um bop by Hanson which Dom found on my Ipod, which woke everyone up from there slumber quite nicely for a quick sing-a-long. Erldunda is a roadhouse, petrol station with bar and shop, which are common across Australia and I have visited a fair few in previous travels but none with a 10ft Echidnia and Lizard in a cage! We had a brief stay at Erldunda, enough time to use the loo and get some biscuits and a lolly for Kathryn, and we hit the road again. This time Dom started to talk to us more now that we were all awake and he made us each take it in turn to introduce ourselves to the group, which is a common thing to do on tours. I couldnt remember everyone's name but I do remember that (not counting the 3 people sat at the front - Me, Kathryn and an Brummie called Ben) I had been in Australia longer than all of them put together! After this we started a game called the finger pointing game, which I will baffle you with and teach you all when I see you, which no one got the method to the game until the dinner after the tour!
Our next main stop, the first part of our adventure, was King's Canyon. King's Canyon is a relativley new attraction to tourists as it was only recently discovered (compared to Uluru). King's Canyon was created by an earthquake millions of years ogo. There is a 6km hike up and across the top of the canyon to the other side abd down again, in the middle is a permanent waterhole known as 'The Garden of Eden' which is home to Gum trees and Palm trees, both of which require alot of water but are surviving in the desert here! This is because King's Canyon is made from sandstone with a layer of shale in it. Sandstone is permable so allows water to soak into it. but the shale in impermable so it collects the rainfall and creates pools of water underground for the trees to use for nutriemts and sustained growth. The palm trees within the the garden are over 300 years old but are only about 2ft tall!
(King's Canyon) (Heart Attcack Hill) (Garden of Eden)
Luckily for us we got to do the walk around the top, which conveniently started with the steepest part of the trek, a slope known as 'Heart Attack Hill', as we started the climb it was 42C in the shade so around 52C in the sun, which is where we were! The climb was exhausting but we all made it alive, just and wandered around the top of the canyon, stopping in the shade to be told stories by Dom about the wildlife and plants and also Aboriginal stories, in fact one of these stops was to tell us that Aboriganies prefer to be called Black Fellas as that is the name for themselves translated into English and the word Aboriginal is actually racist to them, so from now on I will refer to them as Black Fellas.
One of the stories is about the Black Fellas belief of 'Do as your told, Dont ask why', which is kind of their life motto and is taught to children from day one (and can be seen as a moral in most of the stories I put here), this stroy is also about the level of punishment for doing things wrong:-
Three youngs black fellas are each taught how to hunt, one day an elder gathers the three boys and tells them he wants them to go out and bring back a kangaroo rembering to do the three things he has taught them to catch one. when the boys return the first two present the elder with a kangaroo and the elder asks them did they do the three things to catch the kangaroo, in which both boys reply yes and he congratulates them. The third boy also returns with a kangaroo but he only did the first 2 things and instead of doing the third thing he used his own initiative to catch the kangaroo, he tells this to the elder who is not happy and gives him the punishment for such a deed, he spears the boy through the leg!
The walk around to the Garden of Eden took around 90 mins and in the sun that was hard work, luckily for the second part of the journey it began to cloud over and thunderstorms brewed around us so the walk was slightly easier to bare, we walked along the North side of the canyon with cliff face of over 100m. On the journey back Dom showed us a rock that had been used to sharpen spears by the black fellas for thousands of years, the indent in the rock was about 10cm long by 3 cm wide abd 2 cm deep and had been carved out by wood alone, which tells us that it is thousands of years old, and in the words of Dom 'Should be in a museum but for reason it is still sitting here'! Next was a gentle slope down back to the carpark and it was now 3hrs from when we started the climb!
Our next stop was to collect firewood for our camp fire later on before heading to a bottleshop and then onto the campsite, well i say 'site' loosely it was more of a field that we were allowed to build a fire in and camp! So we set up the camp and build the fire and then Dom started to cook us a Chilli con Carne, Rice and Vegetables, aparently this was 'Bush Tucker'! but it sure was delicious! Then it was time to get into our swags to sleep under the stars. A swag is basically a large canvas sleeping bag, and being kind the tour company had put a mattress inside it. Although this was comfortable, the ants crawling over us all night were not as delightful and we ended up not sleeping and moving around the camp, all through the night, to try and get away from them!
(The Campfire)
DAY 2 - We were woken by Dom at 515AM, Dom had already made a fire and had started cooking toast for us all, while evryone rolled up thier swags (and thier girlfriends swags if they were lucky like me)! We were on the bus by 6am and on our way to the Uluru and Kata Tjuta National Park, but first was a stop at Yulanda where a nice camping resort was so we could have a quick toilet stop and Dom could sign us in for tonight. Before long we were back on the bus and heading to the park to get our tickets and make our way yo our first activity, a hke around Kate Tjuta. The drive from the park entrance to Kata Tjuta was long so we didnt arrive until 845AM, it's a blooming HUGE National Park!
(Kata Tjuta) (Me on the Trek)
Kata Tjuta is massive, it actually stands 200m higher than Uluru at its highest Dome. It's western name is 'The Olgas' as the explorer who found them was in love with a princess named Olga, so he named a formation of rocks after her (how romantic, though i'm sure a bunch of flowers may have been fine but he took it to the next level!) Kata Tjuta is the Balck Fellas name for the rock formation and is translated into 'Many Heads'. Kata Tjuta is made up of thirty-six large rock domes, or heads, and is over 500 million years old, with Black Fellas living there for over 20,000 years (until we came and booted them out!) Here are two ways at how Kata Tjuta and Uluru were formed, firstly the scientific way and then the Black Fellas story, told to their children for thousands of years, of how they were formed:-
Billions of years ago most of Australia was under sea, apart from the west coast. Over millions of years the land rose around the edges of what now is Australia to create a huge inland sea called the 'Greta Atresian Basin', at one edge of the basin was a huge mountain range, over 7000m high, that produced a large river flowing into the sea, this river brought large boulders and rocks from the mountain and deposited them into a huge pile at the river mouth. Over millions of years the huge pressure from the water, with the use of silica, the rocks were glued together to form a huge metamorphic rock. At the same time other rivers flowed into the sea and left sediment in the middle of the basin, over millions and millions of years this piled up and created a huge area of sandstone lying on the sea bed. Something incredible then happened, a huge earthquake caused by tectonic plate movement (and i'm talking huge, not like the one we had in Lincoln, but a power that could have turned England upside down!) This huge force pushed up the rocks, that are now known as Kata Tjuta, over 500m above the Earth's surface, it also pushed up Uluru and this was even more incredible! The sandstock rock made by the rivers was actually 2000m long, and yet only 400m of that is above the surface. When this power pushed up Uluru it actually snapped the Huge rock in half and puched up only one half, but not straight up, it turned it on its head and then pushed it up, but only 400m above the earth's surface, which means Uluru has 600m of rock underneath it! At Kata Tjuta another earthquake happened, years later, and this one cracked the rock into a huge grid which, over time, was eroded by wind and water creating the domes we see today. Now for the Black Fellas version of how it was created:-
Two boys were in the kitchen with thier mum, who was busy trying to make dinner. But the boys were wrestless and were annoying thier mum, so she told them to go outside and play (which of course the boys did and they didn't ask why) and she would call them in when dinner was ready. So off the boys went and one turned ot the other and asked "what do you want to do?", "Go play in the mud" replied the other. Well being the desert, to play in mud they had to dig deep into the river to find the water. So as they dug they threw the rocks and stones behind them and out of thier way, creating Kata Tjuta! After a while thier mum called them back for dinner, so the boys flicked the mud off thier hands, creating Uluru, and went off to eat dinner.
The walk around kata Tjuta was like a 'pick your own adventure' as we had a choice of 3 walks, the first walk was to the first lookout, approx 1km, the second option was about 2.5 km in to the middle of kata tjuta but both of these you had to turn your ass back around and walk back the same way you had just came, or their was the third choice for the fit and healthy people, or just plain daft, where we walked 7.5km in a big loop. Turns out the whole group where daft as we all decidied to do the whole 7.5kms! When we set off at around 0900 the temperature was about 25-30C and the second part of the walk was through a valley between the, this part of the walk is closed at 1100 as the rocks heat up during the day and acts like a giant oven, which is aparently hazardous to your health! So we set off without delay so that none of us turned into the mains for a sunday roast!
Walking along between the domes you couldnt help feel as if you had stumbled across a prehistoric land, like Jurassic Park, and that a dinosaur would peak its head out at any point! The walk was over tough terrain with steep hills and slopes that took alot out of you, but as you get to the Valley of the Winds it is all worth it as a strong breeze cools you down, and there isnt alot that satisfies you more than getting cooled down when you are sweating buckets! A big problem was a chance of Dehydration, for which Kathryn had continously nagged me, for the last two weeks, to drink plenty of water while walkig round but it was her that had me worried half way round with a headache, which meant she was dehydrated. Unfortunately alot of people have died walking around Kata Tjuta and Uluru just from dehydration, as recently as Febuary where we were, and that person had only done the first part of the walk!
We eventually finished the walk at around 1200, with everyone still alive, and headed for lunch at a nearby picninc site. For lunch we were treated to wraps with the option of salad, chilli or tuna-sweet chilli-mayonaise fillings with fruit cake for dessert before heading back towards Uluru, well almost as Dom treated us to a quick swim in the campground swimming pool, which was friggin needed!
Next up was a walk at Uluru and our first real chance to look at this natural wonder. On a postcard and in pictures Uluru has always looked magnificent, but when you are stood at the foot of it and you loook up, those post cards, or pictures, do this rock no justice on how incredible it is and how inspired you feel!
The walk we did was a short walk at the base as we would get the chance to walk around the whole base on day 3, but it still took two hours as Dom stopped to tell us stories about different spots around the walk. Here are some of the things we got taught, you may or may not be interested in all of them but when i am grey and old and my memory isnt what it used to be, or by next month with my memory, i will need these to remember!
Around the base of Uluru are caves where the black fellas, the Anangu, lived when they first arrived 30 000 years ago, that story will be later on in the blog. Each cave had a different purpose, one for the children and elderly to sleep, seperate ones for the men/women, a kitchen and others. Where the elders and children slept looked like this:
(Mole Cave)
Where there is a covered entrance and several holes ontop, the Anangu explanation is:-
There lived a big marsupial mole who came to Uluru for shelter and to rear her young, she dug the cave into the side, leaving only a small gap at the front as an entrance/exit. while she was there she could hear strange noises from the outside, but it was too dangerous to look out of the entrance as it left her vulnerable, so she dug upwards and peeped out the top to see if it was safe.
This story not only tells of how the cave was formed but taught the Anangu children that it was safe.
Some of the caves were men's caves, and others were women's, this meant only these genders were allowed in these areas, not only this but the men didint, and didn't want to, know about women's business and like versa with the women.
One such cave was called Mala Puta that looked like a bell (which white people would use for wedding photos) was a women's area, in this cave every Anangu in the last 30,000 years has been born here! Unfortunatley we were not allowed o take pictures of this site as it is a sacred site, along with several places around Uluru, that we are not allowed to photograph.
The culture of the black fellas is very secretive and fascinating, like men only knew men stuff and women only knew women stuff. Each of the stories in this blog are children's stories and are told to the Anangu children, as they get older and wiser the stories change to teach you abit more, and since the Anangu see us as children we are only allowed to to know the childern stories. Childern would be taught about survival methods, how to hunt, by their elders in groups of 3 or 4. When they reached 8 or 9 years old (the Anangu didin't comprehend time and numbers, they only had three values - One (1), Few (2-3) or Many (4+)) the boys would be sent out on their own as a test of survival and to see if they could provide for themselves, in turn this would mean they could provide for thier familes when they returned. The children were sent away for many days (around 2-3 years) before they were allowed to return and be married off. This would be followed by a special ceremony at a waterhole called Uluru (the black fellas dont actually call Ayres Rock 'Uluru' they just call it 'The Rock' but whenthe white fellas asked what it was they were inadvertently pointing at the water hole within Ayres Rock so the black fella said 'Uluru'. This is also the case with kangaroos, when the first settlers arrived in Australia they asked the black fellas what the animal was, to which the black fellas replied 'Ka Gah Ru' which means 'I dont understand you!'
After the brief tour at Uluru we drove to the sunset picnic area to watch the sunset change Uluru's colours, along with another 20 coaches, who's patrons were treated to bubbly and snacks, while we were served up our dinner of Satay Chicken noodles washed down with ice cold beers, I know which I prefer! The sunset itself was amazing and unfortunat;ey the pictures dont show you quite how magnificent it was, so you are gonna have to get your backsides over here and see it for yourselves! After the sunset we made our way back to the campground to have our first showers since Alice Springs and another night under the stars, I also joined in with an Irish Jig, well it was St. Patrick's Day after all!
(Sunset at Uluru)
DAY 3 - Today we were woken up at 0445! Crazy! But the reason was to go and see sunrise at Uluru while eating breakfast. We were the first to arrive at the park and at Uluru so we got the best parking spot at the front. It was nice at that time in the morning as there was no-one else there, but this was short lived as cars and motorbikes and buses and all heaps of vehicles turned up and people decided to get off and stand in front of our view of Uluru! The sunrise was really good, and Uluru change colour for us again, while i had a nice cuppa tea! Once the sun was up our last activity was to do the Uluru base walk or climb Uluru. The climb is optional but the black fellas 'ask' you not to do it for a few reasons:_
1. Everytime someone dies climbing up, or down, Uluru (87 people have died) the black fellas feel responsible and grieve for years at the loss of the life, and they are pretty fed up of it!
2. You have to earn the right to climb up there.
3. It is the route that the Malamen originally took when they first arrived at Uluru, so it is a sacred site.
4. They asked you not to, therefore dont do it and dont ask why!
Looking at Point 3, you may ask ' what is a Malamen, well it is part of a black fella story of when they first arrived at Uluru:-
The Malamen (part MALA, part MAN) first discovered Uluru many years ago, they were so happy they had found somewhere to live, with food and shelter, the men decidied to have a ceremony, one they wished not to be interupted. To mark the start of the ceremony one of the malamen climbed to the top of Uluru and planted a ceremonial pole and they began the ceremony.
Elsewhere on Kata Tjuta two brothers were on a dome surveying the landscape when they saw the malamen put in the cermonial pole, which made them think there was a free party to go to, s off they went to Uluru. When they got there they walked into the ceremony and were met by some very angry malamen, who chased them away with spears for interupting the cermony. Annoyed at being chased away the brothers went to see thier uncle, who was a witchdoctor, and told him what happened. The uncle was very angry with the malamen and went about conjouring a huge dog beast to kill the malamen.
So off went the dog and snuck up on Uluru, but the women of the malamen sensed something was wrong so they went to the men, interpupting the ceromny a second time, to tell them. This enraged the men and they told the women to go away. While this was happening the dog struck, killing many! Most of the group ran for thier lives except for four malamen who stayed, throwing spear after spear, until the dog ran away. according to the Anangu the dog is still at Kata Tjuta waiting to one day come back and revenge! His face can be seen at Kata Tjuta winking towards Uluru.
(The Winking Face at Kata Tjuta)
Unfortunatley our choice about whether to do the climb or not was made up for us, the climb was closed due to strong winds so no-one was allowed up incase they got blown off the top! So we had to do the walk around the base of Uluru, which was pleasant compared to the two previous treks at Kata Tjuta and King's Canyon. The walk was unguided so Kathryn and I dordled around it in 2 hours and got back to for the trip back to Alice Springs.
The trip was a long one indeed with some people trying to sleep most of the way, although we did stop a couple of times to refuel. There was also a quick stop at a camel farm where some of the guys rode camels (there are actually over 800,000 camels in Cetral Australia, and they are the best breed in the world, with many being transported overseas to the Middle East!) We didnt do the camel ride but opted to find the two farm dogs that were there, one being a tame dingo and the other a siberian huskey that lived in the friggin desert! We arrived back at Alice Springs at 1700, which gave us enough time to put a wash on and get ready for a dinner with the rest of the tour group. The dinner was really good and we made Dm's day by all chipping in for a tip before partying the night away, well we went to bed a we had to get up at 0530 again!
ALICE SPRINGS to ADELAIDE (via Coober Pedy) -
Well I was woken up at 0500 by another person in the dorm turning on the light, so instead of getting back to sleep for that extra 30mins i got up and had a shower and pack our laundry before waking the sleeping beauty. We checked out and had our complimentary breakfast at 0615 before hopping on our tour bus with 'BT' out bus driver. We were soon to find out this wasnt really going to be much of a tour but more of a long bus journey, by the fact that after a very brief introguction by BT, in which she told us she had a hangover (great!), she wouldnt talk to us again aprt for to tell us we were stopping for fuel, toilets or lunch (and even then it was only a few grunts!) It wasnt until we arriver at Coober Pedy when we were told a very brief history and were pinted out a couple of points of interest as we drove in.
Coober Pedy is a town in the middle of the desert that only came about after the finding of Opal in the ground. The population is made up of over 40 different nationalities all seeking fortune by finding Opal. Coober Pedy gets it name from the black fella phrase for 'white fella living underground' which is 'coober pedy', this came about as it is soo hot here to escape the heat they would dig into the rock and live in caves and dwellings underground, this was also a good way of finding Opal. 70% of Coober Pedy is underground with only things like petrol stations, shops and food outlets above ground.
We did an Opal Museum tour that showed us why the people came to Coober Pedy, it also allowed us to see a typical house in Coober Pedy and how they were made. Most of the houses are done usinf\g big tunneling machines, but originaly they were all hand picked. If you wanted to make another room you would just dig it out of the rock, as long as it fitted with in your plot of land. This was also true for if you found some Opal in your home but, since mining was banned with in the town of Cober Pedy, you would have to call it Renovating instead of mining. This renovating is kept very secret as if the Opal continued onto your neighbours lot you would have to wait until moved, then buy their home and continue renovating.
After the tour we had a pizza with the group, watching BT knock back at least 4 beers, before heading to bed in our underground bunker for the night.
Getting up early is begining to be a common thing recently! So we woke up at a nice 0415, woo hoo. We started the day with a hot cross bun and some toast before another long drive before arriving at Port Augusta for lunch. Our next stop was Adelaide where we arrived at our hostel 'The Blue Galah' at 1730. The hostel was quite nice, though we did have to share the room with some rather strange people! We had to go shopping when we got there as it was Good Friday the next day. It was mayhem in Woolworths, you would have thought the world was coming to an end watching the aussies rush arund buying everything in sight! We got enough for the next two nights before retireing to the hostel for the night.
Good Friday, which in Australian translates as 'Everything is shut today!' this even means you are not allowed to buy alchohol, except if you find a pub or restaurant open and you can get one with a meal! We had a nice lie in, man it felt soooo good! Since everything was closed we went for a walk through the deserted streets of Adelaide before spending some time in the park in the SUNSHINE! (how was the weather on your good friday?) That was pretty much our day, eventful i know!
Next Page.....Adelaide to Melbourne, New Zealnd.......
- Posted by d1d2d3_pj on 13/03/2008.
