The Outback!

From Cairns I flew to Alice Springs and what a different world! The two places are possibly as opposite as you can get. Cairns is tropical, Alice Springs is desert. Cairns is an impersonal city, Alice Springs is very small-town.


I was staying in a hostel called Annie's Place - chosen of course because it shared its name with me. As I came through security at the airport there was a desk for the hostels, and when I told the staff from Annie's Place that my name was Annie, they were incredibly excited. I have to talk a little bit about this hostel before I go on to my outback trip, as apart from the Arts Factory in Byron Bay, this was the best place I have stayed so far. The rooms were spacious, the people were super friendly - everyone says hello or chats to you if you are in the same place for more than a few seconds! There is a nice pool, and every night by the pool, a film is projected onto a large screen so everyone from the hostel sits round the pool and watches a movie under the stars. The bar is good, the food is cheap, the reception is extremely helpful.


When I first arrived at Annie's place, I was told they had to cancel the outback tour that I was booked on, as there wasn't enough people. So I was upgraded to another tour. To begin with I was a bit disappointed. The tour I had booked was real rough bush living, whereas the new one was "luxury camping". I have no objection to luxury, just for the record, but I thought that the other tour would be more of an experience. Also, I knew that the new tour would have more old people and less partying - and I was right, but it also had less drama and more interesting things to learn about the outback. After finishing the trip, I don't think that I lost out on any experience - we still cooked our dinner on a bonfire, drove off road, ran away from scary bugs, and all that jazz! Only this way I slept well at night and had a decent shower in the mornings!


The tour guide was excellent, he was like a walking encyclopedia on the area. We learnt about the Aboriginal traditions of the area, the explorers who *tried* to conquer the area, all the local nature and wildlife, the current social situation, the geology....everything! Funny thing about the guide though, is that I soon found out he was a Hong Kong Permanent Resident! Now if this wasn't funny enough (no one you meet travelling is from Hong Kong!), when I asked about what he was doing in HK, I soon found out he had been the manager of Club 97! This wasn't one of my most frequented places, but I certainly had been there a good few times! What a small world!


So anyways,as we know the Aboriginal people were here in Australia long before the British, but they were not indigenous to Australia. However, no one is quite sure how they got here. Back a very long time ago (don't ask me when, as I have a terrible tendency not to listen) the channel of sea between the top of Australia and the bottom of Papua New Guinea was so narrow that you could see across it when standing on top of the mountains in P N G - that they came across here is one theory. Another, is that certain peoples from Africa mastered lengthy sea travel, thousands (and thousands) of years before anyone else, then totally abandoned the knowledge.


Well somehow they got there, and then maintained the same ancient lifestyle, until the whiteman came along. A lifestyle consisting of the men hunting and protecting, and the women gathering foods and looking after children. Their laws were based around the will of the spirits and ancient legends of the land. Then we came along and ruined everything. We (and I say "we" unfortunately as a white person) introduced alcohol. Europeans had been getting used to this poison for as far as history remembers, and our bodies contain enzymes specially to digest it. Aborigines hadn't had the chance to adapt in this way and so, lacking this all important enzyme, did not take well to alcohol. It made them violent and incapable. They soon became alcoholics and their old way of life was destroyed.


Nowadays we appear to have two "types" of Aborigine. The bush Aborigine - untouched by alcohol, protected by national parks and still living in a mostly traditional way - though these are few. The city Aborigines are the ones we come into contact with, and sadly the ones who give white Australians their opinions of the race. Every white Australian I have met, as open minded as they have seemed, as soon as the topic of Aborigines comes up - speaks of them like animals. This really surprised me. So the stereotypical city Aborigine that has gained this reputation is the alcoholic, living off dole money, lying around in parks and sending the violent crime statistics soaring. It is a very sad state of affairs, and it is, in fact, all our fault.


The first place we stopped on our trip was a camel farm. Australia now has plague amounts of camels, so many that it even exports them to Saudi Arabia, because apparently the camels in Australia are better than in their original country. In the first place they came over from Afghanistan as labour animals, much better at coping in the arid climate than say horses. When the railways they were building were finished, they were released into the wild.


At this camel farm there was also a pet dingo, as tame and friendly as any household pet dog. So I sat and stroked him for a while.... and fed him a few sneaky crisps.


Next stop was a cattle station/gas station/cafe/art gallery. These places are dotted about all over the outback, with comforting signs outside saying "Last stop for infinite kilometres". So you don't really have a choice but to stop at them. They create a sense of being a very small dot in a boundless wilderness. And wilderness it was indeed. All you could see, as far as the horizon, was yellow sand, or perhaps sometimes red sand, with the odd dried up shrub meagerly poking its head up every so often. Oh and of course the flies. The damn pesky flies. Within 30 seconds of stepping outdoors you have at least 50 swarming round your face, desperately trying to get in your mouth, up your nose, in your ears, on your eyeballs.... to suck at all your juicy moisture. And they are unrelentless, no matter how many times you bat them out the way, they will be back for more instantly. Luckily we had fly nets to prevent them penetrating our many facial holes, but they were still as annoying as hell.


To add to our sense of isolation we were told about all the explorers who tried to conquer this land, failed, wondered round for months lost and after draining their supplies, died, bodies never to be found. Hopefully this would not be us.

In the afternoon we came to a gorge amidst lots of big, giant, red rocks. It really was like nothing I had ever seen before. These rocks resembled giant heads sticking out of the sand, and the story goes that these heads were the spirits of warriors who were captured after a war between two tribes. Once prisoners, they were forced to dig great holes in the sand, then made to stand in the holes, where they were buried, with just their heads left poking out for the likes of dingos and crazy insects to have their way with. On this delightful tale we walked through the gorge, took lots of pictures, then headed to a sunset viewing point of Ayers Rock, where we would scoff our way through numerous packets of crackers and refresh our hard days work with some wine.

Now Ayers Rock, or Uluru, is a bit of a wonder really. It's this enormous red blob of rock in the middle of absolutely nothing. No mountain range or anything, it just stands there, on its own, in the middle of the desert. Pretty bizarre. Apparently it is just the same as the surrounding land, but denser; so where the rest of the land has been eroded by weather, this great blob remains. Also, it was once 90 degrees the other way up, but fell over one day to the position we now know it to be in AND something like 80% of it is underground....like an iceberg....

The following morning we got up at stupid-o-clock in the morning for a sunset walk around the rock. A walk which is possibly, I think, the most beautiful few hours of my life - the many changing colours of the rock as the sun slowly rose, the silhouettes of the scattered trees, the sky of a million colours and clouds glowing in the newly born sun. Then of course the sunrise itself. It was then I realised that I had in fact never seen a sunrise before in my life. It was pretty spectacular. I was amazed how after about an hour of the sky slowly changing colour, the movement of the sun over the horizon happened in seconds. So fast you could see it moving through the sky. Needless to say, I took a lot of photos.

After this we met up with our guide again,who took us to the most sacred spots of Uluru to learn its legends. The main story concerns a certain snake named Kuinya, who journeyed to Uluru to lay her eggs. At the time, a tribe of another type of snake was living in the area, a tribe with whom Kuinya's nephew happened to be in trouble. One day, the nephew was cornered by the warriors of this tribe and killed. Kuinya came as soon as she heard - her path can still be seen today in great black snake trails across the rock. Alas she was too late! Her nephew was dead, and only one enemy warrior remained to mock her. Crying, she asked why had he killed her nephew, but the warrior just laughed at her. So she picked up some sand from the ground and, chanting a curse, threw it at the warriors feet. Now all the trees on the ground where the warrior stood are poisoned, and still now the Aboriginal people will not eat from them. But still the warrior laughed, so she hit him over the head with her stick - this can be seen as a great crack in the rock, with a blood stain trickling out. Still the warrior mocked her, so she it him one more fatal time, revenging her nephew - this strike can be seen by an even larger crack in the rock.

This story I have just told is merely the children's version, to hear the full version of all the legends we must first be initiated into the tribe - a process involving withstanding great amounts of pain, and which frankly just isn't going to happen.

We then went to the area's main waterhole (which was somewhat lacking in water) and to see Aboriginal cave drawings.

By this time we were pretty exhausted and had miserably given in to the flies, so were pretty glad of the four hour coach trip to our next camp. It is amazing what things please you in certain situations.

That night we built a big bonfire and cooked our dinner on it whilst listening to Rolph Harris' greatest hits....which was all very well for the first couple of songs....

I'm sure it's not hard to think that Rolph Harris plus exhaustion made it an early night, and we were up before dawn again the next morning for our big canyon climb. However this would not be before the most terrifying experience of my life ever. I was relatively please with the showers at this place, as they had been totally clean and insect free - that is until some numbskull obviously left the door open over night. So I came in, just before dawn, to find the three most heart-stoppingly horrendous being known to mankind. Giant, mutant, alien crickets. Bigger than me. Well, perhaps not, but without exaggeration, they were at least as long as my foot, and almost as wide, with a hard, black, shiny shell, and crazy pincers....or legs....or antennae....I didn't stay long enough to find out. I didn't care how much I smelt, or how rugged I looked, I was NOT sharing my shower with these things!

So, smelly and unwashed, I arrived at King's Canyon and found myself face to face with the sign: "Trail moderate, with strenuous start. Do not attempt in intense heat." I then glanced at the daily temperature chart: "Today's heat rating falls into the category of: Very Dangerous." "Ah", I thought. At this point hald the group dropped out. When the guide told us about the recent death count of people falling off the edge of the trail, half the remaining group dropped out. For me it wasn't an option, so I began the "strenuous" beginning. Before long, my heart was beating out of my chest, sweat was pouring down my face and I was pretty sure that I knew what having an asthma attack must be like, but I looked around me and saw everyone else suffering just as badly. so I crawled on, content that I wasn't dying alone, if a little jealous that the guys next to me were tall enough to be able to lift themselves from one rock to the other without using their hands. But I scrambled on determind, and next thing I knew I was one of the first at the top, with the rest a few minute behind and in a much worse state! This surprised me somewhat, as I don't claim to ever do any exercise, but I guess I have been spending a lot of time lately walking a great deal, so maybe I'm fitter than I thought!

Once at the top we walked for about four hours, probably a highlight of my Australia trip. We were presented with spectacular views and dizzying heights - for those of us stupid enough to stand on the edge of the cliff and look down. As we walked, our guide showed us plants for making suncream, plants for making glue; plants you can eat, plants you really shouldn't! We met a very friendly lizard who let us pick him up! And we even went to the place where part of Priscilla Queen of the Desert was filmed.

Now I'm generally not particulatly interested in rocks - for some reason I used to collect them as a kid, but don't ask me why now! - but just this once, the rocks actually were interesting. Every so often, we would notice a rippling effect in the rocks. Apparently these are left over indentations from water, a VERY long time ago, when there was no ice on the North Pole, so the water level was much higher, and right in the middle of Australia was a great big sea! This is actually not me making stuff up. We also saw jellyfish fossils!

About half way through this walk, we came to a sunken oasis - deep pools of glistening blue water, surrounded by beautiful green plants. An unexpected respite to the endless rocks and sand. This place was called the Garden of Eden, and it just so happens I had an apple in my bag, which I thought rather appropriate to eat here.

Eventually I made it to te end of the trail, as did the rest of the group, and it was an awesome sense of achievement, as it had been far from easy, but so spectacular that it was well worth it. A funny thing though - in the heat and I guess from exerting myself a lot further than usual, my fingers had swollen up to a ridiculous size, and the tips had gone completely numb! I found this highly entertaining for the hour or so it lasted!