How can I even begin to try and describe the adventure that we just had? I'm now sitting back at home. This morning I had a large (10kg) python draped around my neck in Alice Springs. This is perhaps the first holiday that I've had where I have not been looking forward to returning to Sydney. Instead I'd like to be sitting in Ormiston gorge watching the full moon rise over the huge, red chasm walls whilst watching little rock wallabies bounce around and dingoes silently coming up behind us (and giving us quite a fright)!
Anyway, I'll start at the beginning. Of course, the flight was stunning. We flew over the Simpson desert (see photo) - the driest region of Central Australia. Everytime I looked out of the window the desert looked different. It changed from reds to yellows to whites.
We landed in Alice Springs airport in the early afternoon (note: there is a 30 minute time difference between Sydney and Alice) and met Joris who had come in on an earlier flight from Melbourne. We picked up the rental car (which, at that time, was nice and clean) and drove off into the town of Alice (Christine spotting a camel on the way).Alice is an interested place (and I'll leave more details for a later blog). We ate lunch (see third photo) where Joris and I tried our first camel steaks (very tasty) before stocking up on lots of food and water.
... then the excitement began ... We drove South. As my wonderful new book ("A Field Guide to Central Australia") says: "The route from Alice Springs to Uluru is a journey through time. You drive through one of the most ancient landscapes on Earth. In places you can step out of your vehicle and see fossils of the earliest life forms on the planet". Unfortunately, we didn't see any of these fossils, but we did get confused by a large number of small black stones that stuck to Christine's magnet (more on that later as well). By the way, the rocks that we were seeing are about 1.8 billion years old!
Luckily we could all drive the car and therefore we kept swapping around every 100km or so. This was Christine's first time driving on the left-hand side of the road.
We spent the first night at a road-house in Erldunda where a small red-kangaroo hopped around and allowed us to give it a pat. We spent the evening in the tavern, looking at the giant echidna and watching real emus wandering around.
2 comments:
Keep the blog posts coming! Thanks for sharing your adventure with us in this way. I'd love to have been under those immaculately clear skies. Tell us about the stars you saw when it got dark!
To George's initial disappointment, the moon was full at the time we travelled. Hence, we didn't see many stars (though the pointers, Southern Cross and Orion were of course identified).
However - the disappointment turned out to be largely unjustified. If anyone has ever seen Ormiston Gorge and can therefore appreciate its beauty beyond the tiny impression that transfers through low resolution pictures, then just try to imagine this same scene, illuminated by a full moon. The same goes for Trephina Gorge and doubtlessly (though the park closes so we were robbed of the full experience) for Kata Tjuta and Uluru as well. As much as I love the stars, I would strongly advice anyone to do this trip with a full moon - the stars you can always see in Parkes, for example.
On a separate note, whilst I may not be quite as impressed by Uluru itself, I do have to agree with George that it was hard to get back to what we call civilisation. It didn't quite strike me as much while in the outback, but upon arrival back in Melbourne, I did miss the vast emptiness, desertedness, silence and beauty. City life may be comfortable on many levels (says the city dweller -i.e. me- himself), but there's something undefinable about the Outback that provides it with a deep-rooted, primaeval attractive force that even I had to acknowledge.
In brief: if you ever get the chance: _go_see_the_Outback_.
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