From: "Pete" <[email protected]>
To: thegang
Subject: ....and finally....
Date: 21 August 2001 08:06
Well, hello once again. It's been a pretty hectic week with me cramming in 6500km and two major cities on top of my Uluru (that's Ayer's Rock for anyone not familiar with the new (well really old) name.
So, parting company in Darwin with Paul, I headed off without a traveling companion for the first time since leaving Britain (dumped for a good looking woman, who'd have thought it?). Of course parting company with Paul also meant parting company with the Red Devil, ten thousand kilometres after Alexandra, and throwing myself at the mercy of the Greyhound bus service.
So I headed out of Darwin at one in the afternoon. Naturally enough I found myself allocated the isle seat with an obese gentleman occupying the window seat and filling half of my seat too. So after twenty hours with one buttock hanging in mid air, a viewing of Crocodile Dundee and a film with Bryan Brown in it (why do all Australian films have Bryan Brown in them?), a crying baby and a fellow three seats back who snored like a poorly maintained tractor engine. I arrived in Alice Springs at about half past nine the next morning. Well, bravely ignoring the fact that I had only had a couple of hours sleep (the Greyhound drivers like to stop the bus every time that you fall asleep, so that they can make you get out and buy things while they claim whatever kickback that particular roadhouse has decided to offer them) I checked into the hostel, took a shower, and set out to explore Alice.
Well, I had been told that there were a few things I had to do during my time in Alice Springs. One was to take a Camel Ride, one was to have a beer in a bar called Malanka's and one was to climb Anzac Hill, to watch the sun setting over the city. Well, since the camel farm was not in easy walking distance and it was far too early for a beer, I elected to climb Anzac Hill, in spite of the fact that the sun wasn't predicted to set for another eight hours. Although the hill is relativly small, it gives you a clear view of the whole of Alice Springs, because the surrounding area is so flat. The city was actually a fair bit larger than I had at first thought. My initial walk through the town centre had left me thinking that it was about the size of Trowbridge, but the sprawl around the city is extensive, although the population is a couple of thousand less (Trowbridge; 25000, Alice Springs; 23000. Amazing how quick you can find these things out over the internet really). The hill is named Anzac hill (with typical Australian originality - them mountains with snow on 'em we'll call them the Snowy Mountains, that creek that's two miles long let's call it Two Mile Creek, that great big sandy desert etc...) because it has Alice Springs' War memorial on the top of it. Although the memorial itself is not exactly a big budget affair, its positioning adds a certain dramatic dignity to the whole thing that's less obvious with park based memorials in Britain (or Darwin, or anywhere else really).
Anyway, took a few photos up there and then, came down had a spot of lunch and watched Planet of the Apes at the Alice Springs Multiplex (three screens). Then had an early night. Up at quarter past four the next morning so that I would have time for a shower before being picked up for my Uluru trip at five.
Unfortunatly I had failed to notice that the hot water was solar heated and therefore wasn't going to be actually hot until at least ten am by which time I was well and truly on my way to the National Park, greasy hair and all.
Now the thing about my trip into the Red Centre, was that it isn't actually particularly red. Disappointingly green in fact - well that grey-green colour which passes for live vegitation in most of Australia. According to our tour guide this was because Alice Springs has in the last 18 months had the equivalent of five years average rainfall, and the land is actually the greenest it's been in living memory. The fact that we were incredibly lucky to see the land like this, didn't really ring true. Just about everyone in our tour group agreed that red dust was part of the exerience and uniqueness of the place and we all felt we were missing out on part of the experience. We got plenty of eucalyptus scrub in Queensland and on the way to Darwin.
Anyway, enough whinging. Our first stop was King's Canyon, which is, well, um, a canyon really. Red rock formations stick up out of the earth as the result of tectonic movements and have cracked in a grid pattern.
The crack with the river in it is the canyon and the cracks without rivers in them have been eroded by the wind so that great red domes of sandstone have formed.
Looking down into the Canyon from the top it is really, quite impressive. Sheer walls, a waterfall and the only strip of proper greenery that we'd seen since leaving the carpark and begining to gain height. It also generates a strange urge to throw yourself in, which everyone resisted, whilst agreeing they had felt it.
From there it was on to Yulara, the resort which has been built to cater for the millions of tourists who come to gawp at Ayers Rock every year. We climbed up to the lookout and watched the sunset, with a few beers, the serious drinkers having pooled resources to purchase a slab of Carlton Draught - there is a limit of six beers per person per day on the aboriginal land. We returned to camp for a barbeque dinner and toasted marshmallows by the fire (kindly contributed by a teetotaler who had bought them from the petrol station while the rest of us were getting beer).
Delighted to finally be sleeping in a 'swag', I was somewhat disappointed to discover they are just bivi bags, available from any British outdoor shop. Still it was a novelty to be able to drag them out of our tents and sleep under the stars beside the fire. Except when that big log rolled out and nearly set fire to mine.
Up early again the next morning for a climb up the rock to watch the sunrise. They open the climb a half hour before the sun rises. It too me 40 minutes to reach the top, so the sun was already well above the horizon. I was still about sixth amongst the thousands who had been waiting at the bottom for the climb to open. Would it really hurt them so much to give you an extra fifteen minutes so it's actually possible to watch the sunrise from the top? I was however well impresssed. While at sunset the previous night the rock had seemed flat and distant, and not really any better than viewing it on a postcard, when I stood on top and looked at the awsome expanse of flat nothingness, as far as the eye could see, broken only by a few features I could already name, the Olgas, Mt Conner and the George Gill Ranges (location of Kings Canyon). And when you are standing on it the colour of the rock as the rising sun hits it is incredible. The haze had spoiled it the previous evening but there is a definite glow to the rock as you look back the way came and see the sunlight creeping over the thing. The Olgas look pretty impressive from up there too, a very similar colour. Perhaps better, I had no expectations of the Olgas.
Anyway, we descended and took a short walk along the base, saw some of the caves and sacred aboriginal sites. This brings me on to my own justification for climbing the rock. As you probably know, the local aboriginal people, the Anangu, who now own the rock, ask you not to climb. As I just told you I did anyway. This is not because I am an arrogant whitefella who thinks he knows better. Firstly the top of the rock itself is not actually sacred to the people, there are a number of sites around the base which are and these are clearly marked and well fenced off at a distance. If the Anangu were really that bothered they would close off the climb completely, like they have in the Olgas where only a single footpath along the base of a valley remains open (which we walked along just before lunch). The reason that the Anangu request you not to climb is based around health and safety concerns. Lots of people die climbing the rock. It is steep and difficult and hurts like hell if you are as out of shape as me never mind if you are old or seriously unfit - heart attack stuff. It is also very windy and large numbers of people get blown off the top. Now if you die on their land the aboriginal people have to observe certain mourning rituals, which actually involve cutting oneself to show sorrow. Unstandable though this is, I decided that, since it wasn't specifically disrespectful to the culture to climb the rock, and since the possibility of the climb being closed altogether before I got a chance to come back was high, I would climb anyway.
So anyway, the Olgas. We took the only open walk along the valley. The massive domes are pretty awesome but it is hard to appreciate the scale from up close, especially since you can't climb them. These are perhaps best appreciated from the view point or the top of Ayers Rock.
So after that it was lunch, then back to Alice Springs. A shower, a meal at KFC and a few drinks in the pub with some blokes from the tour (Matt and Matt, from Liverpool and Manchester). The next day I discovered I had left my Byron Bay sun hat on the bus. I called up but they hadn't found it. Shame, me and that hat had done a fair few miles together.
Anyway the next day I took the Ghan down to Adelaide. This was once one of those epic train journeys, one third proper railway, one third light narrow guage and the final part (at the Alice Springs end) on an Afghan Camel Train. Hence the name the Ghan. Now it is a relativly ordinary train journey (although you can still put your car on it). It was definitly much more comfortable than the Greyhound. There were a couple of scenic features pointed out, one the nearly dry Finke River, a huge channel of red sand with a trickle of water down the middle. Apparently there was only enough water in it to reach the banks on four occaisions in the last century, and for this reason, it follows the same route that it followed over a million years ago. The other was the 'legendary Iron Man'. I had a short doze and missed that one unfortunatly. Shoot! Still it was quite strange the way in which you watched the sunset over the red earth and brownish scrub that seems to fill everything between Katherine and Townsville (see previous correspondence), and to wake up in well irrigated farm land, genuinely green pasture and newly sprouting grain crops.
Anyway, arrived in Adelaide early in the morning and, after a little confusion (they've built a new YHA since my Lonley Planet was published) found the hostel and checked in. Spent my first day exploring the city on foot and then on the second visited the Museum of South Australia, and the Art Gallery of South Australia. Still not sure of my opinion of Adelaide. After the rough-and-readiness of Darwin and the small town feel of Alice Springs, it seemed like a haven of urban sophistication at first. I asked a bloke in a record shop where I could hear some live Jazz and recieved the response 'Ha! On a Saturday you'll be lucky. The only Jazz around here is on a Tuesday' I flew out on Monday. My opinion of the city dropped very suddenly at that point. Still there were some pleasant old buildings and some nice parks. Shame that it rained all the time I was there so I couldn't enjoy them. I hooked up with an English girl named Nancy for a couple of nights drinking while I was there and we had a decent time, although the pubs seemed to be empty even on Saturday night. As I was in the Taxi to the airport on Monday, the Taxi driver told me this and that that I should have seen during my two days there. Shame it wasn't him who drove me from the train station really I might have formed a better opinion of the city. Anyway I flew to Sydney (the height of extravegance and only 20 hours quicker than the Greyhound - for about an extra $40 - the profits on those buses must be disgusting). So anyway I'm now staying with my wonderful cousins in Sydney (are you sure you're related to me - something must have gone wrong in our half of the gene pool?) and relaxing a little before I fly out on the 27th for Singapore. More when I get there.
Anyway catch up with you all soon (as always I'm grateful for replies).
No Worries
Pete