Trip to the red Centre - update as promised

OK I know I am going back to Oz for this entry, but I did promise you an update of my visit to the Red Centre, so here goes:

On getting into Alice Springs AP, we didn't have an aerobridge and so we had to walk down the steps from the plane, into the heat that felt like it was coming out of a fan oven! Even the wind was hot. The AP was very modern and had AC but I could imagine what it was like as an airstrip with old wooden buildings and the town a patch on the vast landscape - I call it the land without end.

I always had the impression Alice was on a dead flat plain, but in fact it is sheltered from the south by the McDonnell Ranges - red/orange rocks, tilted almost upright by geologic forces. By mid afternoon the thermometer in the pool area of the YHA was showing ... 48degrees C!!! and even at 9pm it was only down to a balmy 36degs. In the "cool" of the evening I went up to Anzac Hill which gave good views of the surrounding areas, grid plan town, modern buildings against the hills. It only exists due to the need to get a telegraph line from Adelaide to Darwin, respectively 1502km and 1550km north and south of the town!

Wednesday 16th: I had to get up at 0500 today to be collected the The Rock Tour. It is not just a walk in the park to get to Uluru et al - it is 441km southwest of town. On the way we saw lizards and snakes on the roads, and a huge wedge-tailed eagle rose up in front of us, no doubt looking for dinner. Its wingspan is at least 2m (6ft 6"). We got to Kings Canyon and the heat there in the shade was 43degs. We walked along an exposed path to the "river valley" - dry of course but the river runs underground, evidence of which is the mulga and eucalyptus trees as well as unusual grasses and feathery, purple-tipped fluffy flowers. The rocks smelt metallic, and as if we were being cooked by them as we walked in the ever-narrowing canyon. At last we got to the head of the valley and could see the layers of sandstone, and the vertical drop in the rock ahead which created the "canyon". As we turned away we saw a cycad, which strictly speaking should not be there as the environment is not right for it, but it survives by using water effectively and has done since the age of the dinosaurs.

After a touch of heat-stroke on my part I decided to walk back to the van and rest in the shade. Not good.... but I recovered after getting lots of water inside me

On the way back to the camp area for the night, our guide had a treat for us. In the cattle station there was a genuine, fully-chlorinated pool and we could get in!!! We couldn't move fast enough as the heat of the day and all that walking had been a little too much. Oh the relief of getting into a cool pool and messing around - loverly!

We had a long drive to Yulara now. The landscape varied between widely spaced trees, low bushes and green/yellow grasses to semi-arid desert land with scrubby plants against the deep red and/or ochre coloured rock and in some places huge red sand dunes, held together by spinifex and hardy tree roots.

The guide suddenly stopped driving the in middle of NOWHERE to advise us that as we would be camping in the bush and cooking on a bush fire we would need firewood, which we needed to collect. Not just piddly little branches, but whole LIMBS of trees, which he and the guys yanked across the sand, branches and twigs twanging off into the sand! This was all loaded onto the top of the trailer and we set off for the bush camp, again in the middle of nowhere.

The camp: the swags were unloaded and put in a circle, the fire was made in the middle and we had chilli and rice and veg, all cooked over the fire wood. Outside the light of the fire, the bush was dark, and moon rose and the stars came out. Swags were unrolled and thrown down directly onto the earth.

As the moon went down overnight, the true beauty of the stars came out - the Milky Way was as clear as a ribbon across the sky and Orion (upside down to us northerners) and the Southern Cross complemented each other. I could see the Magellanic cloud of galaxies and other masses of stars within the Milky Way, and I stayed awake most of the night to admire what we in the cities and light-polluted UK miss so much. However it wasn't totally pitch black overnight as the starshine was so bright and I could also see mars, Betelgeuse and Sirius.

Thursday: up early again to go to Kata Tjuta - 36 domes, translated as "many-headed" in the Ananga langauge. The valley sides were vertical and we walked 2.2 km to get to the Karinanga viewpoint which gave views over the rest of the domes - it looked like a "promised land" - plain of green trees, light colored rock, domes in the distance. The Kata Tjutas are made of conglomerate rock, which means that close up they have red, blue, orange, yellows in the rocks, in a patchwork quilt type of formation, due to earthquake and volcanic compression forces. In the evening, after another swim we walked round the base of Uluru, and got insights from the guide into the significance of the caves, the paintings, the sacred spaces and places within Uluru. I also got close up pics of the sandstone and its now vertical layers - did you know that at least 2/3rds of Uluru is still buried under the ground - now that it is a BIIIIIGGGGG rock!!!

Sunset: the sun seemed to race down the sky, getting lower behind us and the colours on the rock changed with every second, from bright orange to reds, oranges, golds, browns as the sun sank lower. The fissures in the sides deepened into shadows and the colours of the trees darkened and they went into silhouette. The sky behind the rock (i.e. in the east) went a deeper blue,, shades of violet, and the sky to the west went a brighter yellow as the sun went down to see you in the UK. The beauty and the majesty of the place was wonderful and can't really be captured in words, but I hope the pics I took do, and can be shown later.

Friday: up at 0430 and watched the sunrise. Long trip back to Alice and Saturday took the flight back to Adelaide.

The decision to go to Alice etc was one of the best I have made on this trip. It shows that spontaneity and travelling alone has its advantages and wonderful outcomes.

OK, I am in Auckland now, and will be OTR again tomorrow up to the north of the North Island, Paihia and Cape Reinga. See you soon