December
18th to 21st
When most
people were probably rushing around the shops on the last Saturday
before Christmas, we were flying, almost oblivious to the time of
year and usual festivities, from Cairns to Alice Springs, one of Australia's hottest towns, more or less slap bang in the middle of the country. The view out of the
window was one of seemingly endless dry, red earth and the flight took longer
than a flight from Austria to England. The words “Alice, Alice, where the f**k is Alice?” did consequently “spring” to mind.
When we landed the captain announced it was 35 degrees so I assumed
the box of umbrellas I saw at the entrance of the terminal was not in preparation for rainfall. I
started to think we may be the roasted item on Christmas Day.
We read that you should drink a litre of water every hour in the centre of
Australia. I polished off half a litre by the time we get to our
hostel. The air was very dry and it felt like the liquid was slowly
evaporating from my eyes which made me feel tired.
That evening we
met up with Eva's aunt and uncle for dinner who, coincidently, were
also in Alice Springs (it's unbelievable who you meet half way across the world!). I ordered the mixed grill which consisted of kangaroo meat, emu,
buffalo, crocodile and camel. I guess it wouldn't be fair tot tick those off the "Animals We've Seen" list.
The reason why we had flown to Alice Springs from Cairns was to do a three day
“Rock Tour” to see the spiritual sites of Uluru, King's Canyon and Kata Tjuta. What we
didn't have any idea about was the distance of these incredible rock formations from
Alice Springs. When we set off at 6am on Day One of the tour, Jason,
our driver, tour guide and cook (I hope he gets paid well) explained to us that we
would be covering 800 km in the minibus on that first day. It turned
out to be pretty much one long, straight road. Such a shame that I'd
left my book in my large rucksack back in Alice Springs.
The tour was,
as its name suggested,very rocky. I had been quite worried about it as I had hurt my ankle whilst running one
morning in Port Douglas a few days before and only found out when we were already in
Alice Springs that what we had actually signed up for was three hikes, each one lasting three hours. So as I set off hobbling around King's
Canyon, I did consider that I was being rather foolish. If I were to
make my ankle worse, I could be jeopardising a lot more of my trip.
Nevertheless, I didn't fancy the prospect of sitting, in 36 degrees heat, on a stone waiting three hours for the group to
return. I bandaged it up, took things slowly, drank lots of water,
thought positively and got around, accompanied all the way by dozens of flies who were not deterred in their mission to get to my eyes by my flapping hands.
We saw Uluru (which, interestingly, used to lie under water)
at both sunset and sunrise (take a guess how much sleep we got on
this tour), cooked and ate around a camp fire, slept under an amazing sky of stars in SWAGs (like thick
sleeping bags... I never found out if SWAG stood for anything, my own
guess was Sleeping With A Group), saw a dingo, sang our hearts out to some Queen
classics and played pictionary in the sand followed by charades in the dark (it was Christmas after all). We also had a few hours at a cultural centre where we learned a bit more about Indigenous Australians and their customs and traditions. I was, however, still ignorant about their recent history so I asked Jason some questions and, after the trip, went to Mr Google to find out more. I learned that in 1971 it was ruled that Australia had been "terra nullius" before British settlement and that no concept of "native title" existed in Australian law ie. the land belonged to the White Settlers despite there being evidence of human habitation in Australia dating back at least 40,000 years. In the 1980s, the government did give back land to Indigenous Australians but under a 99 year lease and in 1992 the legal concept of "terra nullius" was eventually ruled invalid. Only in February of 2008, however, was a public apology issued on behalf of the Australian government to members of the "Stolen Generation" (children of Indigenous descent who were taken from their families between approximately 1869 and 1969 by the Australian government). As that was just nine months prior to our visit, it made me realise how relevant the events were. I guess each country of the world has its own complicated history to deal with. Also of interest in the cultural centre was a folder containing a mass of letters from people all over the world who had written to apologise for taking a piece of rock from Uluru and who indicated they had enclosed the stone so that it could be returned to the place from where it had been taken (letters often described the exact place). There was proclamation after proclmation about not having realised the spiritual significance of the rock to the Indigenous people and the lack of respect in taking something that wasn't theirs in the first place. More than anything, however, the writers of the letters believed that the rock they had taken was cursed and brought bad luck. One man even stated, "I have died twice since taking the rock"!.
After
the long, straight drive back to Alice Springs on the last day, with
a short stop at a camel farm, the group met up for one last dinner together and finished
the tour on the dance floor, bopping away to a guitar and a didgeridoo. My ankle was throbbing somewhat but, remarkably, was starting to feel better. Or maybe that was the cool beer having a magical effect.
