Big Red

We headed towards Uluru expecting to see a big, red rock but the experience was so much more than that. For a start, Uluru is not just big and red, but REALLY BIG and REALLY RED. In fact, it is surreal. It sits there awkwardly, like some novice tried to photoshop a big rock onto a picture of an otherwise flat landscape. And while it is mainly red, it is also, depending on the light, sometimes orange, sometimes purple, and for a few minutes before sunset even golden. For most of our time at the rock the weather was grey and drizzly and Uluru was a dull brownish red, but there were a few moments when the clouds parted and we saw it in its full glory. Sadly none of these moments were near dusk so we couldn't take that clichéd sunset photo.

What also surprised us was the vibrancy of the Aboriginal culture around Uluru and Kata Tjuta. The appropriation of "Ayer's Rock" by whitefellas was recent enough that the knowledge of its dreaming survived until "Uluru" was handed back to the traditional owners, the Anangu. Today the Anangu are willing to share some of the stories associated with the myriad of caves, crevices, water holes and other features around the base of the rock. Many more sensitive stories remain guarded, known only to initiated Anangu men and women. They also share the story of their struggle for ownership of their land and Uluru. Our experience  of Uluru and Yuendemu has been both enlightening and challenging, especially for the girls, though it has prompted them to ask questions which we find difficult to answer.

The Anangu also never climb the rock and they ask visitors to respect their culture and do likewise. In their words "That's a really important, sacred thing...you shouldn't climb. It's not the proper thing. The proper thing is listening...It has been the same since the beginning...This is the proper way: no climbing." We were surprised how many people ignored this request and wondered how they would react if some Anangu entered St Mary's Cathedral and jumped up on the altar. For us Uluru was a place to be experienced, not an object to be conquered. We looked in vain for an "I didn't climb Uluru" t-shirt but alas couldn't find one.

We took a guided walk around the rock, spent some hours in the excellent cultural centre, then Nic and the girls did an art class where they learned more about the Anangu symbols and their meaning. They then used these symbols to tell their own story. Jarrah's painting showed our family sitting around a camp fire while Mallee and Nic painted stories about our trip. In the meantime, I went off to take some photos.

The next day we did a long walk around the almost as spectacular Kata Tjuta followed by dinner at the Yulara pub before turning our thoughts to the long trip home.

Uluru was an afterthought on this trip that was supposed to be primarily about the Pilbara and Kimberley, but it turned out to be one of the highlights.

We'll see you when the dust settles.

Just to prove we were actually there

Nic and Jaz, Kata Tjuta

Uluru spirits

Some of the caves around Uluru

Pool at Uluru

Uluru finally in some sunshine

Winners of the Kata Tjuta Bandy Legs Competition 2013

Uluru Cave

Dull Red Rock

Uluru from the 'other side'

A Kata Tjuta stream

Yulara sunset

Centralia

Try this quick quiz. The centre of Australia is:
a/ hot
b/ dry
c/ red
d/ none of the above.

The correct answer, at the moment at least, is d.

As we headed down the Tanami Track towards Alice Springs the clouds gathered, the temperature dropped and the landscape stayed stubbornly green. Our 4WD guide to Australia lists the Tanami as one of the great desert challenges, but this hardly seemed to describe the road we travelled. There was no bulldust, no sand dunes and no bones of unlucky travellers bleaching in the sun. There were at least camels and corrugations, but even these weren't really a challenge. Drop below 60 km/h and they would shake you to bits, but around 80 km/h there was a sweet spot where the vibrations were quite tolerable. We made surprisingly good time, and by the first night we were halfway along this road that we had expected to take at least four days.

Camels, the only evidence of 'desert' we experienced on the Tanami

The first day the landscape was fairly featureless and places to pull off and camp were very rare, but as dusk fell we finally found a good clearing about 100 m off the road. Now a lot of people worry about imagined dangers of bush camping, but it is something I have always enjoyed and been very comfortable with. In the very unlikely event of trouble, I am sure that I would be ready to protect my family. I sleep like a lion protecting his pride, soundly but with my subconscious mind always alert to danger. So it came as a shock when we woke in the morning and Nic pointed to a road train just down the track and said "What the..., I'm sure that wasn't there last night". Incredulous, I got up and walked over and asked the driver when he came in. He told me "1 o'clock, I saw your swags there and I tried to creep past". I followed the tracks of his 50 odd wheels back to within 15 metres of our camp. While we slept, this huge FOUR TRAILER road train had rumbled past our swags, so close we could almost touch it, and not one of us had even stirred!

The highlight of the Tanami was the chance to visit the art gallery in the community of Yuendemu. It is typical central desert art with lots of circles, squiggles and dots. As well as the opportunity to learn what the symbols mean, we had the chance to watch some of the paintings develop before our eyes. It was as fascinating as it was beautiful. It was also impossible to walk out of there without buying something so we bought a medium sized canvass for ourselves and a small board each for Mallee and Jarrah.

From Yuendemu to Alice Springs the landscape got more and more interesting as we closed on the West McDonnell Ranges. Just short of the Stuart Highway the car slipped out of top gear and stubbornly refused to be put back (we probably shouldn't having been using 5th anyway when towing but at these speeds its hard not to). We discovered that Alice Springs is not a good place to break down. Every mechanic we rang said they couldn't even look at it for a week, but the consensus was that it was just 'excessive end float' in the gear box and we could continue on using the remaining 4 gears.

 Our first day in the West MacDonnell Ranges was overcast, drizzly and cold. Twelve miserable degrees in the middle of the day. We kept warm by going on walks by day and campfires by night. Australia is absolutely blessed with beautiful, rugged landscapes, each subtely different from the other, and the West McDonnells are no exception. With time running out we couldn't explore the West McDonnells properly and just visited a few sights like Ellery Creek, Glen Helen and Watarrka (Kings Canyon) before it was time to head down the Mereenie Loop to Uluru and Kata Tjuta.

We'll see you when the dust settles.

Watarrka 

overhang at Watarrka

Garden of Eden, Watarrka

Garden of Eden, Watarrka

Watarrka (Kings Canyon)

Watarrka (Kings Canyon)

moonrise at Kings Canyon Resort

sunset at Kings Canyon Resort

Glen Helen canyon

little red camping hood

the gap, Glen Helen Resort

Parting of the Ways

The girls had been waiting all trip for us to get to Diggers' Rest in the East Kimberley because of the promise of horse riding, as if they don't get enough of that at home. Diggers' Rest is the only station in the Kimberley that was willing to judge the girls on their ability rather than their age. Every other station would only let under 12s walk on lead, but here they were free to ride. Mallee, of course wanted to sign up for an overnight muster, but thankfully the mustering finished the day we arrived so we didn't have to have that argument. As it was, after 2 months off horses and riding in stock saddles rather than their usual general purpose ones, at the end of the afternoon ride they were, for the first time in years, more saddle sore than me.

For Rod and I the lure of Diggers Rest was the chance to catch some barra (pardon the pun). Unfortunately, the East Kimberley had a poor wet season and the water was already too scarce and cold for barra. At least that is what the locals were telling us and, given our lack of success, we were willing to grab any excuse that sounded plausible.

Kununurra was a surprisingly pleasant town to have a couple of rest days but we got more than we expected. The Gibb River Road had obviously taken a bigger toll on the car than we realised because thirty kilometres down the road to Purnululu we  blew the hose on the turbo. We limped back to town and booked into the best apartment we could find that was within NRMAs budget and relaxed for another 2 days while the car was repaired.

playing at the caravan park in Kununurra

Along the drive to Purnululu the scenery just got better and better but by the time we reached the turn off light was fading fast. The road into Purnululu is long and rough. Caravans are prohibited, which has resulted in a nice little earner for the local landholder who runs a caravan park and storage area at the turn-off. The corrugations and rocks shook the car so much that by the time we arrived one driving light was pointing straight down in front of the car while the other was only good for possum spotting.

The next morning revealed the spectacular Bungle Bungle Ranges. On the eastern side are steep cliffs, narrow chasms and outcrops of sharp, hard and jagged limestone that form rugged stone walls across the landscape. On the west are some gorges and of course the striped beehive domes for which the Bungle Bungles are famous. This is an area that is so popular you have to pre-book your campsites and we lost two days due to the repairs in Kununurra, so we squeezed what we could into the couple of days we had left and then headed for Wolfe Crater.

Purnululu

limestone wall Purnululu

limestone wall, Purnululu

Echidna Chasm

beehive domes

Cathedral Gorge

more beehive domes

are you sick of beehive domes yet

A shrine to Bart Simpson who is worshipped by the local termites.

more bloody beehive domes

Wolfe Creek Crater is the 18th largest impact crater in the visible universe, or something like that, I wasn't really paying attention. But it is pretty big as you will realise if you can find the girls walking along the track to the centre in the picture below.

Wolfe Creek Crater sunset

where are the Wallys in the crater?

Wolfe Creek Crater was also the place where we bid the Lamonts adieu after six weeks or so of travelling together. We shared a dinner of camp oven pizzas and in the morning drove down to the Tanami Track and turned our separate ways.

the Last Supper

you take the high road and we'll take the low road.

Good luck and have a good trip!

We'll see you when the dust settles.