Alice Springs is in the heart of the Red Center and in the center of Australia; it sits on the Todd River surrounded by the MacDonnell Mountain Range. The Todd River is dry most of the year (Roger ran in the dry bed, where there are many, many trees!), but in the rainy season (which begins soon) it becomes a torrent. Alice Springs (named after the wife of the Postmaster General of South Australia). It originally referred to a waterhole near the Telegraph Station, but there was never really a spring there. The waterhole is fed by waters that stream off the surrounding mountains, and then collected in a basin area.
Alice is the second largest town in the Northern Territory after Darwin. Even at that, it has a population of only about 28,000 people: about twice the size of Haddonfield. We had to visit the town -- both having read Nevil Shute's famous book, A Town Like Alice and having seen the PBS mini-series starring Bryan Brown over thirty years ago.
The town serves two basic functions: providing needed services to the cattle stations and mining communities in the region (which should be defined in terms of thousands of square miles). Remember the passage vignette from the book: Joe Harmann tells Jean Paget that his station, Wollara, is two thousand seven hundred. Jean replies "Two thousand seven hundred acres. That's a big place." Joe stares at her. "Not acres," he said. "Square miles."
The service nature of the town is best illustrated by its three biggest "tourist attractions:" the Royal Flying Doctor Service, the School of the Air, and the Telegraph Station.
Royal Flying Doctor Service
The Royal Flying Doctor Service was the brainchild of a Presbyterian minister, Dr. James Flynn, who established the service in 1928. It was intended to provide medical services and evacuation services in the Outback. Crucial to its existence were two inventions: the airplane and the pedal radio. According to its website, it now provides medical emergency, primary and preventive healthcare services across more than 2.3 million square kilometres covering South Australia, the southern half of the Northern Territory and, on occassions, areas within Western Australia, Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales.
Headquarters
RFDS entrance
Quilt for RFDS
Model of inside plane
Flynn's Grave
School of the Air
The concept of distance education is not new to the internet generation. As the RFDS grew, educators became aware that the radio could be used as a way of reaching children scattered throughout the Outback, and the flying service could be used to distribute books and teaching materials. Thus, the School of the Air was begun in 1951 in a room at the Royal Flying Doctor Service headquarters. Today, it has its own structure, and uses a sophisticated computer system to communicate with its 140 students within a 1000K radius covering 1,300,000 square kilometres. A large classroom! Each student is equipped with as computer, fax, camera, microphone, and communicates with the rest of the class and the teacher through satellite communications. Several times a year there is a face-to-face meeting in Alice Springs. The School only covers primary and middle schools; high school students then go to boarding school in Alice Springs, Adelaide, or other big cities. Dignitaries such as Queen Elizabeth and Rolf Harris have visited here.
At the western edge of the George Gill Range, Kings Canyon is part of the Watarrka National Park. The walls of Kings Canyon are over 300 metres high, with Kings Creek at the bottom. Part of the gorge is a sacred Aboriginal site and visitors are discouraged from walking off the walking tracks. Wikipedia states:
Two walks exists at Kings Canyon.The 2 km (return) and approximately 1 hour Kings Creek Walk traces the bottom of the gorge. At the end of the walk is a platform, with views of the canyon walls above. The 6 km (loop) and 3-4 hour Kings Canyon Rim Walk traces the top of the canyon. A steep climb at the beginning of the walk, which locals call "Heartbreak Hill" (or "Heart Attack Hill", due to its steepness), takes visitors up to the top, with spectacular views of the gorge below and of the surrounding landscape. About half way during the walk, a detour descends to Garden of Eden, a permanent waterhole surrounded by lush plant life. The last half of the walk passes through a large maze of weathered sandstone domes, reminiscent of the Bungle Bungle. A slow descent brings the visitor back to the starting point. The loop can also be done in reverse (anti-clockwise), but the National Park Rangers encourage visitors to walk in one direction.
Both of us did the 2K walk, and Roger got up at 5 am to conquer Heartbreak Hill (reminding him of another hill of the same name near Boston). In a show of trans-Tasman solidarity, he had to come to the support of the Aussie tour guide when she became involved in a shouting match with an arrogant French tour guide who was leading a large group of Total/Elf employees on a company jaunt.
Some of you may remember that great movie, Priscilla Queen of the Desert about three drag queens who travel from Sydney to Alice Springs to do a show at the casino there. [We saw the stage version in London this past summer. It was fabulous!] One of the great lines in the show was when one of the queens remarked "I've always wanted to be a jock in a frock on the Rock." When the movie was filmed, permission to film it on Uluru was refused, on the grounds that it would violate the beliefs of the indigenous Aboriginals. Instead, that part of the film was shot at Kings Canyon. Later, publicity shots were taken at Kings Canyon at a place now know as "Priscilla's Crack." If Roger had the camera, he would have photographed it for you. If you don't believe this story, check out Australian Geographic.
The other part of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is Kata Tjuta or the Olgas. This is a remarkable formation of thirty six domes, thought to have once been a single rock many times the size of Uluru.
We entered the the Walpa Gorge from the west, with the sun behind it.
Here is picture of your heroes at the end of the trail, none the worse for wear!
After viewing the Olgas, we set off east to Kings Canyon. Our path gave us a great view of another remarkable formation, Mount Connor, which we had seen from the air and which the literature (sic -- we mean Wikipedia) describes as "a flat-topped and horseshoe-shaped inselberg".
Uluru, a/k/a Ayers Rock: a colossal hunk of sandstone rock in the middle of nowhere, yet the most recognizable Australian natural feature and a World Heritage site. We have a big confession. We don't know which of our pictures to post. We could post, for example, the classic sunset picture.
Or, we could post the classic sunrise picture(s).
And then there is the mob of tourists taking pictures of Uluru at sunrise.
Alternatively, we could post the arty pictures that show the grey face of Uluru that is rarely seen.
Or one that shows the orange bluffs highlighted against a blue sky.
Or Amy's arty collage of Aboriginal cave drawings.
The bottom line: Uluru was fascinating. We visited the Uluru-Kata Tjuta Cultural Center, with some interesting exhibits on the lives of the Aboriginals and some of their dreamtime (creation) stories. We particularly liked the story of the guy who finished off an emu that had been hunted and wounded by another hunter. He told the original hunter that the emu had fled in a different direction, hiding the fact that he had eaten it. When the original hunter discovered the falsehood, he came in pursuit of the miscreant, who suffered a terrible death. Roger was reminded of the story in his grandparents' town, Devises, in Wiltshire. A woman who had stolen money denied and said "If I am lying, may the Lord strike me down." He did.
We never got to climb Uluru; it was "closed" the day we were there allegedly due to high winds. Thirty six people have died climbing the rock, and many others have been rescued by the Flying Doctor Service (see later). But we did get a picture of the climbing site (hang onto the rail):
We did, however, do the trail to the waterhole of Mutijulu, where we learned the Aboriginal legend of Kuniya Tjukurpa (Python Dreaming): aWoma Python (Kuniya) traveled from hundreds of kilometres east to Uluru, where it lived in the rocks at Uluru and fought the Liri, the poisonous snakes. Signs of the struggle (and of the snake and python) are still evident in the rock.
We also did the Mala walk and learned the story of the Mala (Hare Wallaby) people who once lived at Uluru, and visited Kantjy Gorge, a waterhole and old hunting ground.
We flew west from Cairns, on the eastern coast of Queensland, to Ayers Rock Airport, in the middle of the Red Center in the middle of the Northern Territory in the middle of Australia. "Ayers Rock" itself, however (not the airport) has reverted to its Aboriginal name of Uluru, just as the rock itself was handed back to the indigenous people twenty-five years ago. Shortly before the turnover, all tourist accommodations were moved outside what was to become the national park area, and located about 11K away in the town of Yulara. To call it a town is an overstatement; it is indeed a captive resort town, and today bears the name of the Ayers Rock Resort.
Flying into the area was a treat in itself. We wish we had gotten pictures from the air: the sky was azure blue, the white clouds few and far between, and the landscape below unreal. The earth was a brilliant burnt orange, at points with swirls of white (salt lakes). Rising from the earth we saw what we thought was Uluru -- but was in fact another flat-topped mountain, Atila (or Mt. Connor). If you have never done it, check out the area on Google Earth; the colors are unbelievable.
Flying here underscored the vastness of Australia, and the emptiness of its interior. The Mercator projection does not do justice to the size of the country. It is roughly the same as the continental United States, as you can see below.
The Northern Territory y covers one-sixth of Australia, but is home to only 1% of Australia's population of about 19.5 million. Very isolated and a great introduction to the Outback. But more about that in another blog entry.
We realized when we arrived that this trip has taken us to four of the six Australian States -- Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland but not Western Australia or South Australia. We have also been in one federal territory, the Northern Territory, but not the second, the Australia Capital Territory [Canberra]. For those of you may be interested, there are fascinating comparisons between the Australian federal system (federation did not occur until 1901) and that in the US (but we won't bore the rest of you here).
More crocs! This time on the Daintree River. Lizzy (that's her name) was not very pleased to see us, however, and showed her displeasure.
Lizzy
Recall our prior blog about the importance of the Cassowary, the world's greatest fruit eater, to the ecology of the rainforest. Here is documentary evidence of their contributions to the environment by heating and fertilizing the fruit seeds (blue ones in this case) until they are ready to germinate. In other words, this is a pile of . . . .
Cape Tribulation was named by the ubiquitous Jimmy Cook who hit a reef here in 1770 and nearly sank the Endeavour. He also named the surrounding mountains covered with tropical rainforests Mount Misery and Mount Sorrow. What would he have named Hawaii if he had survived? For those who have no idea what we are talking about, check that great authority, Wikipedia.
Today was the highlight of the trip to date, and what Amy came to Australia to do. We took the Quicksilver from Port Douglas 75 K out to the Agincourt Reef, one of the outer reefs 50 K from shore and 2 K from the end of the Continental Shelf. It was quite a professional enterprise: we docked at a large "eco-friendly" pontoon anchored off the reef that allowed even those who were afraid of the water to observe the wonders it had to offer.
Quicksilver
Pontoon
We took a trip on a "semi-submersible reef viewer" that gave us an incredible view of the reef system and the wide variety of corals that live there. Ted -- we wish you were with us. Here are some of the pictures taken through the glass windows. They don't really do the coral justice, but you get the idea. For the movie version, see Amy's Facebook wall.
Of course, we had to see the reefs "close-up-and-personal." Not being divers like divers members of our family, we settled for snorkelling. Since much of the reef, even out that far, was close to the surface, there was much to see. Amy, the adventuresome one, took the most difficult option and went out with one of the marine biologists on a long guided tour. Too bad she didn't front up money to buy that underwater camera to document the trip! The highlight was the amazing number of giant clams, and the poisonous sea cucumber that the guide prompted to go into defensive position.
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