The Real Australia

Welcome to the outback! The real Australia. The void that evaded the original colonists for many decades. The center of nothing. Here the earth is red and the average daily temp is in the 40's Celsius. Here the roads are so long you could spend days driving with out seeing a single thing. The Stuart Highway, which runs from Adelaide in the south all the way to Darwin in the far north, runs nearly 3000km but has only 2 curves in it. Here if somebody breaks down you have to stop and help. You maybe their only lifeline. As you drive you wave to on coming cars as if to say "howdy neighbor..hope everything is all right. Good luck with the rest of your 4k km journey!". Here the average speed limit is 130km per hour. (80.7 miles an hour). Here the road trains..i.e. tractor trailers can be up to six trailers long. Why not? You just about never make a turn. Things are so far apart here that ambulance services come in the form of "Flying Doctors" and instead of flying to the rescue in an ambulance they literally fly to you in an airplane. Here it is so dry they actually cancel boat races in Alice Springs if there is actually water in the river. I kid you not. Here things are so old that the oldest rivers systems on earth can be seen. This place is so vast so untouched that time literally has no meaning here. So why would I come to such a place? Because of a little rock named Uluru. (some of you know it as Ayers Rock)

It's really not so little. In fact it is the largest single rock on the face of the planet. Even though we can see only the very top of it. Think of flat nothing for miles and miles and then suddenly a huge red-orange colored rock that rises out of the surface of the planet for hundreds of meters into the sky out of nowhere. What? You traveled thousands of kilometers to see a rock? Yes I did. And you should too if you ever come here. But with most things you travel to its the experience of seeing it that counts. And there is no better way to experience the "Red Center" than on an Outback Safari for three days. And that is what I did.

Yes. We are talking three days of wide open, sleeping under the stars, cuddling with dingos kind of experience. Lovingly hosted by our wonderful guide Rachel. Rachel was from Victoria down south and she had this uncanny ability to talk and sound just like my friend Rachel from Melbourne who traveled with me in NZ. That's funny they even had the same name? Rachel was armed with a 30 gig MP3 player that she would pipe into our safari van when we drove. (which was about 90% of time) She had a song for every occasion. When it was time to go off road its was music like the "Mission Impossible theme" or when it was time to wake up at the ass crack of dawn and drive and watch the sun rise over Uluru it was things like the Beetles "Here Comes the Sun". I was allocated the front passenger seat so I got to pick her brain more than anyone else. She had this uncanny ability to have a thoughtful answer to every question posed to her which is so hard to find in people these days. I guess that is why she is a tour guide.

We started our adventure in Alice Springs. Pretty much the only town in the middle of nowhere. Its nothing but depressing. You think we in America have race relation problems? The Aboriginal presence here subsides in the form of drunken, smelly people who constantly wonder the streets. And I am not exaggerating. It was an eye opener and unfortunately this is part of the real Australia. Funny thing you don't know who to blame for this. Them or the people who came through their land and took it for themselves. It was all to reminiscent of a certain scenario in the United States over two hundred years ago..only this time is it much more recent and in your face.

From Alice we set off for Uluru and our first stop was Kata Tjuta. (commonly referred to as the "The Ulgas"). We took a hike in the middle of them. Built by the same geological forces that formed Uluru, they are a rock formation that is not to far away and often over looked. Then it was off to the watching of the sun set on the west face of Uluru. That night we camped under the stairs in "swags". They are sort of an Australian sleeping back/tent. The next day it was sunrise at Uluru and a hike around it's base. Rachel guided part of it and regaled us with amazing stories of the Aboriginals that lived and still live here. Next it was a long drive to Kings Canyon. Another night of sleeping under the stars and a long hike through Kings Canyon on the last day. Kings Canyon is a wondrous place. It's basically a large forgotten canyon carved through the plateau over millions of years. Inside is a mecca of layered rock, permanent waterholes and plants that grow to being hundreds of years old. It was certainly a high light of the trip. Oh and I even rode a camel and in a helicopter.

I can easily see how these places were sacred to the Aboriginals who lived here. There is something very special about them that I could only begin to articulate. Ya? but its still just a rock? For one: it is a symbol of Australia. Two: there is something about the color here and the way the light hits everything. Three: human history here predates anything we could ever care about. And fourthly (and most importantly): this place is immensely old. Older than what you would encounter anywhere else. And that gave me pause for thought most of all. Here was something that nature took millions of years to create. It was what it was: essentially just a rock. That is until nature came up with something else millions of years later to look at that rock, label it a rock, and appreciate it. Mankind. The rock was no longer just a rock anymore but a very special place. By inventing the human mind nature had reinvented its own creation. The real Australia is not just about beaches, and boomerangs, and amazing peanut butter. It's about how human kind changed nature by simpling looking at it and saying "Lets see what is out in that void and make it something". Its history is littered with such instances.

And for those of you who are wondering. No. I didn't climb the rock. Out of respect of the Aboriginals that ask you not to.

....and the fact that climbing the rock was closed for the day due to high winds. But hey..lets just forget that little bit of information shall we?