Uluru, Kings Canyon and Kata Jtuta, Northern Territory, Australia

As I was saying, we got collected bright and early Wednesday morning for our Outback Adventure with Wayoutback Travel outfitters. We had arranged this part of the trip with the travel agency here, and we chose it because of it's 3 day 2 night duration, and the being out in the elements with the huge, big skies of central Australia. It was a camping experience, in the middle of winter, so temperatures fluctuated between 1-24 degrees, centigrade. (or 33.8-74.5 f). We packed with layers in mind and in very small bags. They supplied all the sleeping bags and equipment we needed for the nights and meals. The "bus" they drove us in was a converted truck. It was a cross between a 4 wheel drive and an aged Greyhound Bus. When they picked us up it was 30 degrees, which wouldn't have been a problem if they bus had had heat. But it didn't have heat, and it was really cold. We were very uncomfortable riding and being the outspoken American, (the only ones on the trip), I asked why there wasn't heat. I was told air conditioning was more needed than heat. OK....we'll be cold until the sun warms things up.

The Bus

Our guide was a 30 something guy named Rhett. He was pretty quiet on the ride to Uluru, the first stop being a coffee and camel ride stop. Yes, you heard me right, camel rides. Personally, I never ride a camel before noon, so this didn't interest me. The rides were extra, of course.

$10 for 15 minutes

$25 for 30 minutes

$50 for 1 hour

$100 for 2 hours

If anyone has ever ridden on a camel, you would know that 5 minutes is enough. The sign just made us laugh out loud. And there were no takers.

Camels were brought to Australia in 1860 by Afghanistan explorers, 24 in all. They released some of them and now 150 years later, there are 1.2 million feral camels with the numbers doubling every 8-9 years. It's a big problem. They eat up ranges of brush and can drink water holes dry. This over population puts other wildlife at risk, and culling the herds is a necessity. We had no idea that camels even existed in here, but they do and they obviously flourish.

Back on the road after this little stop and we were finally comfortable in the van. The highway to Uluru is a classic Aussie road, 2 lane with no shoulder. Speed limit was 110km/hr, which is about 80mph. The road wasn't too well traveled but when a vehicle came the other way it was only inches from our bus. I'm so glad we didn't drive it ourselves, we heard the road was endlessly long. We made a stop to pick up wood for our campfire, and then on to the "Rock".

We arrived at our Uluru campsite a little after 12pm. We unpacked the van and chose tents. A lunch of sandwiches and drinks were served up and then were off to Uluru. 

Our tent

Lunchroom

Facilities

 The campsite was tidy and the bathrooms were clean. It was more comfortable than I expected in that the tents were heavy canvas with beds and foam mattresses. Rhett tried very hard to convince everyone to try a "swag" and sleep under the stars instead of the tent.

The best way to describe a swag bag is it's a heavy vinyl or canvas bag that you slip your sleeping bag in, and then zip it up around you.  It was predicted to be near 0 or 32 degrees and we opted for the tent. Sorry Rhett!

Off now to see the big red rock. Rhett was not too conversive until the real touring started in the park. He began his guiding at Uluru by telling us about the Aboriginal culture and Uluru's part in their culture. According to Rhett most of their religion and ceremonies are secret, and unless you are an initiated male, they are not shared. There are some stories that were written on the walls of the cultural center, they have been shared with the white man. There is no photography allowed at the Cultural Center, hence, no pictures. Here is a geologists version of how these land masses where formed.

CREATING THE FANS

550 million years ago the Peterman Ranges to the west of Kata Tjuta were taller than they are now. Rainwater flowing down the mountains eroded sand and rock and dropped it in big fan shapes on the surrounding plain.

One fan had mainly water-smoothed rocks. The other fan was mainly sand. Both fans became kilometres thick.

PRESSING THE FANS

Later, 500 millions years ago, the whole area became covered in sea. Sand and mud fell to the bottom of the sea and covered the seabed, including the fans. The weight of the new seabed turned both it and the fans beneath into rock.

The rocky fan became conglomerate rock. The sand fan turned into sandstone.

FOLDING AND TILTING

About 400 million years ago, the sea had disappeared and the whole of Central Australia began to be subjected to massive forces. Some rocks folded and tilted. The rocky fan tilted slightly. The sand fan tilted 90 degrees so the layers of sandstone almost stood on end.

WEARING AWAY

Over the last 300 million years, the softer rocks have eroded away, leaving the parts of the old fans exposed. Kata Tjuta is a hard part of the old rocky fan. Uluru is part of the sand fan, with its beds of sandstone nearly vertical.

The area around Uluru and Kata Tjuta was covered in windblown sand plains and dunes 30,000 years ago.

Uluru, like Kata Tjuta, is the tip of a huge slab of rock that continues below the ground for possibly five to six kilometres.

Rhett, our guide

The Rock is leased to the Australian Government for 90 years, they run the National Park which is situated there. The traditional Aboriginal owners receive $150,000 from the Government to run the Cultural Center and maintenance of the park, which includes  the Kata Tjuta site. Because the of this lease, the climbing of Uluru is not prohibited. It IS discouraged in every way possible, but the chain to help climbers remain. This is a sacred site for the Indigenous people of Australia and most of the tour guides plead with their groups not to climb it. 

About a month ago and Chinese tourist fell at the top of Uluru into a chasm. It took the rescuers 12 hours to reach him and get him out. When found he was in critical condition, remember the temperatures go below freezing as soon as the sun sets.  I don't like heights and it never was even a thought in my head to climb it. I also think you need to respect cultures and they asked that it not be climbed. I will comment about cultural sensitivity. I mentioned Bob Taylor in the previous blog, he was our guide and chef for the Standley Chasm outing we enjoyed. He is Aboriginal. I asked him about Uluru being a sacred site and how to be respectful. His answer was very interesting. He said all of Australia could be sacred sites, that in his culture where there was water was sacred, or food sources, or animals, or shelter....one was not more important than another. He didn't say NOT to climb the Rock, what he said was to respect all this land because it was ALL important to them, and it was ALL theirs.

One thing my son JP warned me about were the fly's in and around Uluru. He was there in Summer, and this is late Winter, but I did buy a fly net while in Alice Springs to put over my head/hat. I was glad to have it, they were bad, not horrendous, and the net helped. John just swatted at them.

The path around Uluru is about 10 km and can be done in 3-4 hours. Honestly, it's kind of a boring walk, very flat and not much but the huge rock looming up. We walked some of it, with commentary, and then drove to interesting points of the landmass. 

We had to get back to the front or the side where we could see the colors change at sunset. I'm sure you've all seen the Rock before, during, and after sunset. But just in case you haven't, here it is.

These are John's photos on a night where the moon was almost full.

We had a twilight glass of wine as part of the tour, every tour group does this and quite frankly it was pretty lack luster. The wine was cheap and the munchies scant. I will say that might be a recurring theme for the food, but I digress.

Back to the campground for dinner and bed. We had an early wake up at 5:30am, so no one was looking to hang out much around the campfire. John and I retired almost as soon as dinner was cleaned up, it had been a long day and we knew the next would be at least as long. I need to add that because we had almost a full moon, the stars were not as plentiful as had hoped. The moon was amazing (we learned it was a "blue moon") but it caused light pollution for the star gazing. We went to bed with Rhett strumming his guitar while the others sang along. He was a good guitarist, voice....not so much, but it was fun to hear it as we drifted off.

We awoke to "Morning has Broken". We dressed, ate, packed and headed to see the sunrise over Uluru. So did everyone else in central Australia. 

Our second day was in Kata Tjuta, or the Olga's. It's the more jagged formation about an hour from Uluru. We were going to do a long hike here and then drive to our campground near Kings Canyon, which was another hour away.  

The walk/hike/near death experience we had here was interesting. We consider ourselves seasoned travelers and in fairly good shape, but this was quite the challenging walk. I should mention that we were the oldest in this group of 21 people, not that we're old, we just were the oldest of this group. We had 2 families with teenagers from the Netherlands, 4-5 young couples, 1 single guy, 2 guys traveling together and us. One of the things that bothered us was Rhett never had us introduce ourselves to each other. We sat for hours on the bus not knowing anyones name. Crazy.... and then we had this very difficult walk where there was time to chat, or commiserate, but no one knew each others names. The walk was on very uneven terrain, and had lots of stones and pebbles that worked just like wheels on a roller skate. It was very vertical and as the morning wore on, very hot and dry. We wore good running shoes with nice soles that gripped the rocks pretty well. I'm glad we had dressed in layers because most of our jackets and vests where tied around our waists. Rhett really hadn't prepared us for the weather, it was a 4 hour walk and we needed no over clothes. We could have left all of them in the bus and not been bothered with them tied around our waists. It was annoying in that he does this 2-3 times a week and he should have known how warm it would get. He guided us through the walk pointing our flora, not too much fauna...but we did see a kangaroo hopping down one of the fans. That was a big highlight.  We were glad to reach the bottom and get back on the bus to head to the next campground and lunch. 

Ochre rocks which are used for face painting

King's Canyon was a 8 km walk which started with 500 steps up. It was a challenging climb that we did without a problem, but some of the younger folk had a tough time getting to the top. That made us feel pretty good, old people with replacement parts did OK. The walk didn't have the pebbles under foot that made it the Olga trek so trecherous, but it was a lot of up and down. We both felt it in our knees, but we managed. This walk had fewer tourists, probably because it was a bit challenging. The vista's were "gorge"ous, sorry.... and we enjoyed the morning.

On of our "nameless" mates from the Netherlands

Garden of Eden

OOOPS!

We did have a fun 3 days in Central Australia, one of those things that we're glad we have done. When we mention where we've been,  most Aussie's say they haven't been there. It is a tourist thing to do but like the Grand Canyon in the US, it's really something to see. With 90% of the population of Australia living near the coast, this is a totally different environment and one we're glad to have seen. I think 3 days was plenty, and seeing Alice Springs was a bonus. I hope you got the feel for the land and the experience.

The Heart of Australia.....The Red Center

John has attended his first Australian Medical Conference which is the Winter Symposium of the Australian College of Emergency Medicine in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia. He booked this conference because of its proximity to Uluru, or Ayers Rock, which happens to be one of the iconic symbols of Australia. This was definitely on our "to do" list and this was a means to get there. It also had many interesting topics dealing with remote emergency medicine issues. Being based in Bundaberg, which is a regional medical center with relatively easy access to Brisbane, he hasn't had to deal with the remote issues that being hundreds or thousands of kilometers from a level one trauma center can create. When you need a neurosurgeon here, you get flown to Adelaide in South Australia. The Alice Springs Hospital catchment area is 1.6 million square km, most being in towns many hundreds of kilometers away.

Can you find Alice Springs?

So we started out early going from Bundaberg to Brisbane then Alice Springs. Whenever we have to go anywhere, it means going to Brisbane first. We arrived at Alice by midday and went right to our hotel which happens to be where the conference happens. It is mid Winter here which means lows of 40 degrees and highs in the low 70's. It was overcast and cool when we arrived not much above 55 I'd say. The conference started Sunday afternoon with registration and some prearranged activities for which we had signed up.

Our afternoon was a drive up to the Standley Chasm which is 50 km from Alice Springs. Our guide was a lovely guy named Bob Taylor, who was a chef in a prior lifetime and of Aboriginal decent.

This is significant because of his knowledge of the land and his Bush Cooking expertise. We were a group of 15 and all part of the conference.

We had a relatively short walk to the Standley Chasm

and then a high tea in the campground when we returned. "Bush Tucker" is what Bob served up, and it was home baked bread, emu sausage, kangaroo fillets, dry roasted macadamia nuts, waddle spice with olive oil. We had tea and coffee all served on a table with china plates and table clothes. We were blown away.

Bob shared some of his cultural takes on things, which was the only personal Aboriginal discussion we had with anyone. I will share the cultural problems later. Here's some of the "Bush Tucker".

Dry Roasted Macadamia Nuts

Kangaroo Fillets grilling

And finished

What's left of the Emu Sausage

We got back in time for the "Welcome" reception at the Conference center, which was a nondescript cocktail party. We connected with a few of the doctors on the tour we took and hung with them at the party. Most of the doctors were from Australia or New Zealand, but not originally.

I"ll try to describe Alice Springs, which is the only city of any size in central Australia. I had a lot of time to walk around and see what there was to see. We were cautioned not to walk after dark in Alice Springs but to take a taxi if you wanted to go to town. I'd encourage you to read this article I found in The Australain.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/destroyed-in-alice/story-fn59niix-1226008040782

The problems that are part of Aboriginal Australian life stem from the colonization of Australia in the late 1700's. The problems are very similar to what we have in the US in relation to the US Native American. The differences are that we've had 150 more years to work out the issues, not that anything has been worked out in the U.S.. Being in Central Australia is being in the epicenter of the dysfunction. From what I can gather, the unemployment and underemployment, are much of the problem, but there is also alcoholism and drug addiction that reeks havoc with the locals. There are "Town Camps" which are like our Reservations, terrible crime and violence happen in these places but local police do not have access so it's incumbent on the victim to come into Alice Springs to report a crime. This causes problems in the Camp, and the victim will often sit with the perpetrator at the jail to give comfort. Domestic violence is a huge problem in the Indigenous population, but culturally the women are ostracized when they return to the Camps so reporting is spotty at best. I have only the white perspective on the issues, I don't pretend to know both sides. Education is another real problem. There are schools, both private and public, but attendance once the children reach teen years is not a priority. Just like in the States, blame is aimed at the system itself. The curriculum is not geared to be culturally sensitive, they learn differently, they don't have computers at home, just going to school is not what the community values. So the gap widens and widens, and as reading/writing/computers skills are needed to perform even entry level jobs, they are left out of any hope of securing a job. This is where the drinking and drug taking take over and selling drugs or alcohol to get money starts. Some of the Town Camps are "dry" so you can make money selling bootleg "grog" in town.

1. The symbolic meaning of the flag colours (as stated by Harold Thomas) is: Black – represents the Aboriginal people of Australia. Yellow circle – represents the Sun, the giver of life and protector. Red – represents the red earth, the red ochre used in ceremonies andAboriginal peoples' spiritual relation to the land.

We noticed when we were walking in town to the conference that the Todd River, yes, this is the Todd River, that many Aboriginal people where hanging out in the river bed, which is all sand.

Todd River

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2.                    We saw the flag flown with the Australian Flag everywhere in Alice Springs. 
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   In a 1967 referendum, over 90% of Australian voters agreed to change our Constitution to give the federal parliament the power to make laws in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and to allow for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be included in the census. (Wikipedia reference)
4. I would never claim that the Indigenous people of Australia didn't have many wrongs done to them. As late as the 1950's and 60's Aboriginal children were taken from their mothers legally and placed in homes with white families. This was thought to culturize them into being being more white or assimilated. This time is known here as the "Stolen Generation" and is believed to be the cause of many of the current issues. Until 1967 they were not included in the census.
5. http://www.nsdc.org.au/stolen-generations-history/
6. The US as well as Australia's history is tainted which is why seeing their current plight is so difficult. The population of Indigenous people is only about 3-4% of the 27,000,000 people who live here, the budget for reforms are $4.9 billion for this year.
7. http://minister.indigenous.gov.au/media/2015-05-12/government-continues-significant-reforms-indigenous-affairs
8. The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, got into trouble early this year when he proposed closing some of the more remote communities. He spoke of empty schools, and heavy unemployment, with no hope of jobs anytime soon. He was vilified for these "insensitive remarks" with his critics stating the Aboriginals are connected to the land whether or not there were jobs and we should support them where ever they chose to live.  I guess if money is no object that might work, but their budget deficit is big and getting bigger and tough decisions will have to be made. I guess I should just try to understand both sides and not share my opinion.

Apparently this is a common thing for displaced locals to do. If you are "shamed" by your "Mob" (which is equivalent to tribe), by alcohol or drug use, you are no longer welcome at the Camp. so they congregate in the river bed and drink, and that causes issues with tourism and safety.  The conference John attended confronted some of these issues, much of the conference used the backdrop of Alice Springs to address medical and social issues facing the Aboriginal. At Alice Springs Hospital they combine cultural therapies with medical therapies. The conference had a Smoking ceremony during the opening session.

1. (A smoking ceremony is an ancient custom among IndigenousAustralians that involves burning various native plants to producesmoke, which is believed to have cleansing properties and the ability to ward off bad spirits.)
2. John felt that it was heavy on the cultural aspects and on rural medicine which is definitely what your practice is in Alice Springs. Alice Springs Hospital being the organizing group, it made sense to focus on the issues of the Aboringinal. But it was informative on things that you don't see in Bundaberg. There are some Aboriginals in Bundy but unfortunately many suffer from the social issues we saw in Alice Springs. All in all it was a good conference on many levels, and this gave us a way to see Uluru, a mere 5 hours away.

    Another aspect of this rural area is the need for medical retrievals via airplanes due to the  remoteness of the area. We flew up from Bundaberg with one of the ER doctors that does

a week of retrieval medicine every few months. The Royal Flying Doctors is an                 organization privately funded that organizes the flights to and from Alice Springs to where   ever the patient needs to go for treatment. The closest large medical center is Adelaide, which is 3 hours by plane from Alice Springs. They will fly patients into Alice Springs if complicated surgery isn't needed. They do field retrievals for bad car accidents, and they staff 1-2 doctors per shift everyday. It's a huge area of need here as the area between hospitals is so vast. The mining industry is a large supporter of the service, but you see bins with signs asking for donations in every mall and airport in Australia. Each flight is at least $1200 and possibly much more if they have to travel to Adelaide or Sydney. There isn't another way to get people to care that is faster. 

1. So, at 6am Wednesday morning we were collected at our hotel for the trip to Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock.
   
   
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