When It Rains, It Pours...Especially In The Desert

Day 1


At 4am Saturday morning I got into a taxi and headed to the airport for my early morning flight through Adelaide to Alice Springs for a camping tour in the outback.  When I got there, I was told that my first flight had been cancelled and they couldn't offer me another one that would get me to Adelaide to make my second flight. I walked away from the ticket counter convinced that travel plans that actually go my way are just not meant to be for me in Australia, but a few minutes later I was handed a boarding pass for a direct flight to Alice Springs that left later that morning.  So after buying the most expensive cup of tea and muffin I have ever eaten, I watched the sunrise over the tarmac and the airplanes that were covered in the morning dew.


Once we landed in Alice Springs the weather was incredible...warm and sunny! Our hostel had a pool so we spent the rest of the afternoon laying out and then walked into town to get dinner.  The town of Alice Springs was...interesting, to say the least.  While it was an obvious tourist town (actually, the only town around) we got a lot of exposure to Aboriginals...in a bad way.  Apparently, in the Aboriginal communities (reserves) there is no alcohol allowed, so anyone who wants to drink has to come into the towns, where they really take advantage of this right.  Further, we learned that up until the 1960s, Aboriginals were not recognized as people, but rather classified as "flora and fauna" in the area and some white Australians still struggle with the concept and still often reserve the right to refuse service to them.

Collecting firewood in the bush; Mt. Connor in the background

Day 2

Kata Tjuta (The Olgas)

Our tour guide arrived at 6am to pick us up from the hostel and we went up to Alice Hill to see the sunrise over the town.  We slept and chatted with the others in our tour group (17 of us total) and eventually ended up at a camel farm where some people paid for camel rides, but most of us just bought coffee or tea and wandered around to look at all the animals.  Back on the road we stopped to collect firewood near Mt. Connor, on land that is a cattle station owned by the Kidman family (the station is 1million acres, or approximately the size of the country of Belgium.)  After lunch at the campsite outside the Uluru- Kata Tjuta National Park, we drove to Kata Tjuta (pronounced Kah-tah Ju-tah), or The Olgas to westerners, to do some hiking.  In the language of the Aboriginals of the Western Desert, the Anangu (prounounced Ah-nah-nu), Kata Tjuta means "Heads Many" since they don't have a number system past 3 so anything more than that (there are 36 total "heads" in the formation) is just "many."  We learned some things about the plants in the area and how they were used by the Anangus for medicines and weapons and also saw the Wottle trees which bloom bright yellow flowers when it rains and are the reason that Australian sports teams use the colors green and yellow when their flag is red, white and blue.

We returned from the hike in time to see the sunset at Uluru (Ayers Rock) and then went to the campsite for dinner.  I can see why sunset/sunrise at the rock can be so special, but we didn't get lucky enough to see any heartwrenching, awe-inspiring colors like the ones that made Oprah cry when she saw it. In the Anangu culture there are women's and men's business and each gender will never learn the secrets of the other.  In celebration of this, the guys in our group built the fire while the girls did the cooking.  We had an Aussie BBQ complete with camel snags (sausages), roo and beef steaks, grilled veggies, homemade coleslaw and cajun-style potatoes...definitely a lot more than I was expecting!  Later we sat around the fire roasting marshmallows (the people from the non-english countries had never done this before!!), playing games and telling scary stories.  With the fire still going we set up our swags (individual cargo tents with no top that surrounds a sleeping bag) and settled in to get some sleep for our very early morning the next day.

Day 3


We woke up at 5am and had brekkie at the campsite (cereal and toast with jam or nutella) and then packed up and went to Uluru for sunrise.  Afterwards we went into the cultural center to learn about Anagnu artwork, music and most importantly Tjukurpa (pronounced chook-orr-pa), which describes the law, religion, relationships and moral systems of the Anangu people.  Their systems are based on respect, so as you gain respect in the culture, you are allowed to learn more about your respective business (women's or men's) from the elders of that group.  Tjukurpa is also a collection of stories known by the people of the area about how the formations on Earth came to be.  Essentially, Tjukurpa is the basis of all the knowledge of the Anangus, continually passed down through generations, but only revealed to those who have proved themselves worthy of that knowledge.

Uluru (Ayers Rock) at sunset

Later in the day we did the Base Walk around Uluru.  There were lots of "sacred sites" around the rock where we weren't allowed to take pictures because to the Anangus taking a photo destroys a piece of your soul.  While we walked we tried to think about what it must have been like to live here, on the side of this huge monolith in the middle of the desert.  Partway through we came across a waterhole where the Anangus used to hunt (men's business).  The men would cover themselves in plant oils so the animals couldn't smell them, and then wait until the last animal left the waterhole and take only that one.  Since kangaroos, emus, etc. can't look behind them, they wouldn't know what had happened to the last animal or even notice that it was gone until they were far away.  This way, the animals never associated the waterhole with danger and continued to feed there each day.

After finishing the hike, our guide, Shaz (Aussie nickname for Sharon), took us through the last part that had a lot of interesting stories associated with its features as well as ancient Anangu paintings in caves.  We learned that they used the walls of the caves like blackboards, using the paintings to teach their ways to the young Anangu boys and girls.

We had lunch back at the campsite and then drove to a new one, near King's Canyon, for the night. On the way we saw wild camels, which are an introduced species to the country.  The 30 originals were used for building the overland telegraph line through Australia for communication with Europe because they were better adapted to the climate than horses.  After the line was completed, they were released...there are now more than a million camels in central Australia.  We stopped to collect more firewood for the night and then had another campsite cookout, this time switching the women's and men's business (and we made a much better fire than the boys!)  After dinner we made Aussie bush bread, or damper bread, in the fire, which were like scones and were absolutely delicious..they will be a must-have for campfires back home!

That night after we had only been asleep a few minutes (listening to the tiny noises of the mice all around us..) our guide woke us all up to move us into tents because it was starting to rain....and then it didn't stop until we got back to Alice Springs the next night.  Our guide told us that it was the most continuous rain she had ever seen in the region.

Day 4

A rainy hike through King's Canyon

In the morning we drove (in the rain) to King's Canyon to do some hiking, stopping at a servo (gas station) to try to buy ponchos.  Apparently the stores there were just as prepared for rain as we were because there were a total of 5 ponchos available for purchase...and 17 of us.  So with half a poncho each, and some without, we went to the canyon and saw some incredible formations and took a lot of great pictures.  I felt like I would have enjoyed myself more had I not been feeling so dismayed about being caught in a rainstorm in the one of the driest environments in the world, but luckily I have been learning all about the power of a positive attitude in the last few weeks, and it was a really fun day.

That afternoon we drove back to Alice Springs (almost hit a wild kangaroo on the road!), checked back into the hostel and then met up with everyone from our group for dinner and drinks.  We had a really fun night and my roommate Lorena and I ended up speaking Spanish with the two guys from Italy in the group since the two languages are so similar. I originally thought I wouldn't like being on a tour because I didn't think we would get as much freedom or time to enjoy the surroundings, but I'm glad we got to meet so many new friends.  With no airline cancellations, delays or turn-arounds in mid-air on the way home, the trip ended smoothly and I got home just in time for my first final exam.

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Anyone who has talked to me recently knows that I've been having a hard time the last few weeks; missing home and my brother's senior events, as well as friends who are on staff with ASP having experiences that I can only read about this summer.  The whole time I've been here in Sydney I've felt really connected to this place and felt like I belong here..but in the last few weeks I've noticed a big change; my heart seems to be somewhere else.  At the risk of sounding ungrateful for my experiences, I have to say that I'm ready to come home.  For some reason things haven't been feeling as fulfilling as they did when I first arrived.  I wish that that weren't true, but feeling like I'm missing out on things at home has made it really difficult to appreciate what's around me now.  Though I've been actively trying to overcome this emptiness (for lack of a better, less depressing word), it has proven a bigger challenge than I anticipated.  With everything I've learned about optimism, I'm sure there is a positive aspect to this situation somewhere..just waiting to find it. So for now I'm anxiously awaiting my mom's arrival, and filling my time with lots of studying..mostly making up for all the studying I haven't done in the last 4 months..