Shark Bay WA ... harrrrrr!

"Treat Tiger Sharks with great respect" it says on the information board just outside the internet cafe in Denham, where I'm posting this entry. As if anyone needs telling. Actually, we haven't seen one yet, but a bottle-nosed dolphin did surprise George while we snorkelling off the beach at Monkey Mia yesterday afternoon! It swam between him and me, though I didn't see it. George swallowed a great mouthful of saltwater in his surprise!

We joined up with george and maryam as planned in perth and we've driven here via Bagingarra, Billabong and Geraldton. People here on the mid west coast live life at a fairly slow pace, and it revolves around fishing, it seems. Also the night-life is limited. We went out to watch people catching squid on the jetty last night and, in doing so, seem to have missed a community "singing circle" that happened in the hall. A lady has just come in and said to the attendant here,
"There were 10 of us! And we sang mostly the old songs. Next week may have some dancing, too."
So you see, it may be worth us staying here a little longer.

Oh, by the way, I haven't forgotten about Uluru, but time presses.

Katatjuta

When we arrived at Katatjuta it was mid-morning. This was a good thing. Many tourist companies bus people in to see daybreak at Uluru and Katatjuta. They were leaving as we arrived. and so we had the fortunate experience of walking for several kilometres in the mountain and desert almost alone. There are sacred Aboriginal places in the Katatjuta mountains, but, unlike Uluru, where the path goes close to them, here it stays well away and they don't tell you where they are, or anything about their story. What I CAN report is that Katatjuta is a very beautiful place. The rock here is red sandstone, weathered into domes; where the rainwater runs off the surface, wet gullies and flushes allow plants to grow, so imagine red rock and occasional green smears and smudges. Deeper in there is water; we found a waterfall trickling over a rock slab, small waterholes and a trickle of a brook, with dragonflies and kingfishers. the most noticeable sound is the birds (tzee tzee of Zebra finches wherever there is any moisture to be had, whistling of the honeyeaters, echoing scream of desert hawks) and the wind that blows gently and constantly through the valley. When we walked out onto the desert (which is scrubby, not bare sand), we saw camel tracks and spotted our first reptile, a tiny dragon sunning itself on a rock. By mid afternoon we were emerging again into the carpark, and evening visits were arriving ....
.. later the same evening, at the Yulara camp site, we watched from a distance as the sun set on Uluru, and then watched the stars in the darkness.

Meanwhile in Cervantes, we've explored Mount Leseur National Park - more than 800 different species of plant exist here, the diversity is similar to raiforests, but this in Mediterranean heath. It is a remote area, only recently opened up for visits, and the walking is really exciting. In the late afternoon we went snorkelling at Dynamite Bay. The visibilty wasn't great - too much sand and seaweed, but we saw sponges, tubeworms, a toadfish and many violet crabs. It's raining tonight.

Now, where were we?

Yesterday, we picked up a hire car from the nice man at AVIS in Perth, and drove around 350 km northwards to Cervantes. It's a cray-fishing settlement that has a very good hostel (we've now discovered), wonderful beaches, very few people and the Pinnacles Desert! In the evening we wandered among the scattered limestone pillars as the sun sank into the Indian Ocean. We saw kangaroo and emu tracks in the sand and a celebrity chef being filmed cooking a meal on location(a dessert I presume, sa Molesworth, hem, hem!). We ate in the local tavern, discussed religion with a local and walked back along the beach in the dark. We saw the Magellanic clouds VERY CLEARLY, and the best shooting star I've ever seen - visible for at least 5 seconds, falling from NW to SE. Today we've swum, (almost, with a wild sea-lion - it appeared in the water where we'd been just a moment before; I don't know who was more surprised, it or us), explored a huge sand dune complex, seen two blue-tongues and visited Lake Thetis with its STROMATOLITES. What a day. We're staying here for another two nights, and we're off to look for stingrays in the light of the jetty tonight.

But what's happening as you drive to Uluru, I hear you cry. Fear not, the story unfolds ....
It's truewhat they say about driving in the desert, all the drivers wave to one another - well you never know when you might need to be remembered! We rattled along to Erldunda at a great turn of speed and managed to pick up petrol and beer there (both essential over the next few days). We also wondered at the Giant Echidna that was safely caged up outside. The, a right turn, and on to Curtin Springs! The road is edged by red, red desert and plants that are either irridescently green or luminously glaucous. It's a ravishing combination with the blue sky above. We weren't taken in by Mount Connor, which many mistake for Uluru as they approach, but it did signal that we were close to our overnight camping place. There's motel-style accommodation at Curtin Springs, and a restaurant, too, but we chose to use their free camping space (2$ for a hot shower, placed in an honesty box). So we pulled in among the few 4WDs, the caravans and the tents and slept soundly till morning.....

Red kangaroo and red centre

Although I'm writing this entry in the YHA in Perth (a quite grand ex St John's Ambulance HQ), it's the time in the centre that i want to continue with (or I'll forget). For now though, just let me say that sleeping horizontally tonight is something that i'm looking forward to a lot after two nights attempting to sleep on a "red kangaroo day-nighter seat" that must have been designed by an engineer with the bodily proportions of a mountain gorilla - too short in the leg and too long in the torso!

... back to Alice Springs.

We spent the afternoon exploring the town - mainly the centre (Todd Mall) and Anzac Hill. As the shoppers disappeared from the mall, aboriginals stayed behind and some began selling small pieces of art, or asking for money to buy food,
"Brother and sister, help me with 5 dollars for some food."
We handed over some money to the middle-aged couple sitting on the edge of the walkway. The man's speech was slurred, but the woman quickly took the cash and said, "That's good, that's 'nuff to buy flour and meat. I'm gonna get a kangaroo tail with that."
As the sun set we walked up Anzac Hill, the memorial to the Australian fallen in the 20th century wars. There's a good view from there; out over the twon to the MacDonells and the desert. The place is doubly poignant because the hill is also a significant site in the local Aboriginal dreaming stories. ust for completeness, the local Macdonalds now stands guard over the Dog Rock, on of the most sacred Aboriginal landmarks in the area.
We walked back along the Todd River bank to the hostel in the gathering darkness. All through the stands of gum trees small groups of Aboriginals were sitting around fires, or wandering between them. They were noisy, and called to each other aggressively, but we'd been told that this was nothing to be too worried about so we carried on. There was probably a lot of drinking going on (and petrol-sniffing is a problem, too), but we weren't close enough to find out. The voices and smoke in the darkness were evocative, though. No point of contact seemed to exist between us and them. The groups that noticed us ignored us; individuals walking past either did the same or veered away. A strange and unsettling experience, but, like Bill Bryson, we found that when we got back to our own concerns - in our case joining in the barbecue at the hostel - the Aboriginals faded away.

The following day we collected our campervan and headed out for the desert!

The plan: drive south to Curtin Springs and camp there overnight; next day go on to Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) and then camp at Yulara to visit Uluru (Ayers Rock) the next day; camp in the desert somewhere between Yulara and Erldunda; return to Alice Springs briefly before driving out to the East Macdonnells to camp at Trephina Gorge for a night; return the campervan.

Driving off southwards down the Stuart Highway, we soon left the township behind. Next stop would be to re-fuel at Erldunda, 225 km south, and then a right turn along the Lasseter Highway for Curtin Springs.

Introducing Alice

Alice Springs is everything and nothing. It's everything that you've read it will be, and nothing like you expect!
First impressions are always dangerous, but the airport is a spic and span bush airstrip, gone modern; a brightpiece of shiny chrome and glass air-conditioned technology planted in an awful lot of red ochre emptiness. It was fresh and friendlyand, after our walk across the sunny tarmac, we were picked up quickly and efficiently by the bouncy girl from Toddy's Backpacker Resort.
"Throw your luggage in the trailer, guys, it's all open over there," she said, "I'll be along in a jiffy, no worries." So we did, and she was.
There were a few other people on the bus - a group of three backpackers, two girls and a boy, comparing travel in a mixture of Spanish and English, a pair of Asian girls and a lone, quiet middle-aged woman traveller wearing a straw hat held on by a scarf. We talked to one another a little, but mainly as acknowledgement that we were all in the same bus, and anyway, the driver was giving us snippets of local information as we rolled along.
"Not much to see on this stretch of road, guys."
"This is Heavitree Gap, guys," pointing to the break in the hills where the road ran into town, "used to be that Aboriginal law only allowed men to come into town through here; women had to walk to a gap 7 km further around. Tough for the women, eh guys!"
"That sandy track's the Todd River, guys. It's full of water, guys, but you can't see it 'cos up here Mother Nature's been kinda clever, guys, and made the rivers upside down so the river bed protects the water from the heat. Neat, eh."
This phenomenon of tour guides and drivers using the word "guys" addressed to males and females during any kind of organised delivery or instructions is ubiquitous. It's interesting, though, that once you're talking to them on a one-to-one basis, it doesn't happen any more. Must be part of the uniform, along with the beanie and the khaki cargo pants.
The lone woman traveller was dropped off at the up-market Desert Palms resort while we trundled on to Toddy's on the other side of town. It's a big, friendly concern - something like Hotel Ali in Marrakech - dorms, double rooms, family suites, plenty of open areas, and lots of help to book on tours and spend your tourist-dollar! We left our rucksacs in our neat and tidy room and set off to eplore ...The Alice.
It's not a beautiful town. Functional describes it better. Mainly single-storey buildings line wide, sealed roads that intersect at right-angles to one another. There's a tired, run down atmosphere on much of the main drag and business is obviously not good for all of the entrepreneurs who've tried to ride on the back of the town's iconic image for tourists and travellers. Vacant units are scattered throughout the shopping areas. What is impressive, though, is the setting. The town sits in a huge shallow basin, with the MacDonnell Ranges running east to west and the Stuart Highway north to south. Heavitree Gap is the only way through the MacDonnells, to the south, and it's this gap that the road uses. What our driver hadn't told us is that the gap played an important in the local Arrernte people dreaming stories a long time before the town arrived. Men's business was carried out there, and that was why the women kept away.
Here, in Alice Springs we found Aboriginal people in evidence for the first time. If you read "Down Under" by Bill Bryson, you'll find a very accurate description. Some move through the streets as though they inhabit a different space from the white Australians and the visitors. Some are drunk or intoxicated on other substances than alcohol. Sometimes battered, they congregate in groups on corners and greens, or sit and talk loudly in family groups as shoppers and sightseers flow around them.
(more later)

From Orange to Red Ochre

The road from Forbes to Orange is isolated and winding, and passes through the little township of Eugowra. It was near here that the Gardiner Gang (including Ben Hall) held up the gold escort coach and made of with the loot. We wandered off the modern road and managed to find the remains of the old trackway, where we could still see ruts made in the rocky surface by wagons. There, below a bluff covered with boulders and gun trees, we found Escort Rock, the spot where the hold-up took place! On to Orange, famous for wines and Banjo Paterson. It was dusk when we arrived there and so there was nothing much else to do but book into the Parkview Hotel and enjoy an unfeasibly large supper. And so we arrived back in Sydney the next day ... to find, in due time, that our departure for the Red Centre was one day earlier than we'd remembered! The next stage of our journey, by air to Alice Springs, and then in a BRITZ campervan to the desert follows asap!

I'm actually writing this (real-time) in Kangaroo Island. Yes, that's how far behind I am with the blog. Here we've seen seals, sea lions, koalas, wallabies and many fairy penguins. Last night, judging by the footprints, they tried to hijack our car from outside our room at the Penneshaw YHA - they certainly serenaded us to sleep, and awake, and to sleep ... all night!!

Listen, time passes.

Here we are in Adelaide, weeks after the last blog entry, winding down after a hard day's wine tasting in the Barossa valley! Not only that, we've spent a gorgeous weekend on a houseboat on the Murray River, stroked a possum's tail and watched SouthernRight Whales lolling 50 metres offshore with their calves. All this thanks to the hospitality of family that we've hardly met over the years but who are, nevertheless, welcoming us into their homes and treating us like the closest of friends. But, I hear you say, "You're my eyes and ears there, what's happened, give me details." Well, dear reader (if indeed anyone still bothers to log on to this sadly neglected site), it's been thrills and spills all the way.
Let me enlarge ...

The Streets of Forbes.
Forbes is a small town in New South Wales, not a million miles away from Parkes where the famous radio telescope is housed. People in Parkes will tell you that Forbes is a rough sort of town, the kind of place that your in-laws might come from, but not a place to be born in yourself. I'll have none of that. Forbes is a fine place that deserves at least one whole day of any traveller's time. We started at the tourist information office where we were able to pick up plenty of information about Ben Hall(of whom more in a moment) and also some of the more interesting souvenirs that I've found since we've been here. For example, the women's institute here seem to turn out not only the usual woollen dolls, painted plant pots and padded clothes hangers, they also have a sideline of very tasteful dinky lingerie bags decorated with applique Victorian foundation wear. We bought one and were mightily delighted. Across the way from the tourist information centre is the Forbes Olympic Swimming Pool. Sadly, this fine facility was closed and so we made our way directly to the cemetery, a mile or so out of town, where we found the graves of Ned Kelly's sister, Captain Cook's great great grandniece and Ben Hall. A walk back into town took us past the Gaggin Oval (we'd seen the Gaggin graves in the cemetery, incidentally) and the to the splendidly veranda'd Albion Hotelwhere we had lunch. As we ate, the police surrounded the table next to us and quizzed the man sitting there. As they walked away he muttered, "You'll never take me alive!", but they heard him and told him that if he didn't come to the station with some haste, he'd be in trouble! A notice told us that the Albion Hotel was the venue for a Hall family gathering some years ago; still some of them around by the sound of things. The Forbes museum is a magpie's nest of all sorts of memorabilia and bric-a-brac, housed in the old town theatre (the bordello actually, so the curator told us). Here we found a display about Ben Hall, a collecion of Victorian ladies' underwear, a piece of a space vehicle that had landed in a local garden and a photo of Mrs Onions, one of the earliest female settlers of the Lachlan River hereabouts and not a woman you'd like to cross. Back at the car park outside the visitors' centre there's a wishing well that seemed to make the final statement about the legacy of Ben Hall in the town. A notice said, "Due to constant thieving, please make a wish at the store across the the road."
So then, who is this Ben Hall?
What better way to tell the story than in song:
Come all you Lachlan men and a sorrowful tale I'll tell,
The story of a decent man who through misfortune fell,
His name it was Ben Hall, a man of high renown,
Who was hunted from his station, and was like a dog shot down.
For years he roamed the roads, and he showed the traps some fun,
One thousand pounds was on his head, with Gilbert and John Dunn.
Ben parted from his comrades, the outlaws did agree,
To give away bushranging and to cross the briny sea.
Ben went to Goobang Creek, and that was his downfall
For riddled like a sieve was the valiant Ben Hall,
'Twas early in the morning upon the fifth of May
That the seven police surrounded him as fast asleep they lay.
Billy Dargin he was chosen to shoot the outlaw dead,
The troopers then fired madly and they filled him full of lead,
They rolled him in his blanket and strapped him to prad,
And they led him through the streets of Forbes, to show the prize they had.

Tragic stuff, you'll agree!