'The Red Centre'

  Alice Springs, Australia
Thursday, May 8, 2008

sunrise at Uluru/ Ayers Rock

Kata Tjuta/ The Olgas

Australia's 'Red Centre' has lived up to all my expectations: the incongruous red rocky masses of Uluru and Kata Tjuta breaking up the vast flat expanses of red earth and contrasted with vivid blue skies really do warrant the hype. As the country's main tourist attraction, I was prepared for Angkor-style crowds at the sunset viewing spot when I arrived but it was all much more low key,and quiet enough to soak up some of the atmosphere. Following the track around the base the next morning, the rock, black at my pre-dawn arrival, gradually revealed its colours as the sky lightened, moving through subtle variations of brown and orange until

hiking King's Canyon

the sun broached the horizon and those first rays touched the stone, bringing it alive with a magical glow. I felt like Indiana Jones when that shaft of midday light lit up the map room at Tannis! I sat cross-legged on the sand and felt the joy of the sun's warmth on my back as the rich red-orange spread across the great rock before me. There is such a powerful energy in this place, it's little wonder it holds such spiritual significance for the aboriginals, and I had the desire to just sit for hours, feeling and absorbing that energy... but time was short and my bus was leaving for a hike around the rim of King's Canyon.

in the balloon basket

sunrise from the balloon

The best dawn view, though, came two mornings later from my corner of the basket suspended from a hot air balloon as the rising sun backlit the wispy clouds trailing over the distant McDonnell Ranges. It was just stunning and as we floated in the air the landscape began to take shape in the growing light and I saw kangaroos bounding through the bush below us. "Oh my God! LOOK! Kangaroos! Real kangaroos! (delighted laughter) Look, theyr'e jumping! Oh wow, kangaroos!" I was the only foreigner in a group of raucous Aussie grannies who were highly amused at my child-like excitement on seeing these creatures, so common to them. I guess it wold be similar to a tourist over the Sligo mountains becoming delirious at the sight of sheep!

the big ballloon

Back in the odd little town of Alice Springs I sat and drank coffee at a street table watching the town wake up late. A group of aboriginals sat on a patch of grass staring into the air, hungover or drunk or just spaced out; smartly-dressed staff opened up their galleries of aboriginal art, their outfits out of kilter with their environment; two tough-looking outback women sat at the next table and carried on a conversation with a range and frequency of curses not even heard heard in Cranmore! ; a weathered, bearded old man in boots, shorts, wide hat and with stout stick strode by - he looked such a caricature I half expected him to burst into a chorus of 'Waltzing Matilda' and wondered why there were no corks hanging from his hat brim.

The Ghan

But this afternoon I re-board the Ghan for the 25-hour train ride south to Adelaide and the anticipated culture shock, after ten months in Asia and a week in the outback, of a modern European-style city... (and hopefully some mashed potatoes...!)