Boxing Day Adventures
Trip Start
Dec 18, 2008
1
4
12
Trip End
Jan 09, 2009
Where I stayed
Alice Springs, Northwest Territories, Australia
Saturday, December 27, 2008
The land we are traveling through is semi-arid, average rainfall is 12 inches per year. But some years you get none. Some stretches are as much as 6 years in a row with no rain. All depends on how hurricane season and rainy seasons go in Northern Australia. If they get a category 4 or 5 hurricane up north, that same weather pattern will eventually cross the desert and bring torrential rains.
You can see the rain coming for several hours and it can then hover over the outback for up to a week. When monsoons happen in new guinea and asia, those weather systems will push over and across Australia bringing rain to the outback also.
These rains will happen in the summer months here. But by March it gets quite cool (30 degrees) and drier - clear skies and cool weather. Then August gets windy and dusty and they get "willy willies" (dust cyclones) leading into the winter months which then brings the potential rains. If they do get a lot of rain, the desert blooms with green grasses and yellow daisies which we are currently seeing on our drive. Although, the buffalo grass brought in from Africa (by the cattle ranchers since it will grow even when there is little to no rain) tends to overtake the local bush grasses and also prevents the daisies from blooming.
Water table here is 10-30 feet only (very shallow) so special desert oak trees (red gum trees) grow here which require less water.
This area is known as the "red center" of Australia due to the high iron content iin the soil and the red color of the sand. We will be crossing the Red Gum Tree River which is the oldest flowing river source in the world. Usually the river is flowing underground maybe ten feet below the surface. The dry river bed is used for an overland motor cross race each summer. This year they can't do the race as the river is flowing above ground due to this year's heavy rains.
Along the river grow Red Gum Trees. Stewart would look for these trees in the dusty brush on his trek knowing that he could dig for water near those trees and could find sustainance for his horses and crew.
Stewart did his entire journey on horseback in the late 1800's. It took him 3 attempts to make it. His first attempt he was stopped by hostile aboriginal tribes who wouldn't let him cross their land. He became quite ill on his third and final journey developing scurvy and sand blindness. But he made it Darwin and on the return trip south to Adelaide his crew pulled him on a stretcher.
It was important to the government to carve a path across the territory North/South so they could lay telegraph lines and create the ability to communicate with the outside world. So, Stewart received a reward of 2000 pounds for being the first to succeed on his surveying trek. He took the cash and moved back to England where he died 2 years later.
The famous team of Burke and Wells were actually the first to get north to Darwin, but died on the return trip to Adelaide. This year is the 150th anniversay of their journey and a local guy is commemmorating the historic event by walking their entire journey across the country following the path of Burke and Wells. Some folks are just plain crazy. This is pretty harsh land.
Our drive so far is quite beatiful. Lots of green brush, which is again unusual, but we are seeing the result of the record rains in November. We are traveling through 8 different cattle stations each approximately 1 million square miles. Cattle roam free on these huge stations. When they want to round them up, the ranchers set fences around the natural water holes on the station as cows will never roam more than 6 miles from water. And they go back to water holes daily to drink. When the cows come to the water hole to drink, the ranchers close the fences and round them up.
Each station is required to have an airstrip and these airstrips are used by the Royal Flying Doctors. Sometimes injured parties will have to drive or be driven 300 kilometers to the nearest cattle station airstrip to get medical attention from the Royal Flying Doctors service.
Biggest cricket match of the year (between Australia and South Africa) starts today. I still don't understand how you play, but hope to learn while here.
What we call "snowbirds" (retirees heading south for winter) here they call "grey nomads.". The retirees head north for the winter in "caravans" (triailers) in droves in March clogging up the major roadways.
The "never never" is the salt-lands portion of the desert which starts a few hundred miles North of Adelaide and it is 500 miles of straight desert land, heading north -- totally barren. Like Death Valley on steroids. We are not driving that section of the country...and I am quite happy that we flew north from Adelaide to Alice Springs rather than taking that journey by "coach" (tour bus).
Our first stop today is at a camel farm about an hour outside of Alice Springs. Camels were brought here in the late 1800s by Pakistanis as pack animals when the telegraph was being laid across the outback (inland) territories. But once water was able to be located and managed, and roads were built, there was no real use for the camels. They have since run wild in the country. And Australia has one of the largest wild camel populations in the world. In fact, Australia now exports camels back to the united Arab Emirates. The Middle Easterners like these camels because they come from the last great natural herds in the world and they carry no rabies. They are good for racing, as pack amimals and as food (tastes like beef they tell us).
Sheep, horses, cattle, donkeys, pigs, deer have all been brought into Australia in the past 200 years. They have reeked some havoc on the local ecosystems. Buffalo were reeking such havoc that the government hired people to hunt them and cull them out of the ecosystem. Some of the deer and pig and camels have gone feril. Wild horses here are known as "Bumpies" (what we call wild mustangs).
Our bus driver/guide in the outback is Graeme. He is from dairy farm country outside of Melbourne. He got a horticultural degree in Melbourne. He began playing college football in melbourne and then migrated to America to attend Ohio State University. He arrived there in March when it was freezing so he immediatly left Ohio State. But since he had his visa, he bought an old Dodge and drove to Florida. He landed in Vero Beach while the Dodgers were in training camp. He took a groundsman job with them for the summer. His workmate was a young Russian who borrowed Graeme's car and was caught driving drunk, so the police held Graeme responsiblle and he didn't want trouble. So he left Vero Beach and drove to Myrtle Beach and took a job as greenskeeper at Burning Tree Golf resort. He only got minimum wage at the golf course so he supplemented his income waiting tables at Outback Steak House (ironicn eh?). Then took a job in Birmingham. Then he drove across I-10 to see the country until his car broke down in the middle of nowhere. A mexican picked him up and dropped him in Las Vegas. From there he flew back to Australia. Here he works as a tour guide a couple of years at a time and then he'll work in the mines for a year and keep switching off. Mining here is mostly coal and iron ore for China. But also diamonds and opals. And now uranium.
Graeme's history is not an unusual story down here. Australians tend to be an adventurous lot and think nothing of picking up and moving to a new place looking for the next adventure or opportunity. Since they have national healthcare and welfare...they don't seem much worried about saving towards retiremment. They seem to be a very industrious and entrepreneurial lot.
We just stopped at the camel farm. It was really just a pit stop. Bathroom break, cold drinks and such available. The camels are in big pens and corrals. Most of them were out in the fields grazing. But we'll save our up close and personal experience with camels for our sunrise ride to Uluru on Camel back tomorrow. But I did get photos of some beautiful boomerangs and aboriginal art available there.
It is 10:30 am and we are crossing the dead center of Australia. It is totally flat here with mountains in the distance. We stopped the bus to take photos by the roadside. Unbelievable vistas. And the sky is amazing. Anyone who thought Montana was "big sky country" has never been to the Australian Outback. It is a breathtakingly beautiful day with bright sunshine, brilliant blue skies and dramatic lacy white clouds. And the land is red earth and green grasses as far as the eye can see. Truly spectacular.
We are crossing into Dunder Cattle Station now. Each station has a road house to provide travelers with respite as they traverse the outback. A station can turn $2-3 million in profit from their roadhouse alone. Nice money...but then that means you must live out here as well (no commuting to the office). Most families will live on a station and run a roadhouse for only a few years and then move on.
We then stopped for lunch at Mt. Ebenezer Roadhouse. Featuring meat pies (a local favorite) and pasties. It is owned by a family who is part aboriginal although white folks run the roadhouse. While there, we got to watch a bit of the big Boxing Day cricket match between Australia and South Africa. South Africa recently won the first of three Test Cricket matches in this current series and it was the first time Australia has lost a match at home in 15 years...so today is the grudge match where Australia plans to take back the lead.
Cricket is like a slightly more complicated form of our baseball...only each game lasts five full days. And three games make up the series. They even take tea and food breaks during each day's play cuz a day can go on for 8 or 9 hours.
There is a flat, long narrow pitch (batter's area) with a wooden wicket on each end and a Bats Man (batter) in front of each wicket. These two batters stay up to bat until they get "out" out which means they could be at bat all day. The Bowler (pitcher) from the other team bowls(pitches) from one end of the pitch to the Bats Man at the other end of the pitch. The Bats Man uses his wide flat paddle (his bat) to hit the ball anywhere on the field without popping it up (risking a fly ball being caught and making him out). The Fielders on the other team are standing in a huge circle outside the pitch. Once the ball is hit, they run to catch it or stop it rolling out too far afield. Whoever stops the ball will try to "take the wicket" (tag the wicket with the ball) and get the batter out. Or they will throw to a fielder closer to the wicket who can take the wicket. The batter is out if the wicket is tagged before the batter gets back to the safe zone around the wicket. And the wicket is tagged if the ball touches it - that means a good fielder can throw the ball across the field and hit the wicket directly to get a batter out.
The batter scores points in 3 ways: 1. He hits the ball out of the field of play (like our home run over the fence) which earns a certain number of points, 2. He hits a grounder that rolls past the fielders to a certain distance away from the pitch without being stopped and earns a certain number of points,
3. Once the batter has hit the ball, while the fielders are chasing it down, the two Bats Men at either end of the pitch run back and forth to touch the wicket at the opposite end of the pitch. They score a points for each wicket they reach while the ball is being caught. This is equivalent to our running of the bases. They keep rinning back and forth tagging the wickets until the ball is caught and then hold up at their wicket for safety once the fielders gain control of the ball.
The Bats Man is out in one of 3 ways: 1. They hit a pop fly and a fielder catches it. 2. A fielder is able to capture the ball and toss it to to the wicket (or to a player near the wicket who then touches the wicket with the ball) while the Bat Man is running up or down the pitch and not yet safely back to his wicket (since there are two Bats Man running back and forth between wickets, the fielder must determine which wicket to send the fielded ball too so as to touch the wicket with the ball before the Bats Man can get safely to the wicket, 3. The pitched ball bounces off the leg of the Bat Man and hits the wicket (known as a "leg before wicket" and it happens quite frequently.
A Bats Man plays until he is out. The pitching team must get all 10 players on the opposing team out before they get their turn at bat. So one team can hold the pitch for multiple days. But, both teams must get up to bat twice in a game, and each time they must get through 10 outs or the game ends in a draw. So there is a lot of strategy as to how long each team wants to hold the pitch or give it over to the other team. You want to score as much as possible, but must also make sure both teams get through their 10 outs twice or you'll end in a draw.
Whew - that is the best I can describe it at this point. There are many more complicated nuances and rules, but you get the gist of it. Anyway, it was fun to see some of the biggest game of the year on TV while lunching at the Roadhouse. Next stop ULURU.
Well, we traveled half way across the world and drove 5 hours through the outback to get to Uluru to see the sunset on the sacred rock...but a storm just blew in and it is dark and rainy and there is no sunset. So we had our champagne toast in the rain and took photos of the grey wet rock. I figure we are seeing Uluru in a way few people get to. And they say when we come back out in the morning to hike around the rock, we'll get to see waterfalls down the sides from the rain. And that is something most folks don't get to see.
So, we hopped back into our coach and drove to our hotel in the Ayres Rock compound. Enroute, Graeme explained to us the background story behind the song Waltzing Mathilde and we sang a rousing version of it to pass the time on the drive back.
Now it is off to bed. Early day tomorrow.
