Northern Territory Part I

I. Kata Tjuta

Walking up Walpa Gorge ... in near-40-degree heat.
The day after Christmas I landed in the heart of Australia's Red Centre, which is presumably named for the effect that the flesh-crisping heat has upon Irishmen. Ayer's Rock and the nearby Kata-Tjuta formations are genuinely in the middle of nowhere, and so it's kind of weird to fly over a thousand kilometres of arid and unpeopled land to be dropped into the middle of ... a resort. Unfortunately you have no choice but to stay at this place and pay its extortionate rates. I suppose I have to admit that I couldn't kid myself that one of the world's greatest natural attractions would not be somewhat touristy, and indeed even on Steven's Day I found myself surrounded by middle-aged Germans, ginger-haired Japanese girls and unquiet Americans. I think I was the only one without a Samsonite rollercase. All the while buses bearing the oxymoron Adventure Tours hared to and fro. And word must have gotten out about my face, because at times it seemed that every fly in the Territory had flocked to see it.

Nonetheless, it's a great place to be. You stand on the hilltop mound and look out at that enormous monolith dominating the horizon at more than 10k away. The Kata-Tjuta formations are equally salient off in the distance to your right, and some error of parallax seemed to persuade me that they were within cycling range. When I told the guide who brought us there that arvo that I was thinking of hiring a bike to go see them later, I got a quizzical look. I only later found out they were 50k away - getting there and back in that scorching heat would have been a feat worthy of Burke & Wills ... I'm sure you can see where I'm going with that comparison.

Myself and an engagingly flaky Dutchman called Japp shared a minibus tour to Kata Tjuta with about eight others, so a comfortable number. Our guide was a young guy who imparted some fascinating trivia about the environment out here - Spinifex grass, for example, requires the heat of a raging bushfire to pollinate. I've never heard of a plant that depends for its survival upon a natural disaster sweeping through the area. All along the roadside the freshly-growing leaves of Blue Mallee trees (whose trunk is underground to guard against fire) were bursting through the burnt-out branches of their previous incarnations. Surreal.

Kata Tjuta is a weird Uluru-like set of giant rocks with an enormous gorge you can walk down and get a break from the oppressive heat. We were all drinking water like crazy but I must have dehydrated the fastest because for the last two hours of the trip I had a palpating headache (one of those ones that keeps your expression in a permanent grimace). The evening ended with an impressive sunset and a delightful picnic which the local termites gatecrashed.


II. Uluru

Frankly I'm sorry I didn't hire that damn bike and take it out to the Rock anyway (a manageable 12k away) because although the tour guide we were with that morning was enormously helpful and explained all the different features of the monolith to us, I just couldn't help feeling part of - ugh - a tour group. We got to learn all about the Rock's geological history; its ethnological signfigance; the meaning of the Aboriginal rock art on it; and so on. But all the while as I stood there surrounded by Pentaxes and Canons and flynet hats and conversations in various European languages, I couldn't help having these little moments of Astral projection in which I kept mentally slipping away from the dozen people I was with and viewing them the way I would back home if they were getting a tour of Bunratty Castle. I just know I'd be sitting there thinking Look at those goons. And yet there I was.

Uluru's great, no doubt about it. (Shame on you Aussies who have not yet seen it!) It's hard to belive that anything from 3-7km of it could extend underground. It's a truly amazing natural phenomenon; like Lake Toba in Indonesia it's sheer scale is amazing; and you really do get a sense of timelessness just standing there looking up at it. I kept trying to abstract myself from the tour buses and multilingual warning signs around me so that I could imagine it as it would have looked to Ernest Giles when he finally reached it in the late nineteenth century. It must have been an amazing experience to cross this parched plane on an unknown continent all those years ago, getting closer and closer to this massive rock and slowly realising with every mile just how huge it is.


III. King's Canyon

Coming to and from here on the way to Alice Springs really gives you an idea of just how featureless and sparse the Red Centre really is. In Ireland there's just no such thing as going 5km without seeing a house, much less 100km. So the great emptiness of the landscape really does make an impression. Plus there are insects flying around out here the size of fire extinguishers ... I've backed off from a few of them, believe me.

I must have a sign on my back saying DEBATE ME because on the bus I got into a long conversation with this fiftysomething German/S.African fellow ... all about the history of state-formation in Africa and the Middle East. He had this fascinating conspiracy theory that the Angolan UNITA rebels were secretly funded for 25 years by the DeBiere's corporation so that the country would remain sufficiently unstable to keep out any potential diamond-mining competitors. He was also completely persuaded (and persuasive) that the government of Botswana (80% of its economy is based on ... yep, them stones) was all but hand-picked by DeBieres. (So please think when you get your engagement ring.)




King's Canyon (also in the middle of nowhere, also serviced by a resort) is definitely worth a visit. The guy who took us around the canyon rim that morning was one of the park rangers, an old codger with fascinating stories and tidbits of information. He has a huge compound in which they're trying to breed a once-thought-extinct marsupial called a Mala, which are the favourite prey of feral cats (yet another of those species-introduction backfires that this country's ecosystem seems replete with). Well, maybe you could just release some feral humans into the wild and let the dreadlocked denizens wipe out the feral cats (no wild animal is likely to eat anything as unhygenic as a hippie, after all). He also told us that Australian camels (apparently there may be more than half a million of them roaming wild) are big in demand in the middle east. I've heard of selling oil to the Arabs, but this is ridiculous. He explained about how himself and just five other guys regularly battle bushfires bearing down on their park that are up to 100km in width. Recently he and one other guy "drove like blazes" over the course of an hour or so to set down a barrier fire in an attempt to kill off a 70km-wide inferno threatening to devour Wattarka. Pretty action-packed. One the way back we spied two beautiful birds which the ranger explained were called Spinifex pigeons. He added that that whenever you see one there's always another one with it because they mate for life. I thought: Californians could learn a lot from this pigeon.