Return to the Red Center

In life one measures achievements and successes in ways appropriate to ones environment. Early Tuesday morning 30th April 2002, I realized that my powers of acquisition had exceeded my lifting capabilities or in layman’s terms my eyes were bigger than my luggage allowance. For it was on this day that I first toppled over whilst wearing my backpack! Recovering from this minor yet memorable set back I walked around the corner to a neighboring hostel where I was to meet to join my next trip.

Having completed the East coast route the time had come to visit the Australia that I’d always read about in books, heard about in songs and seen in the movies – the outback, the Bush, the Red Center. Call it what you will – but you know what I mean – dirt trails through scrub lands, towns with populations of 6, hats with corks on, lots of 4X beer and horizons shimmering in the distance.

There are of course literally thousands of miles of outback to choose from. The route that I was to travel was Cairns to Alice Springs which talking of movies was advertised in the Oz Experience book as the “Priscilla” route. Despite the lack of giant high heel shoe on the top of the coach, (and no there were no sightings of a cock in a frock on a rock at any point during our 3 day trip!), I willing boarded the red “Desert Venturer” bus. By this time I’d teamed up with Sabrina who’d also been waiting at the hostel and we grabbed ourselves the front seats on either side of the aisle and in front of Spencer and Amy from Toronto who I’d met in Cape Trib giving us both a social position plus clear view of road ahead which promised to be good.

Our bus driven by Mark – a kind of fatherly kind of driver figure set off up the Kuranda highway reaching 1000m before descending to the center. The route took us through more rainforest country stopping at Millstream Falls allowing us to say one final good bye to the lush greens of the North East as well as saying good bye to other things such as traffic lights, tarmac and thankfully the last McDonalds until Alice Springs. A sad landmark to point out, I know, but the golden arches really are so ubiquitous. Most “adventure” trips you have to sign a “I wont sue if I die” form. As one of the drivers once commented, in the tourist industry adventure is often defined as going anywhere further than 20km from a McDonalds!

Soon after this green departure the trip actually turned into a ride that closely simulated trips on the M1 - lots of bland countryside, grey skies and rain. Perhaps to divert our attention from the distinctly non-outback looking scenery Mark decided to educate us about the area

The main industry of the vicinity used to be timber hence the empty countryside where once was rainforest! The really valuable wood was the red cedar, which became known as cedar gold as anything in its way was burned felled in order to get to this prized commodity. Since the area became World Heritage listed in 1987 the industry has been halted much to the indignation of the locals, as it was basically a family business. That said since then tourism has now more or replaced timber as a major money earner for the region – something that would have not been possible if they had continued to deplete the rain forest.

Next we were also shown a video on kangaroos (well half of it till it fizzled – say good bye to the VCR for the next 1900km!) Apparently the male kangaroo spend their entire life working up a community hierarchy for mating rights whilst women concentrate on caring for young. This rather conservative division of labor is different to all the reptiles and birds where equality reigns relatively freely. That said the child-rearing female has quite a bit of autonomy. She can decide when to have babies (as she stores the fertilized eggs from the mating so the bloke can come along to be told no means sorry still got eggs to fry!) and can choose the gender too. She will normally choose to have her females when young as they stick around whilst the males go off after a year. All the kangaroos I’ve seen have been quite fun and charismatic but one thing I noticed that contrary to pretty pictures of the Joey’s head popping out of his mothers pouch, more often than not you see a rather awkwardly positioned paw hanging out instead that can leave you feeling a bit queasy.

Anyway today’s journey was relatively long at 754km. I guess when you get used to traveling such distances your whole time perspective evidently changes. Take Mark’s announcement at 12:00 for example “As we’re getting nearer for lunch I’ll tell you how it will work” Fair enough but the lunch stop wasn’t for another hour!!!

(Packed) lunch was eventually taken by Lynd Junction Pub the smallest pub in Australia. Food was not the highlight of my trip (more tuna, vegetarian cheese and corn crackers - see rice crackers but replace the grain) but I did get a chance to finally have a proper chat with my mystery parallel group of travelers who I’d just missed about 3 times before (see Brisbane, Fraser island and Cape Trib reports). Spying them when I’d got on it made me think that maybe if you’re destined to meet up with someone then you can just leave it up to fate and you will! (Hey sounds like a film plotline there….)

By the afternoon the M1 scenery had changed to outback although not the conventional desert look as you’d expect. Firstly we now find out why it’s called the red center. Due to some funky reaction with iron oxide the ground is literally red. It’s a fantastic sight especially driving down an endless dirt path. I could sum up the afternoon’s driving as miles and miles of eucalypt forest but that wouldn’t do it justice. Imagine the same but the trees have green leaves and black trunks are surrounded by tall yellow/green grass with a back drop of clear blue sky and all the colors are very deep and bright. Add to this backdrop, flocks of coloured birds flying along and free wheelin’ brown and white cows and you might understand why I was so taken by the view

Cows you say? Whats that about? Well basically the whole route runs through cattle stations, which are bordered by fences and cattle grids. (Oh check out the new come-back if someone calls you a cow – tell them you can’t be because you don’t fall down the grid) Apart from these the cows can roam where ever they want which obviously includes the roads. Its thus up to the drivers to look out for the cows and vice versa. This meant that we often found ourselves playing the game “chicken” with some either pretty courageous or suicidal cows (in fact the game has now been renamed “cow”!). Unfortunately not all vehicles are able to or care to slow down such as the giant trucks, called Road Trains, which pull up to three huge trailers and roar through the outback. These get right of way on the 2-way highway with one lane (drivers in cars move to the side) so you can imagine the cows don’t stand much of a chance. So if you see a cow laying legs up the side of the road I hate to break it to you but its not sunbathing!

Anyway so that was the landscape almost all the way (past Porcupine Gorge an impressive canyony gorge kind of thing on the side) until the scrub savannah appeared maybe 10-20 minutes before we arrived at our night’s destination, Hughenden.

The second day promised to be more relaxed as we only had to travel 572 km! Leaving the Grand Hotel (the town’s local pub basically) around 7ish, the main highlight of the day was the town of Winton established in 1875, named after a suburb of Bournemouth, the hometown of Banjo Pattison the author of the infamous Ozzie ditty, Waltzing Matilda, the Bush poetry capital k, plus, if that wasn’t enough also the place where the concept of Quantas airlines was first dreamt up. Not bad for a town with a population of less than 1000.

Known best as the commercial airline with a spotless record (Thanks Dustin) Quantas actually stands for Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service and it was in Winton where the first board meeting was held to establish it in order to provided a much needed service to the outback. I’m not sure by whom or much more detail than that but there wasn’t a museum all about its history. I can tell you what a billabong is though (a deep waterhole) as there was a whole museum devoted to the town’s Waltzing Matilda heritage! Yup a whole museum about a song originally written for the shearer’s strike of the 1920s which has now become a “Song to the Soul of Our Country” according to some! As explained by Rolf Harris (on tape on the bus alas and not in person), the song is about an Aussie hobo with a swag (bedroll kind of thing) he calls Matilda and it basically makes a hero of a fictitious suicidal itinerant worker.

The museum was actually quite interesting going into the history of the song, legends about its authorship (music and lyrics), its meaning to the Australian nation, different versions, outback slang and its origin. Sample slang would be saying riding shanks pony or waltzing matilda or going on the wallaby to describe traveling in the bush. Plus I finally understood the nickname the Katamon Aussies gave my ex-flat mate Miriam Braunschweiger. The Bushwackers were an Aussie pop group who also released a version of the famous song!

Two more stops that day, one at Middleton, a town with a population of 1.5 (the barmaid is transient) and Cawnpore lookout which I basically mention so I remember what I’ve taken a photo of! So many of these stops are just stunning views and miracles of nature but its hard to remember which is which etc and the worst becoming blasé – “Oh yes here’s another incredible canyon blah blah” Less attractive but significant all the same we also we passed the largest manmade structure in Australia a trans something dingo fence. (Yes I know my fact taking has become a bit shoddy and no I don’t know if its visible from the moon!)


Back on the bus (with cow vaccine to be delivered to our night’s destination – such communal spirit) the crowd began getting restless. So out came the bus bowls - lots of fun for everyone especially when the guest MC introducing the players and taking the crowd through the playoffs was me! You can tell I’m relaxed with a crowd when I’m comfortable enough to let me entertain! Actually the people on this trip really made it for me. There were a couple of groups of friends, but mostly independent travelers out to be friendly and have a laugh. Age didn’t seem to matter (I was well up in the highest percentile but thankfully Toronto couple were older) and I really think a good time was had by all.

Second night we stayed in Boulia, home to 300 residents and the legendary “min min” light which is kind of on par with the yeti and the loch ness monster but more light less monster. It’s said to be a shining light in the black of the night, which appears at night without notice and follows you. Some of us thought of suggesting to the locals that maybe it was a car light but then decided to leave it. After all stuck in the middle of nowhere they really don’t get much entertainment! (Trust me we were staying a floor up from the local bar!)

Our third and final day and we were up before the sun as we had nearly 800km to cover. After stopping for the sunrise we head onwards first crossing the Tropic of Capricorn and then the border of Nothern Territory (we’ve been traveling in Queensland up until now). Wierdest thing about that was putting our clocks back by half an hour! I’d never moved in half hour time zones before!

Stops were very few and far between today (what a good thing that we all WERE getting on well!) Pictures next to a huge termite mound taller than the bus was followed a few hours later by lunch at a cattle station, followed a few hours later by a stop at the general store of an aboriginal community Atitijere. We didn’t meet any of the locals or hear much about the community but it was pointed out that this was one, which its leaders had declared alcohol free in an attempt to correct some of the social problems that they like others have experienced in recent years.

Finally getting of the dirt path and onto the Stuart highway at 6pm we eventually arrive in Alice Springs as dusk drew close. To celebrate our arrival in Alice Springs, capital of the Outback, we are treated to pizza and tacky but fun Club Med like evening at one of the local hostels which resulted in Friday being a VERY laid back day! What was especially nice was that about 9 of us ended up having supper together on Friday night (I had the Osem pasta dish, they had chicken, noch!). It was so nice as what I like about Shabbat more than anything is the social relaxing around the table. By that time they knew quite a bit about Jewish stuff. Funniest comment had to be Jeff-Prince-William-look-a-alike-gap-year-boy from Oxford. He told me that he thought his Dad went to a Jewish school. I thought perhaps he was referring to Clifton College that used to have a Jews house but he actually meant Haberdashers!!!

Shabbat was more relaxation – said good bye to the girls who were off on their Ayres Rock tour that morning and then hung out exerting myself a bit to go out to the viewpoint at Anzacs Hill which looks over the town. Alice is pretty modern has all the conveniences of a regular town (population of 25,000) in contrast to the small places we’d been hanging out over the last 3 days.

Oh well no long term rest for the wicked, on Sunday morning and at the unrecognizable hour of 5:15 I was up dressed and ready to be picked up for my trip to Uluru aka Ayres Rock. When I say unrecognizable this seemed to be the case when by 5:45 still no show so I called up the company at 5:45 only to find out that our tour had been combined with another one so the starting time had been changed to 6:45 but whoops they’d forgot to tell us (I was with another couple at our hostel)

I don’t want to spend the rest of the e-mail bitching so I’m going to get it out of my system now: Unfortunately the company that I traveled with let me down somewhat. The tour was advertised as “unleashed” ie big hikes, camping away from conventional campsites, off the beaten track etc but it ended up being a just like a standard one just more disorganized and not at all away from the crowds. I’d also specifically chosen this company over another cheaper one because of the so guaranteed quality. (Lesson learnt never trust travel agents that work on commission!) In addition the make up of the group (probably unfairly contrasted against my last wonderful experience) did not make for good optimum bonding - 2 couples plus 4 girls who’d lived together in Perth. The people were nice but no one had real incentive to get to know new people. The guide had a bit of an attitude too although he did know his stuff. We kept bumping into the group from the other company who seemed to be having a great time, which was a bit frustrating. Then again when I got back I got an e-mail from a friend from the Desert Venturer bus who’d gone with that company a day or so before and had had a not too good experience either so I guess the lesson we learn from that is that it really is random. And more importantly not a reflection on me when things aren’t perfect! (Sounds crazy but any of you who know me well will understand)

OK vent over, now let’s get back to the trip.

Finally on the road again, the familiar red road brought back some serenity with the delightful black cockatoos flying around, occasionally resting on the phone line, flashing their red tails as they flew. Meanwhile nearer to the ground, sitting up front again I did get to see my first wild red kangaroo. Unfortunately it was dead and driving past it we managed to scare off a winched tail eagle (Australia’s largest bird of prey with a 2 metre wingspan) from its hearty breakfast albeit momentarily. Other interesting wildlife included wild camels! Although an introduced species (from the Canary Islands) they’re actually not too much of a pest as they don’t do much damage – they have padded feet and graze while wandering so never over graze in one area. In fact Alice Springs is known for its camel races which are rather popular

As we were driving in a 4WD we were able to take a slightly more scenic route down the Giles track named after one of the early explorers. Passing several creeks along the way (including Doughboy creek - naming conventions evidently went slightly off at some point) the Giles track eventually lead us back to regular sealed road where we reached our lunch destination near Kings Creek Station.

From there we traveled to the Watarrka National Park which is land leased from the local Aborigine community. There we tackled our first hike of the trip. This 6km walk which took us around 3 hours led us up to see the stunning Kings Canyon which gave us our first taste of the infamous rock colour and texture as associated with Uluru. The red colours of the rock together with the green were just outstanding. Please excuse the incredibly mundane way of describing a natural beauty but the only way I can accurately describe the red and green hues and successful contrast, without conjuring up a Xmas scene minus the snow, is to refer you to a v popular mid nineties colour scheme for kitchens! The green was a shade darker than bottle green and the red was a roof tile red. (I’m racking my brains for sample households - Mum, think of the Blooms’ kitchen in Rehovot!!!). Hidden in the shade of the walls of the Canyon half way through we reached the Garden of Eden watering hole, aptly named if a touch on the cold side!

It may sound surprising to hear of all the green in a supposedly desert region. The huge amount of green is the result of unusually large amounts of rainfall which is well supported by the flat landscape and subsequently well utilized by a natural system of underground water storage - plants tap roots Plant science 101 blah blah!. The terrain is now classified as a semi arid zone. As you can imagine if you get an average of 725ml a year for two years after years of much less (ok I don’t have figures) its going to radically affect the plant communities of the area and indeed bird and plant species have returned after years of absence. Just as a comparison the Negev has less than 100ml of rain a year.

Both nights we stayed either in or just outside campsites (very unleashed, not! bygones!) That night suitably tired after our days efforts, following food cooked around the old camp fire we did go to sleep under the stars (tents are for girlie cowards) Do not fear we did not tempt frost bite or any lurking friendly but poisonous snakes for we slept in swags which not only protected you by covering you totally but also sneakily provided a really comfy mattress which made it one of the easiest sleeps I’ve had camping.

Next day I’m woken up by a kick on the swag (such is the etiquette… ) and we’re off traveling three hours to get to the Uluru- Kata Tjuta National Park passing Mount Connor on the way – another great mountain which can be easily mistaken for Uluru by the uninitiated. The plan was to visit the Aboriginal Cultural Center in the morning and then hike around Kata Tjuta (aka the Olgas) today and to visit Uluru the following day. As you can see the trip to Uluru entails more than just that one specific site. Kata Tjuta is a collection of domes (36 in all I think) standing as impressively (if not more so) as Uluru, just 50km down the road. We took a looped walk along the valley of winds named for obvious reasons and enjoyed more of the same terrain as Kings Canyon (yet this time a bit more curvaceous and no water). Much of the area is out of bounds due to religious beliefs (see below) but we were able to get some good views of the neighbouring domes from this trail.

Now the big question on your mind now (apart from where on earth does she find the time to write all of this – answer to that is don’t ask!) is whether I climbed Uluru. Well I had heard previously that it was a religious site so I’d kind of already decided not to out of respect. Our guide’s philosophy when asked was to let us go to the Cultural Center, read about it and decide for ourselves as he felt it wasn’t so clear cut seeing as the climb was still open.

Ok so this is what I learnt about the Aboriginal culture which sadly was not too much (well probably enough detail to handle but nowhere near enough from personal testimony)

The Aborgine people have their law known as Tjukurapa which describes the relationship between people and places, their environment and creation and acts as the basis for their social, religious, legal and ethical systems. They believe that the journeys of ancestral beings (tjakuritja) created all features in a world that was originally flat and featureless. This creation when the world and people began is known as Dreamtime (also known as Tjukurapa). Every Aboriginal is related to one or more of the Dreamtime ancestors. The law is passed on through song, dance, painting and ceremony which allows them to refresh and pass on their knowledge of the legends and features of the landscape which to them are the complete and truthful end of the Tjukurapa. This knowledge is only passed onto appropriate people at the appropriate age. Therefore the older one is, the more respect they accrue because their knowledge and skills are greater. This applies to both men and women).

Reading this with my yid- tinted glasses I couldn’t help but seeing parallels with Judaism - Lets leave the lack of monotheism out of this for the moment – but on a ritual level. All the songs etc sound a lot like an Oral Law to me as it originally was and we all know that despite Roseanne and Madonna’s attempts otherwise that there are parts of our law such as the Kaballah and Zohar which are traditionally studied by people over a certain age and with particular learning standards only.

Further still all Aboriginal communities have their own land. The traditional owners of the Uluru land are the Anangu . Ngura is the name they use to refer to the place where they live. Thus they have Tjukurpa (the law), Ngura (the land), Anangu (the people) and they believe that all are interconnected and if you take one of them away the others cannot survive. That is why it is important for them to live on their land and look after it properly. Anyone whos been to as many BA mifkadim as I have couldn’t possibly miss the parallel there!

The rock has always been very famous for its climb but the Anangu don’t believe it is right to climb Uluru as the climb, (which incidentally looked and apparently is dead hard), is the traditional route taken by initiated ancestral Mala (Rufous hare/wallaby) men on their arrival at Uluru. The official reason they give for encouraging people not to climb is that they feel that while we are visiting their land they have a duty to look after us and they would feel great sadness if anyone dies or is hurt on the climb (Uluru has indeed claimed its fair share of victims) Instead they recommend the walk around the rock which is what we did in the end. It was quite awe inspiring as it is so immense and there are areas traditionally used for preparation for religious ceremonies and you could feel the tranquility that would foster the appropriate atmosphere for this. On certain parts of this walk photography was forbidden, as these were areas used by initiated members only. A further aspect of the Anangu belief is that the Tjukmiya still exist and can be seen through nature and thus one needs to see more than the photo of a place – to see the spirit within making them quite anti-photography.

As I mentioned although the Anangu were returned their land rites in 1985 the climb does remain open to the public. Matt our guide was a bit cynical about this as he said that if they really don’t want people to climb then they could just shut it down, suggesting that they were tempted by the national park fees received. I, wishy washy liberal to the end, understood it to be part of a friendly compromise made with the Australian government when the land was given back as they have made a lot of changes to the area to how it was in Ayres Rock days (Ayres was an Australian governor a couple of hundred years back)

Before 1985 there was a pub, campsite (site of the famous Linda Chamberlain – a dingo stole my baby - affair, post office and even an airplane runway at the foot of the rock. Now this isn’t just Brighton Rock you know. Uluru is a huge monolith, literally one huge red rock that can be seen for miles around (it actually stretches about 3or so miles below the ground too!). It has a plethora of different shades of red depending where the sun is hence the fascination with viewing it at sunrise and sunset (we did both). Its shape projects major shadows and a walk around reveals ancient paintings and markings. How anyone could think of putting a resort at the bottom is criminal. Religion aside there should be a law to protect natural beauties against plain tackiness (spoiler – just been to Niagara and I see such a law there would be way too late!) Surely you don’t need to be religious to respect natural beauty?

I feel that the Aboriginal community has probably suffered at least to a certain degree as a result of a lack of good PR, which due to the structure of their beliefs is kind of inevitable. Not only are there areas that are so sacred that uninitiated people cannot visit them but also there is much of their culture that cannot even be explained to outsiders. Kind of makes getting to know with European invaders you a little harder I suppose.

So with that it was time to head on back home. Our long drive back was broken with a stop about an hour outside Alice at a little known gem called Rainbow valley. Again another iron oxide trick – this time interacting with sand stone to literally give a rainbow effect which we watched change colour as the sunset

Back to Alice that night there was just enough time to reconnect with Sabrina, Charlotte and Vickie from my last trip until flying back to Sydney the next day. We even fitted in a bit of education when in the morning we visited the Royal Flying Doctors Base. Its amazing the work they do - flying miles to reach their patients covering emergencies, mercy calls and regular health care and all that with no government support (plus paying 10% tax). Also did you know that lots of doctors consultations are done over the phone or radio, yearly medicals have to be booked a year in advance and that pregnant women have to get to a town six weeks before their due date.? All very interesting although unfortunately no guest appearances by Shane from Flying Doctors and before that Neighbours (don? kid yourself about maybe seeing these superstars. Did you know that the actor that played Rick Alessi is now a tour guide with Adventure Tours - the company I don’t like and apparently the actor who played Todd works on the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb?!)

That afternoon I flew back to Sydney and spent my last 18 hours in Oz at Bondai not surfing but shopping, interneting, reading etc. Found a nice bookshop on the same road as the Hokoah Jewish social club that had an acoustic singer who did great funky versions of bootlicious and THE kylie song in a kind of jazzy way. I stayed at Noahs Backpackers - a good way to get me excited for normal housing again but it was well located. As promised I took the Bronte walk from Bondai to the neighbouring Bronte beach early in the morning and was dazzled by the sun, the blue sea and the millions of joggers.

And what with one last final shop (best bargains always in that last look) before I knew it I was on the shuttle bus to the airport - NY here I come!

So that’s it from the southern hemisphere so before I leave (metaphorically of course – I’m in Toronto already!) I’d just like to get on my soapbox and talk about a couple of issues that came my way during these travels.

Firstly I’d like to say that I am jealous of French people living in France or for that matter Norwegian people living in Norway. Confused? Well at least when people say where are you from they can just say France (or Norway if they’re Norwegian otherwise that would be lying) and then move on with minimum judgment or perceived judgment. While traveling I often get asked “So where in England are you from?” and partly through ideology and partly just through kharma-needing-honesty I would answer well I’m from London originally but I live in Israel now. This would start a chain of questions: how long have you lived there?, why?, are you going back?, what’s it like?; are your parents Israeli? so you’re not really Israeli then, leading onto my explaining my Jewish connection to Israel etc. Even though this is often over in minimum time it still reminds to me that I have to convince people of who I am.

This can be quite discomforting, to feel that I can never just blend in unless I hide part of me. It even makes me think sometimes who am I kidding – I sound English, I understand the English but then I realize I haven’t lived an English life in 7 years and have no plans too in the near future either. When I meet English people I can get nostalgic about TV programs but when I meet Israelis I talk about life. There’s probably no resolution and I need to accept that I’ll be explaining myself for quite a few more years to come. It reminds me of the Achinoam Nini song Ilanot or Oranim (I forget which tree) when she sings about having roots on both sides of the Atlantic.

Secondly I’d like to propose that age is in the eye of the beholder. I could have easily returned from this trip feeling the oldest person alive (ooh don’t think I’d want to do that) as most travelers were younger than me but the truth is their reactions to my age is what will keep me going back for more of this travel thing. I think the public consensus was probably that I was about 24/5 max! And I didn’t really mind fessing up to my age after a while because I felt like I was being an ambassador for the 29s (I refuse to say 30s until that’s true!). I’ve definitely enjoyed myself more in the last year or so than I have for years and anyway now there are all these early twenties people who believe that they might still have their own teeth at the age of 29!

Finally (and this is more of an observation than a major issue) I’d like to officially announce that the age where piercing and tattoos were signs of anger and rebellion is well and truly over. I must have seen hundreds of them when I was away yet I don’t think the word anarchy or tory pig was uttered once, no-one (disappointingly) insisted on listening to angry girl music instead of borgoise pop and a couple of people even said they went with their parents to have them done

Oh well we live and learn…. Ok time to collapse.

I’m back in Israel pretty soon three weeks today I think. England people get ready – I’ll be over there before you know it

Wow cant believe it…. Ok got to sleep

Love and carpal tunnel syndrome