Perth to Alice Springs

Well I made it to Alice Springs and now through to Melbourne. This means that I have a whole weeks worth of stuff to report (I kept notes old style with a paper and pen ) so I apologise in advance for the length of this post!

We left Perth on Wednesday accompanied by a soundtrack which mixed everything from Bob Dylon to the cheeky girls. The bus was a 4wd truck with a passenger cabin attached to the back instead of the usual trailer. We drove up towards the Western Australian goldfields through Coolgardie, Southern Cross to Kalgoorlie. The most recent gold boom in this area is probably coming to an end with the drop in raw material prices brought about by lack of demand from china (amoungst other things) which made it all the more poignant to drive through the almost ghost towns left behind from previous gold booms. there can't be much to sustain live out in these areas after the gold boom hsa gone. The drinking water is piped in along miles of pipes from Perth and once the mines close the money slowly dries up until all that are left are the people too old or stubborn to move on. The toughness of the climate is futher illustrated by the cemetries from the early days, most of the graves contain whole families most dying in order - as once the main bread winner was no longer around the rest of the family could not survive for long. Kalgoorlie is at the other end of the scale - very much still a boom town supported by huge mining opporations including the super pit whice was 500m deep when it was re-opened and is now so huge that the bottom is impossible to see if you stand at the edge. Kalgoorlie itself was founded by 3 Irish men who according to local legend found gold while reshoeing their horses on route another gold pit. Aside from the super pit Kalgoorlie is home to the skimpie (bar maids who serve alcohol dressed only in their underware - I suppose this is a natural consequence of a group of miners living in the desert?!?) and streets paved with gold ( the ore used to make the towns streets still contains ore - if they were not streets in aquite a large town it would be profitable to dig up the roads and reproces the ore). The super pit itself is an awe inspiring place. its incredible to think that there was ever anythign there but the constant whinning of trucks carrying their heavy loads up the long winding roads from the bottom of possibly the worlds largst man made hole. teh gold mining company have put a rather pathetic board at the top of th e pit describing how good for the environment their particular pit is. This basically amounts to testing the air every week and trying to work out how the quality got so low and planting the occasional tree! The whole area around the gold fields is dotted with holes in the ground - although the mines have obviously provided alot of wealth to the state, it is hard to imagine how the landscape around the pits will recover from the onslaught.

The next day we drove to the edge of teh golfields taking in the proper ghost town of gwalia on the edge of Laverton. When the local mine closed in 1063 the population of the town dropped over night from 1000+ to just 40. Residents from laverton have taken it upon themselves to care for are restore the town. Each house has a patron who has restored it in a way they deem fit. this has resulted in a rather odd mix of tin shacks restored to almost museum quality and others that have been left pretty much as they were but with gharish scarecrows placed on the beds and at teh kitchen tables! The town itself was mainly populated by Italien immigrants as their labour was cheaper than the local workforce. This has led to the town having an almost mediteranean feel with white washed walls and cruxifixes along side the things that got left behind - kettles, calendars and childrens toys. It must have been quite a harsh place to live, most of the houses consided of little more than corrugated iron huts.

The next part of our trip took us off the sealed roads along the great central road (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Central_Road ) . This is one o fhte most isolated roads in the country (we stopped at the most isolated road house in the country which is more than 300 kms from any settlements in any direction). Most of the land has now been re-claimed by the origional indigenous population. This meant new rules so as not to offend the locals - apprently a previous guide had been chased out of Warburton at gun point as one of his group disobeyed the no photo rule! The basic premise of the permit is that guest on the land dont travel more than 50m from the road, alcohol is not carried through the area (some people did carry alcohol but tried to keep it discrete) and photos are not taken in the townships. There are also other points of respect when dealing with the local community which included not asking personal questions, not looking someone in the eye and giving only light handshakes. We didn't leave Aborigional owned land until close to Alice Springs - it was a great honour to catch a glimpse of a culture that until 80 years ago had never encountered white people. It was also sad to see how the arrival of settlers changed everything that these people knew and some are still reeling form the after effects now.

As expected the desert doesn't have a plethera of youth hostels and organised camp sites to stay in. we camped in swag bags in clearings in the road - using bush toilets and not ahving accesss to showers for 4 days (Not ideal in 40 degree heat!). However the opportunity to sleep under some of teh most beautiful skies I have ever seen, in locations visited only by a couple 100 people every year was an experience I will not forget. The swag bags are basically roll up bed with a matress at the bottom and a waterproof zip round covering on the top. According to the guide if you zip all the way in leaivng only your head you should be safe from insects and nasties in the night. Apparently bugs wont climb near your head or heart (something about breathing and heart beats being too loud and scarey), however they will crawl into a nice sleeping bag near your feet if its left open. Needless to say I wasn't bitten by anything more obnoxious than a mosquito.

Travelling through a desert I wasn't expecting much rain - however my Englishness obviously caught up with us as we experienced some quite heavy downpours. Normally I would take on teh role of "winging pom" here but the effect of the rain on teh dessert was truely amazing. Never have I seen such a variety of greenery in a desert. Apparently there has been quite alot of flooding recently re-stocking the waterholes nad greening the area. We were very lukcy to see it like this - the area is normally very arid and only gets as much rain as we saw once of twice each decade. The downside of the greeness meant that there was an abundance of food in teh desert so the local wildlife were much harder to spot than would otherwise have been teh case - the rain also destroyed most of the animal tracks that it would have been fun to follow (Winging pom came back for a second!) We did however see lots of eagles and some camels. Camels were introduced to Australia to help with the exporation of the center. Some obviously got free and are now roaming the desert and breeding quite sucessfully - descemating watering holes and breaking up the local flora and fauna.

The road itself was built by Len Beadle one of the last great Australian Explorers. the road was built to service the 1500 mile long rocket range streching from Point Augusta to the 80mile beach near Broome and to service the Emu field nuclear tests sites. En-route we listened to one of Len Beadles lectures. he sounds like and amazing bush man - I recomend reading his books if you get the chance. More information about the rocket range and Len can be found on wikipedia 9the source of all knowledge! ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Beadell )

After 4 days we finally reached the Kata Tjuta (or the Olgas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kata_Tjuta) which is a conglomerate rock formation formed from sediment that broke of from the Peterman Ranges. Out of nowhere red road domes rise out of the dirt. The domes and canyons between them have been formed by millions of years of errosion , leaving a truely magical site. Teh site is a sacred place for teh local indigenous population the Anamala people. The site is designated a mens site which means that women would not have been able to look at it or enter the area. The local aborigional law specifies that men are not allwed to look at womens sites and vice versa. If a member of the people shoudl accidentally catch a view of the site they are to be punished. This means that the tkaing of photos of sacred sites can get a little confusing! It is the wish of the people that visitors do not take photos of sacred sites in case they are viewed accidently by someone who is not meant to see them. In the 1980's the National Geographic magazine took photos, without the knowledge of the local people, of Uluru (Ayers rock) for a special. The local people bought copies of the magazine adn of course saw photos of sites that they were not meant ot see - which apprently mean tthat everyone ahd to be punished with a sorry cut ( a cut made on a person head by hitting them with a sorry stick). As Kata Tjuta is male site it was ok to take photos as women should know not to look at them - however when we got to Uluru later in the photos of certain parts of the rock were forbidden as the rock is a mixture of male and female sacred sites.

Next we made our way to Uluru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluru )- we were to spend teh afernoon walking round the base of the rockbefore watching sunset and then stay the night and get up early to see sun rise over the rock. Uluru is such a sacred place for the local population. The sand stone is bascially a big sponge in the middle of the desert. It was truely an amazing site - however I couldn't help but feel the whole area had become slightly ridiculus. Special viewing areas had been set up to view the Uluru sunrise and sunset - which meant that you have hordes adn hordes of tour busse full of (usually) Japanese and German tourists drinking champagne looking at what is basically a red rock in the middle of the desert. The busses then stream out 5 minutes after sunset for people to stay to get to their 5 star resorts (or for teh backpackers amoungst us our 5 star camping facilities). I understand that a place such as that will attract lots of tourists (who feel obligued to take a photo every 5 minutes as the colour of the rock changes with the movement of the sun), but it does seem rather sad that such a special place has been taken away from the local population. There are lots of Aborigional stories associated with Uluru and various parts of the rock. I will not attempt to relay them as I am sure to get details wrong and that is certainly very offensive. Most of the stories are not to be told to the uninitiated people anyway, as tourists we learn only about the childrens stories. the place used to have many culturally significant sites used for ceremonies and teaching children - however the areas is now only used to teach children about their history.

The next day we drove onto Kings Canyon ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_Canyon_(Northern_Territory) a geological feature formed at teh center of three different mountain ranges - I use mountain in the Australian sense as by most standards they are really just hill ranges! We climbed to teh top of teh canyon and had a very enjoyabel walk aruond the rim - seeing such wonders as Priscilla crack where the final scene from the iconic movie 'The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert was filmed'. Jokes aside the canyon is a truely natural wonder. The unique conditions mean that plants from millions of years ago - relics of a more tropical climate have survived - not to mention the white sandstone rocks coloured by rust and algae. The first road to teh area was built by John Catteril who saw teh potential for tourism and made a road pulling a chain behind his truck. His son now runs one of teh local road houses where the star attraction is his singing dingo which even has its own trivial pursuits question (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpO5yZ71BNE) .

Finally we started the long journey home to Alice Springs - not without event. The heat of the day (53+ c) meant that the alternator finally died - and hence all battery charging ceased. Giving me the memorable experience of push starting the bus 3/4 times... true outback adventure?!?