Rizz goes round the world

Still Feral: The Epic Chapter, continued yet again

I almost forgot one of the most important details of the trip! On Day 5, as we awoke in a cave in Coober Pedy, we heard the Groovy Grapers as they started out the day an hour before we did. Thanks to the acoustics of a cave, we could hear very clearly every word they said, which unfortunately robbed us of an hour of sleep. Fortunately, however, our eavesdropping provided us with our nickname and mantra for the remainder of the trip. One of the Groovy Grapers was asking another if she'd spoken at all to us the night before. The latter replied no, that quite honestly she was a bit afraid of us, that we seemed quite, and I quote, feral. Perfect! That's just what we were, and I hope that we remain that way forever! Never be tamed!

Anyway, carrying on...

Day 7: Rolling on in to the Rock

Day 7 saw us, confused, dirty, and bleary-eyed, return, reluctantly, into civilization. I'd been looking forward to the Rock, aka Uluru, aka Ayer's Rock, since I got to Australia. Unfortunately, along with such an icon comes a vast amount of well-heeled, clean tourists. As we rocked up to a local Aboriginal art center outside of Yulara (the resort town near Uluru), busloads of air-conditioned, cleaned and pressed tourists stared in disbelief as we emerged, dirty, unkempt and fully feral, from our clown-mobile caked in dirt and covered in clever slogans and pictures the Groovy Grapers had drawn on our bonnet/hood. They are too obscene to repeat here, but we were still in no way keen to erase them. We were quite a sight.

After some time at the art center, where I bought a bracelet, we continued down the road. There, finally, Uluru, impressively massive even from a distance. Uluru is an enormous monolith in the middle of the desert, something like 7 kilometers in diameter, but I could be completely off. Nonetheless, it's huge, and its immensity is emphasized by the fact that it's surrounded by sheer nothingness. It's also the tip of the iceburg: the Rock extends underground at a size probably 3 times what we see sticking out of the ground. Understandably, it is considered sacred by the Aboriginals, and many of its rocky outcrops are featured in Creation Stories. We stopped and climbed up a dune for the obligatory far-away shot, mingling with the tourists who were probably refraining from holding their noses. Proving our feral ways, we probably shocked them all as we laughed and took pictures while Sam mooned the Rock.

We were going to save the Rock up close for the next day. Today, instead, after a quick dip in the pool at the Yulara campground, we headed to Kata Tjuta, otherwise known as the Olgas, a group of massive rocky outcrops rising from the desert. At Kata Tjuta we went for a very enjoyable 4 hour walk through the canyons and out to the Valley of the Winds. On the way, as we were heading to a water station where the group would meet up after doing the first part at their own pace, a ranger drove up and hurriedly emerged from his truck. "Is everyone ok here?" Confused, Claire, Susanne, Mike and I replied that we were fine. "Have you seen anyone in distress? We've received a distress signal," he asked, himself seeming as equally distressed as the person he was pursuing. "No," Mike replied, "It's no one in my group." The ranger got back into his truck and drove on to the water station, where we spotted him chatting with Sam for a bit. By the time we arrived to meet the group, the ranger had driven off, again in a rush, but this time probably out of annoyance rather than worry. Apparently, Sam, the constant child, had spotted a button and simply could not stop himself from pressing it, thinking it was an information button, and failing to see the large sign that read "Press in case of emergency." Nice one Sam. Oh Sam, you sure are making a great first impression here in the Red Centre.

We carried on to the Valley of the Winds, a canyon through which the wind blows the leaves, creating a whisper which the Aboriginals believe is the voice of our ancestors. We sat as Mike explained this, and then spent a while sitting quietly with our eyes closed, listening to and meditating on the calmness exuded by the rustle of the wind and feeling ourselves drawn backward through time, visualizing the roots of an ancient tree linking us to ancestors near and distant.

Our peaceful walk came to an end, unfortunately, but as we drove away, we witnessed an incredible sunset paint Kata Tjuta in a magnificent cardinal red, as our ancestors bade goodnight. That night we stayed in a proper campground, with a shower and a kitchen. I longed for the bush, but it was ok: we'd be back out in the middle of nowhere the next night. For now, it was early to bed: we'd be rising at 4AM to ride out to catch the surise over Uluru.

Day 8: Respecting the Rock

Mike overslept the next morning, but fortunately Sam and Marianne had set their alarm. After a bit of a hurried packing up, we headed out to Uluru, preparing ourselves for the massive number of tourists with whom we'd be vying for space. Like a true feral, I fought my way into an empty space up front, and ignored the inane converstaion surrounding me as I marvelled at the brilliant red of an early-morning Uluru. The tourists, here for the day on their $800 package tours, headed out as soon as Uluru had done its lighting up, but we stayed on in the empty lot, where we caught Kata Tjuta light up just as impressively in the distance, and a sky truly on fire above us. Mike meanwhile was preparing us breakfast: eggy bread and beans. Yum. We grabbed our brekky and headed back to the Rock, enjoying the shared solitude and companionship as we enjoyed breakfast in front of Uluru.

After breakfast we drove up to the Rock itself. Most of us would be taking a walk around Uluru, as we spotted the outcrops, waterstains, caves and waterholes we'd read about in the children's Creation Stories. Claire, Keith and Sile had decided to brave the incredibly steep hike up to the top. Have fun with that. As we drove into the National Park that housed Uluru and Kata Tjuta, the sign informed us that the summit walk was closed due to strong winds. After we'd gotten out of our clown-mobile and watered up, though, they were preparing to open the walk back up. We watched in awe as the people, who'd been standing lined up for who knows how long, set off at a run as soon as the ropes were drawn back. It was like running of the bulls, and absolutely absurd. After a show like that, I understood why the Aboriginals asked visitors to not climb Uluru out of respect. Claire, Keith and Sile were walking up calmly and with full awareness of and respect for, after the past few days, the importance and sacredness of the land upon which they would stand. The majority of other visitors playing mountain goat, however, were there for the day, clueless of the stories that surrounded the rock upon which they ran, and looking simply for a story to tell.

The rest of us spent the afternoon improving our karma, as we filled up two large ziplock bags with cigarette butts and, ugh, toilet paper that we found littered around the base of Uluru (don't worry, I used sticks). Here we are, at this incredible marvel of nature, and people choose to disrespect it so blatantly. I mean, when you gotta go you gotta go, but as we'd learned at bush camp, bury it people!!! And the cigarette butts... there are places to throw them away everywhere. People are so lazy. Maybe we spent the afternoon picking up trash, but I felt good. Number one because we'd helped to at least partially return this incredible place to its original beauty, and number two (haha, no pun intended...) because we'd all come together as a group and, without encouragement from Mike, and without a word of pessimism or teasing, took up this pretty disgusting task. It was uplifting.

We didn't just pick up trash as we walked around Uluru. We stopped to sit and think at watering holes, listened to Mike reiterate the Creation Stories we'd read previously as we passed the outcrops and colorations from which these stories arose, and marvelled at the incredible beauty, diveristy and immensity that is Uluru.

It had been a long, hot afternoon in the sun, and we rewarded ourselves with another dip in the pool. As Susanne and I headed back to the truck, we spotted Mike's bare butt as he tried to inconspicuously change behind the door. Susanne was so taken aback that she fell out of the truck as she tried to climb in and ended up with a nasty bruise on her arm. :)

We headed back out to Uluru to catch the sunset. The parking lot was packed with tour buses, tables set up with champagne and steaks cooking on barbeques. Pah, who needs champagne when you have beer and goon? And even if I ate meat, I wouldn't trade in our Mike's stir fry for a steak. As most of the tourists vied for a spot in the packed parking lot, we headed up the hill a bit to a more remote spot with far fewer people. It was a bit cloudy, so the sunset was a bit disappointing, but no matter, we managed to entertain ourselves and mortify nearly everyone else, save one guy who told us he wished he'd been on our trip as he'd never laughed so much in his life. Being our typical loud, raucous and feral selves, we laughed as we took absurd pictures and capped off our sunset viewing with a group photo of us in the red dust with Heading Bush spelled out in sticks in front of us. Mike was very proud of us. After dinner in the parking lot, we rocked on out of there blasting Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" for the benefit of everyone left. But of course.

That night it was a bit of a long drive to the middle of nowhere, halfway to King's Canyon. It was a truly surreal drive, which I got to experience from the front seat. Mike put his impeccable driving skills to use as kangaroos jumped out into the road from everywhere. It was like a video game. We unfortunately did manage to hit one--unavoidable, really. They hop directly into the truck. Fortunately it died on impact, so Mike didn't have a miserable job to do, other than drag it off the road.

We were all knackered as we pulled into camp for the night, and most of us didn't even bother to change or brush our teeth as we rolled out our swags, climbed right in, and fell immediately to sleep.

Day 9: Living on the Edge

We woke up early the next morning to carry on to King's Canyon for our last hike. After a steep and taxing initial push up to the top, the rest of the hike was easy going and fun. I felt like a kid as I hopped around on rocks and hung my head off the edge of a sheared-off cliff. After walking across the top in the sun, we descended into the lovely Garden of Eden, a verdant canyon and water hole cutting through King's Canyon. The water was pretty stagnant, and also considered sacred, so I chose to take a nap in the shade instead of jumping in.

We continued on to our final night in the bush. :( On the way out we passed by an ancient crater formed by an asteroid hitting the Earth some millions of years ago. Then it was one last night by the campfire, surrounded by the Milky Way (and Scorpio!!!). We girls spent some time before dinner sitting away from the fire to view the incredible stars and bond, and then the group spent our last night by the fire shotgunning beers and dancing to Xavier Rudd. Once again, I didn't want to go to sleep--I never wanted this experience to end.

Day 10: The end...for now...

We woke up somewhat leisurely, but still early, the next morning. I dejectedly cleaned my swag out (oh the dust!!) and rolled it up for the last time. Then it was out to the Glen Helen resort, standing under the Glen Helen Gorge. Here some of us, myself included, would be taking a helicopter ride over the gorge and the West MacDonnell Ranges. All of us would also go for a dip in the first of 3 water holes we'd hang out at throughout the day. My first helicopter ride ever was incredible, and Claire and I grinned like kids as we dipped and turned, admiring the beauty of the land and waving to our friends down below.

After a dip in water hole number 1, Ormiston Gorge, we headed to water hole number 2, called Redbank Gorge, I think. This was the most picturesque and relaxing one, and after a dip and some time in the sun, we gathered for our final meal in the bush. Then it was on to Ellery Creek, aka Big Hole, which serves as the "beach" for the residents of Alice Springs. Walking down to the creek, we spotted a guy with a shirt that read "feral", so we of course started screaming and insisted on having our picture with him. At the creek we had to roll our shoes and such in our towels as a dingo puppy was running around stealing stuff.

After a final stop to spot some rock wallabies, we pushed back on to civilization. Well, Alice Springs. It was with a heavy heart that Emma, Alex and I left the group and headed into our hostel. We knew we'd see everyone later that night, but it still was the end of a brief but life-changing era.

We gathered for dinner at Bojangle's that night, and as Mike and Hans headed in the door, we caused a raucous by rising to our feet to give Mike a standing, and screaming, ovation. Everyone in the bar stood up to see what famous person was here in Alice Springs of all places. The rest of the night was epic as only was fit. We sang "Oh My Walla!", took over the dance floor, and screamed along to Bohemian Rhapsody. Plus we garnered an adoptive feral friend. Remember Tamas, my partner in fate, whom I'd originally met in Wellington? Well, I hadn't seen him in probably over a month, since Dunedin, and didn't even know if he was in Australia or not. So there I am, at some random cowboy bar in the middle of nowhere, getting a beer, when I turn around, and in walks Tamas. How creepy is that? We gathered him under our wing, and by the end of the night, he was singing along with us to "Oh My Walla" and joining us on the dance floor.

The night drew to an end at Melanka's, a backpacker bar down the road. Claire, Mike and I shut the bar down, willing the night to not end. Well, the tour was officially over, but we still had plenty of fun ahead of us. Everyone would be staying through at least the next day, and most of my feral friends would be there for my birthday, which proved to be one of the best birthdays I've ever had. But that story, my friends, will have to wait. I've been on the internet long enough. Now it's your turn. Give me some comments people!!!

posted by La Rizz @ 9:26 PM