From: "Philip Merryman" <phil_merryman@hotmail.com>

Date: Sat Feb 23, 2002 10:14:44 AM Etc/GMT

Subject: Back from the Outback - Part 1

Hi everyone!

I'm back in civilisation! or at least within contact!! It has been a very hectic and tiring week, but great fun and we covered a huge amount of ground.

The Ghan rolled into Alice a week ago on Friday after a night of rocking and rolling, so despite the fact that I had an empty seat next to me, and so could spread a bit, sleep was not exactly plentiful! Now, when I first arrived in Perth I sent a mail saying "Strewth its hot!" as it was 35C. One of you kindly pointed out that "It's bloody summer mate!" (do your own Aussie accent!) - Thanks D.C.!! Anyway, on arrival in Alice it was 40C!! Having just dropped from 42C the day before. So even the locals thought "Strewth its hot!". "Mad dogs and Englishmen" and all that, that day I walked the mile from the hostel to the town centre at 1pm (daylight saving = noon). Alice Springs is almost exactly on the Tropic of Capricorn, so the sun was almost, but not quite, entirely vertically overhead!! A couple of hours walking around to get my bearings, find the tourist info, buy a didgerdoo, etc, and I was knackered!! The rule is here 1 litre of water per hour. The chap in the Didgeridoo shop asked us customers how much water we had. He was glad to see we had some, but not enough! While I was giving him my address to have the didg. shipped home the other customers overheard and told me they came from Ampthill, which is just 10 miles south of Bedford!! Next door in Australian terms!

The next day I had the whole day to myself in the town and used a tourist circular bus which went around the major points of interest. You could get off at each one and get on again the next time he came round, in just over an hour. However I was his only customer for the day!! Still too hot for most people! So I got personal service and a couple of short cuts to get in all the things that I was interested in seeing: The Old Ghan Railway, Flying Doctor Info centre, Reptile house (I had a snake climbing over me!) and the aviation museum, amongst others. So thanks to this bus driver I managed to see a lot in a short time. However the temp was still in the high 30's!

The camping trip started the next morning, leaving the hostel at 06.45! This was to end up being one of the later starts!!! There were 13 of us: me, two Aussie lads (who I later found out were cousins) a couple of Austrian girls, a couple of Swiss girls, an English woman and her 3 children, a lady from NZ and the (by now) compulsory Dutchman!! (Another young chap whose pastime was jumping out of aeroplanes!). We had the long drive out to Uluru (formerly known as Ayer's Rock) and Kata Tjuta (formerly known as the Olgas). This was a drive of about 400km! So people who go to Alice to think that they can just go and see the rock have to consider that it is like going to London so that you can see Dartmoor or Cornwall!!

We arrived at the first campsite in mid afternoon. The tour guide told us to pick our tents. I was thinking (and some others) to go to the trailer and get it out but they are already set up!! Along with barbie, storage facilities and kitchen area!! They use permanent camp sites! I was told that this is called "soft" camping! Having sorted this out we then went over to Kata Tjuta to have a walk amongs the hills. Kata Tjuta is the local aboriginal words for "many heads" as there are about 36 seperate hills all close together. The walk took us in between some of them. It was still baking hot and the National Parks provide water tanks along the walks so that you can refill your water bottles, and you really do need them! It is quite common for people to get heat exhaustion and dehydration. One of same companies the other tours (running in parrallel with ours - we kept on meeting them over the next 3 days) had 4 people suffer that afternoon through lack of water. It proved a bit hot for one of the children (they were about 14, 12 & 10 - girl, boy, boy) so they and their mother did not do all the walk. However, this was really spectacular and after walking through the narrow canyons between the hills you get to a rise in a gap, of only about 50 metres wide at the most, and you look down to a view of the land in between some of the other hills. You almost expected to see Shangri-La in the valley!! The walk in and out again took about 2 hours or so.

We then got back in the bus to drive over to see the setting sun cast its light on Uluru. As we arrived in the designated area there were heaps of other tour busses. Some people even had tables and bottles wine or even Champagne. It was a bit like the restaurant at the end of the universe! We had a couple of wine bags, a few tinnies, plastic cups and some nachos! However, as the sun sets the light on the rock causes it to change colour and you get to see it in all sorts of shades.

Now our tour guide was a bit of a comedian! He has a life size rubber snake!! He introduced us to it at the start of the tour saying that it was our security and guards the bus!! He put this snake on the ground and left it there while we were watching the light on the rock. Many other tourists kept on stopping, doing a double take, some were a bit frightened. Some just saw through this immediately though! So it was fun watching the reactions! Some even went to take photos of it!! (Usually Japanese). This snake, and a rubber gecko, were to continue to provide much hilarity for the next few days! (When he did this the next day, he even tryed to persuade some unsuspecting Japanese lad to use a flash to get a better picture!!) So here we all were, supposedly looking at one of the greatest sights in the world spending more time watching people's reaction to a rubber snake!! And trying to contain our laughter!

That night we had our supper around the camp fire. The sky was clear and the southern stars were glorious. Orion almost directly overhead and the Southern cross to the south (obviously) with the Milky Way and the clouds of Magellan in full view! So we all (or nearly all) pulled our beds out of the tents and slept around the fire under the stars!

The next morning was a 4am wake up!! This was to get to Uluru in time to see the morning light fall upon it. This was (I think anyway) more spectacular than the evening light. To begin with Uluru has a uniform colour which changes as the daylight increases, but once the sun cleares the horizon it suddenly transforms into a glowing orange/yellow with deep shadows for contrast! As the sun climbs higher the shadows change and the colour becomes more of the red you usually see into the photos.

After this, and it was still very early, we had the options of walking around or climbing Uluru. It was already getting hot again and they do not allow people to climb after about 10am as it will be too hot. Also the aboriginal people prefer people not to climb it as it is a sacred site for them. So in view of this and the heat I opted to walk all the way round. In any case it was not one of my "must do's" to climb it. The walk around is about 9km and you get right up close to the base in some places. It really is amazing close up to see all the rock falls, erosion, trees, etc around it. This you usually never see in photos as the classic shot is one of the whole rock. However, there are a few places around the base where it is forbidden (under penalty of Aus$5000 or so) to take photos as these are sites especially important to the aboriginals and in their law it is not allowed for some of their people to see these places. So if a picture is taken and an aboriginal person happens to see such a picture at a later date, that person is in breach of their law. So to prevent this happening photos of these places are not allowed. However, this is only a handful of places and most of the rock is free to be photographed.

By late morning we had all finished our walks (the Aussies, Dutchman, and NZ lady climbed) and we then had to drop off those who were only doing the first few days. These were the family and one Swiss and one Austrian girl. So we were now down to 7 people. We then had another long drive to the next campsite near Kings Canyon. This was about 200km. So to continue my earlier analogy, having driven from London to Cornwall, we now had to go from Cornwall to Wales!

We arrived at our next campsite that evening. It was on part of a camping resort so we even had a swimming pool! Most welcome. By now it was obvious why the tour starts were so early: to avoid the heat! Most of the walks we were to do were first thing in the morning and finished by about 10 am. Also it gets dark very quickly at between 7 & 8pm, so trying to cook, wash up etc., sort out the tents and your bags for the next day in the dark is not easy!

As I have now been on the internet here for 2 hours you will have to wait for the rest of the story! It's nearly 9pm and I haven't had supper yet! Hopefully when I get to Melbourne I will be able to continue.

Don't miss the next exciting episode!