Travel Tips

<i>(Translation for non-Pittsburghers: "We're going to the Outback!")</i>
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After much browsing of brochures, Heather and I settled on <a href=http://www.wayoutback.com.au>Wayoutback Desert Safaris</a> (see the recommendation on our main Australia page) as the company to show us the "Red Centre," as Central Australia is sometimes called. They offered a small group setting, camping under the stars, off-roading in a 4-wheel drive truck (which, as it turns out, isn't too hard to deliver in this part of the country) and their brochure had the highest substance-to-flashiness ratio of all the ones we pulled from the rack.

Wow, did we ever make a good choice. The 3 days we spent on this safari was a highlight of our time in Australia. The guide, the truck, the sights, the wildlife, and the camping all combined to make 3 fantastic days, jammed so full of "stuff" that it felt like we'd been gone a week. I *almost* didn't mind getting up before the sun every morning. Almost. :-)

Oh, and the "Meet the Moritzes" conspiracy continues. On our first day of the safari, we stopped at a camel farm to take a leg-streching break, and whom do we see sitting outside the shop, eating bagels, but (you guessed it) Matt and Lara. Granted, darn near every other tour bus in Central Australia was at this place, too, but darn it, this is getting spooky.
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Our guide introduced himself as "Jabba." Since he looked nothing like the Star Wars character, I assumed that it was a nickname (maybe Jabber, cuz he talked a lot?), or that my half-asleep brain (it was 5:45AM, after all) had manufactured it. As it turns out, I <i>had</i> heard him correctly; "Jabba" was short for Jabbarula, an aboriginal name.

Jabba is actually related to an aboriginal group ("tribe" is an inaccurate but often-used term) to the north of Alice Springs. He's not related by blood (though his half-sister is part aboriginal by blood), but by name, and in aboriginal culture that's enough for you to be part of the "family." He's spent a lot of time learning about aboriginal culture and beliefs, and continues to work with aboriginal people out in the bush when he's not doing tours.

Needless to say, getting Jabba as our guide on this trip was an unexpected bonus. In addition to being able to explain some of the wildlife and plants we saw on the safari from an aboriginal point of view, he talked to us around the nightly campfires about aboriginal beliefs and traditions, particularly about their creation mythology and marriage customs.

Apart from his aboriginal knowledge, Jabba was also a really great guide. Very laid back, interacted with everyone well, took time out to stop the truck whenever he saw some interesting plant, animal, or rock...very involved, obviously liked what he was doing.
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Our means of conveyance into the Outback was not a cushy air-conditioned tour bus, oh no. Not for us such creature comforts. We took to the road in a rugged 4-wheel drive Toyota truck, which fit eight people in the back on two side-facing bench seats (well-padded, thank goodness). There were nine people on the tour not counting Jabba, so we took turns riding in the front passenger seat.

Since it <i>was</i> a 4WD truck, we got to leave the sealed road and take a rougher track to our destinations. We even forded a river, though it wasn't exactly raging at the time. :) The truck also enabled us to go deeper into the bush to camp on our first night, and to drive far off the road whenever we needed to forage for firewood.

One of the fringe benefits of the truck was that the side-facing seats (as well as the close quarters) encouraged conversation, and we got to know our fellow travellers a lot better than if we'd had to try to talk to them over the back of a high bus seat. We had an good mix of people (3 from Germany, 2 from the UK, 1 from Switzerland, one American expat living in France, and one Canadian/Pennsylvanian couple ;-) with a wide range of careers (from civil engineer to fashion journalist to "works with roses" to Playstation 2 programmer). All in all, it made for both lively conversations and good listening.

After spending so much time either in cities or looking at coastline over the past 2 weeks, we were aching for something a little bit different.
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The Outback delivered.
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Sharp contrasts between red earth, green plants, and blue, cloudless sky: red due to high iron content in the soil and sandstone, green plants fed by water supplies that are mostly underground, and blue skies in a region that is not quite desert, but "arid zone," and gets less than 10 inches of rain in a year. This year had been wetter than most, and plant life was flourishing, but the red rock was still noticeable. The rivers here run fast when it rains, and eventually dry to a trickle out in the wilderness. European explorers were convinced that all of these rivers fed into an inland sea, and tried in vain to find it. They were a bit late...by about 100 million years. We were driving around on the floor of a sea that had dried up long ago.

Each day of our tour highlighted a significant feature of the "Red Centre." First, we walked along the rim of Kings Canyon, stopping to cool off in a deep water hole in a gap between the canyon walls.

The next day we went to Uluru (also know as Ayer's Rock). Uluru is a very sacred site for the aboriginal people, and there are places around "the rock" where you are forbidden to take pictures, in part because images taken out of the context of the larger area surrounding the place decreases its meaning. The aboriginal custodians of Uluru would also prefer that people not climb the rock; the climb itself is sacred, reserved for fully initiated men. In addition, the climb is dangerous, and a number of people die there each year. For the aboriginal people, this is roughly the equivalent of having someone accidentally die in your back yard: it makes them sad, and they're concerned about confused and unquiet spirits near the sacred sites. The aboriginal people no longer climb Uluru, and try to discourage tourist from climbing it as well; however the climb itself must remain open as a condition of the land being returned to aboriginal stewardship by the Australian government.

On our last day, we hiked into the Valley of the Winds at Kata Tjuta (aka "The Olgas"). Kata Tjuta means "Many Heads" (I think), and represents the heads of the aboriginal people's ancestors coming out of the earth. It is thought that this sight may be even more sacred than Uluru, in part because the aboriginals have revealed less about the significance of the place...since it isn't as heavily toured, they haven't needed to talk about it as much, and apparently haven't gone out of their way to volunteer information.
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I tell ya, even an arid zone is just <i>full</i> of critters. Some of our wildlife encounters:
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<b>Thorny Devil:</b> While we were bouncing along on the unsealed track toward King's Canyon, Jabba stopped the truck, leapt out, and came back in with the spiniest lizard I've ever seen. It was small, and didn't move very quickly, but it didn't need to. Anything that tried to take a bite out of this sucker was doomed to multiple mouth lacerations. Kinda cute, for all of that. Not cuddly by any means, but cute.

<b>Caravan Caterpillar:</b> This time when we stopped, Jabba had us all climb out...to look at what appeared to be a long fuzzy caterpillar. As it turns out, it was a line of caterpillars, laid nose-to-bum, all following the same track. Supposedly from the air they look ehough like a snake that birds won't bother with them. Let's hear it for evolution!

<b>Mulga snake:</b> While driving along the highway, Jabba stood on the brakes and swerved off to the side of the road. He wasn't dodging a kangaroo or a bird; he was dodging a snake. The Mulga is one of several poisonous snakes in Australia. Jabba didn't dodge because it's endangered, though. His full aboriginal name translates to "Rainbow Serpent"; he is therefore a protector of snakes (other names designate one as a protector of kangaroos, emus, etc), and killing one, even by accident, would be a very bad thing.

<b>Hopping mice:</b> On our second night of camping, we kept seeing all of these little shadows just our of the range of the firelight. We learned that they were "hopping mice," a tiny marsupial native to Australia. I was just glad they weren't snakes, since we were sleeping on the ground. :) When we woke up in the morning, the dirt around the campsite was covered in their tiny footprints.

<b>Camels!</b> Yup, camels. There are about 100,000 camels running wild in Australia, from the days when they used to be the beast of burden in the outback, since horses couldn't take the heat. Sending them back to the Middle East and Asia to bolster breeding stock is a profitable business, as is taming them so crazy tourists can ride them. Our second morning on safari, Heather and I got up early to see the sunrise. As we stumbled (Heather because lack of contacts, me because...well, it was before 10AM) to the edge of camp, a pale-colored rock that hadn't been there the previous day raised its head and looked calmly at us, then resumed chewing its breakfast. We'd been beaten to the scenic lookout by a herd of 16 wild camels! After they got tired of watching us watch the sunrise, they proceeded to wander around (not through, thankfully) the camp, past the bush toilets, and out into the wilderness.
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You'd think we'd had enough of camping for a while after New Zealand, right?
Nope.
Similar idea as Flying Kiwi: pull into camp, unpack your gear, help with the cooking and washing, and sleep.
A few noticeable differences, though: We had campfires (unlike the fire-banned south Island of NZ), Jabba did most of the cooking (just needed people to chop veggies) right in the campfire (yum!), and there weren't any tents, just swags. After dining around the fire, Jabba talked to us about aboriginal customs and traditions, and we crawled into the swags and slept.

"Sleep under the stars in swags," said the brochure. "What the heck's a swag?" we thought. A swag, we discovered, is essentially a glorified sleeping bag: A rugged canvas bag, with a pillow and thin mattress already inside. You climb in, zip it all the way up to your head, and, if you're concerned about bugs or larger pests, put a canvas flap over your head.

The problem with the flap (which we didn't use) is that it blocks the view of the stars. And the stars were not to be missed. I don't think I'd ever seen so many stars. No light sources around for miles to pollute the view of the sky. It was amazing to wake up in the middle of the night and see how the constellations had rotated as we slept. Were it not for the slight chill in the air and the occasional concern about creepy-crawlies, it would've been a perfect way to sleep. As it was, it was still fantastic.