Adelaide to Uluru and Watarka

15-23 March, 2007
After Tasmania and the Overland Track I flew to Adelaide. Almost everyone I met in Sydney takes the piss out of Adelaide but I found it's a pretty nice town. It is a lot smaller -SA only has about a million people whereas Sydney alone as 4 million- so there is an older feel to the city. Shops close earlier on the weekdays and aren't open much on the weekend, Thursday night shopping is more pronounced, pizza and kebab shops haven't replaced the bakeries and markets. On the weekends though, the students (there are two major universities) and the rest of the local populace come out and the city goes crazy. People spill out of restaurants and bars and eventually meet in the streets. It's a nicer atmosphere than Sydney where if people are on the streets they are either passed out, drunk or fighting or on their way to do any of those things. It's less chaotic.

The one reason I went to Adelaide was to drink wine straight from Australia's most famous wine region, the Barossa. From what I remember the tour guide telling us, the grape vines here are actually some of the oldest in the world: around 150 years. European and North American vine stocks were devestated by phyloxera years back and had to replant. Our first stop of the day was a giant rocking horse. I didn't pay any attention to it and made a bee line for the animal thingy. Not a zoo, not a cage. Not really sure what it was. Anyways, I pet some roos and talked to some talking birds (parakeets?) Our first winery was Wolf Blass (started by Wolfgang Blass!), probably the only name on the tour you might recognise. We stopped at 4 wineries in total and tried whites, rosés, reds, tawny ports, muscat ports, late harvests and sparklings at just about every one. We were all pretty trashed by the 3rd winery and all I remember about the last one was drinking this frozen port concoction, like a slushy. On our way back to Adelaide we stopped at this dam (it even had water behind it!) that allowed you to talk to people at the other end of the dam without the use of electronics or a cup-and-string setup. It was pretty cool to have conversations with people 150 metres away in a voice you'd use with people a few feet away. All the red wine made it easy to sleep on the way home and that made me glad I wasn't driving. One of the funny/sad (take it how you will) bits of the tour is that half hour after petting the kangaroo, I was eating one for lunch. Well tasty!

It was finally time to catch my train out of Adelaide to the centre of the continent. They run all of twice a week, which leads to lots of waiting around time and explains why I was in Adelaide for three whole days, rather than only the one that I needed. The train I took is called the Ghan, named after the Afghan camel trains that first went out into the deserts when whitefellas were exploring the country. I remember reading in Bill Bryson's book about the rediculous amounts of supplies hauled into the desert: hundreds of pounds of flour, etc. During the train ride I longed for British or Swiss Rail. This was the worst train ride I've ever had in my life. The only good things were the sunrise and sunset. It was the most bumpy, bouncy and loud journey I've ever had. At 2am a woman two seats infront of me started throwing up from motion sickness! This section of train is billed as one of the great journeys through the desert on rail. Now I think I know what riding a mechanical bull is all about. The strange thing is that it seems to be isolated to only the stretch between Adelaide and Alice Springs. I talked to my mates in Sydney who had done the Indian Pacific (Sydney to Perth in three days) and they had none of the problems or conditions I did.

I stumbled bleary-eyed off the train into the blast furnace that is central Australia the next afternoon. In half an hour I was maneuvering a right hand drive standard shift vehicle down the wrong side of the road. 400 kilometres and 3 oncoming cars later and I was camping at Curtin Springs Roadhouse. Towns in the Northern Territory amount to a dirt paking lot, petrol station, motel, general store and bar. The next morning I got up early to get to Uluru (Ayers Rock) to beat the heat (even though I figured I'd be hiking all day). I drove and drove, thinking I'd see it from a distance but the sand dunes that cover the red centre prevent you from seeing very far. It was not as flat as I thought it would be. I gave up after a while and focused on driving and not killing kangaroos. Even though they are nocturnal, roos are still pretty active through midmorning. Then I saw it: a glowing red lump in the distance! I practically drove off the road as the sight of what is just a rock blew my mind. I can't really describe what it looked like at 8am sunlight and never did find a photo that puts my memory onto a photograph. Though if I tried, it would resemble a glowing lump of ember from a campfire. The color was simply extaordinary and it looked like nothing else. After driving for hours and hours through desert I was stumped as to how a glowing red rock can exist in a sea of sand dunes. I spent the morning walking through Kata-Tjuta (the Olgas), which is another rock formation as brilliant as Uluru. The afternoon was spent circumnavigating the rock. I opted not to climb because 1) it was closed. 2) I chose not to out of respect and 3) didn't see the point. Think about it, 35 people have died climbing this rock! Most of them due to bad hearts and high temperatures (the climb is now closed on days with temps forecast over 36ºC or rain), and for what. You climb over 1,000 feet to see.... nothing! Flat desert! More importantly, I learned in my guidebook and during my stop at the cultural centre that climbing the rock is disrespectful to the local Aboriginal people, the Anangu. It is the equivalent of climbing the alter and other sacred places of a church. You also are known as a "Mingu" by the Anangu: when lots of people climb the rock, from a distance it looks like ants marching up their hill. By the time I was almost done with my 10K walk around the base, it began pouring! It was great, I experienced heavy rain in the desert of a country in a severe drought. I drove around the rock while it rained and watched as the rain formed waterfalls. The water also brought out lots of very subtle features you don't notice in dry weather. The clouds hung around during sunset, destroying my chance of the über-touristy sunset viewing. The clouds hung around all night yet again blocking out the stars! Since I landed in Sydney I heard the best part about being in the outback was being able to look up at the stars with zero pollution or interference. Turned out everynight I was out there the clouds blocked my view. The rainclouds/poor view trade-off was worth it though.

The next morning I woke up pre-dawn to catch the sunrise viewing but the clouds managed to stuff that up as well, so I took off to Watarka (King's Canyon), about 6 hours drive north of Uluru/Kata-Tjuta. When I arrived I prepared for the rim walk around the canyon: 3 litres of water, hat, camera, sunscreen, protective clothing, etc. At the start of the track a shaded thermometre read 40ºC. Bloody Hot. I set out and climbed to the top of the canyon and two hours later found myself in the garden of eden. In two days I went from a low point (the ghan) to a another high point in my travels. Some geological fluke causes all the water to accumulate at the top of the canyon and form a billabong where you can swim and cool off. This is one of my best swimming experiences in Australia. Fresh, cool water in 100+º heat and you can swim over to the waterfall that looks out and down the canyon. Pretty spectacular.

The only bit of excitement I had on the 7 drive back to Alice was going around the corner and having two kangaroos leap infront of me! Finally. After 5 months in Australia, I got to see a kangaroo in the wild. And I almost killed them, but not really. It's as if I had a curse of kangaroo sighting, but now that it had been broken, I started seeing them all over the place. I spent a day in Alice before taking off to Melbourne catching up on the internets, journalling and sleeping in a bed. It was really expensive for me to get out to the middle of the country and transport myself around. I reckon I spent well over US$ 1,000 on those 5 days of travel. I probably could have done it for a lot less, but at the expense of the freedoms I had: rental car, open schedule, my own itinerary. Every now and again that freedom is worth the higher price paid.