Rain in the Outback

Supposedly is doesn't rain in Central Australia. Supposedly rivers run dry most of the year as the sun boils the arid landscape. Supposedly watching water fall from the alien canyons and crevasses of Uluru, formerly Ayers Rock, occurs once in every fourteen blue-moons.

Well, if you haven't already surmised from the sarcastic tone of this presage the inevitable situation that defined our stay, let me say that blue-moons in Australia look much like clouds and mud.

An adventure nonetheless, and one thoroughly enjoyed. We integrated ourselves into a tour that rattled across the Outback in a bus loaded with anxious foreigners and one lively tour guide. We slept in “swags”, a Australian concoction integrating a long canvas bag, a foamy pad, and an enormous “flap”. We encircled a campfire and dozed beneath the stars – that is, the distant balls-of-fire we occasionally observed through the dark blanket of clouds. We learned about Aboriginal culture and history, we hiked though rock formations mimicking those hardly fathomable in daydreams, and we consumed some of the most atrocious damn coffee this side of Columbia.

In regards to “hardly fathomable rock formations”, Uluru is perhaps the most bizarre mount of granite I've ever encountered. The accompanying pictures hardly expose the fantastical nature of the notorious rock. A “monolith” rotated, Uluru consists of layers of hardened sediment jutting vertically from the ground. Strange indeed, akin to virtually nothing. Apparently only a small portion peeks from the soil, leaving thousands feet buried in the earth. The shapes, rounded and smoothed from years of weather, dance with the imagination. Something from the “Alien” movies perhaps? Inspiration for H.R. Giger?

Kata Tjuta, another sacred Aboriginal site, belonged to the agenda, and levied her beauty to the water saturated group on the second day. Due to the unexpected dousing from mother nature, a dry night sleeping amongst the sand and bugs became three brave souls parked around the campfire and the rest sleeping in the campground laundromat. Jared, the guide, woke everyone before sunrise, and following a filling breakfast, hauled the lethargic crowd to the lesser known rock formations of Kata Tjuta.

While not quite as prolific as Uluru, Katajuru is an impressive littering of giant mounds of compressed river rock strewn across the desert. We wondered along the path looking upwards at cliffs extending into the clouds. Kata Tjuta seems to cover more ground than Uluru, but the formations have experienced more natural degradation.

The third day brought us the cliffs and waterfalls of Kings Canyon. A near heart-stopping dollop in a sub-fifty degree swimming hole kept the spirits high, and a blow-out celebration at a popular watering-hole back in Alice Springs involving absurd amounts of beer brought the tour to an appropriate end.

On a darker note, the Aboriginal people appear to still exist upon the fringes of the white population. The native inhabitants of Australia seem to roam the streets of Alice Springs as vagabonds, howling and screaming from habitual intoxication. Intolerance and violence brought about by early white settlers has brought an indifferent modernity against a culture thousands of years old. The Australian government is now much more sensitive to the Aboriginal culture, but full integration may prove a difficult task. A greater respect and understanding of Aboriginal heritage is desperately needed. Hopefully things will change.