Iain Plank

“Shall I be a purist or not ?” That was the question that I put to myself when working out how to get from Cairns to Alice Springs. I’ve travelled around the rest of mainland Australia by land so should I be a purist and travel the last part overland or fly ? Flying was only $8 more expensive and took 2 hours instead of 2 days…. I flew.

The Green Centre ?
I don’t know if you’ve heard but recently it’s been raining in Alice Springs – we are talking lots of rain !! When flying in I expected to see a vast barren expanse that was the famous Red Centre of Australia. Instead, everything was lush and green and even the “dry” Todd river was happily flowing.
The road to Cairns had been cut off (apparently 1/3 of Queensland was officially underwater) and Uluru (Ayres Rock) had had waterfalls pouring down its sides. Definitely an interesting time to be in a town like Alice.

Alice Springs
Alice Springs was initially called Stuart and was founded in 1870 as a staging post for a Telegraph line linking Australia to the rest of the world. It changed it’s name to Alice Springs in 1933 and is named after a small body of water that remains even in the dry. Technically this is called a Billabong but I guess that “Alice Billabong” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
Alice is a nice enough town but is pretty small and a long way from anywhere. I think that you have to be a special type of person to live there. After a couple of days we headed out from Alice on a 3 day tour of the famous sites: Watarrka (Kings Canyon), Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and Uluru (Ayres Rock).

Watarrka (Kings Canyon)
If you’d said to me a few weeks ago that we would be driving through flooded creeks and torrential rain on our way to Kings Canyon I wouldn’t have believed you…it’s the famous centre of Australia. We’ll that’s exactly what we did. In the previous weeks some tours had to be canceled because the roads were
impassable – luckily we managed to get through. Kings Canyon or Watarrka as it’s known in the local Aboriginal dialect is a beautiful place: A hot and dry canyon with sheer walls rising to up to 100m above the surrounding area. As we walked around the top of the canyon we became caught in a thunder storm and torrential rain. It was amazing and quite disconcerting to see how fast things could change: After 30 seconds we were all completely soaked. Within 5 minutes there were rivers forming and beautiful waterfalls pouring over the edges of the canyon in all directions. After 15 minutes these had become torrential and we
had no choice but to turn back. Streams that we’d used stepping stones to cross earlier were now fast-flowing rivers up to our thighs !! We had to leave quickly before the already bloated creeks that we had crossed earlier became impassable.
Not quite what you’d expect but we actually felt privileged to have seen it that way.

Kata Tjuta (The Olgas)
The following day after sleeping in swags under the stars (it fortunately hadn’t rained during the night) we went to the Olgas. The sky was cloudless and blue and it was spectacular, truly amazing. Afterwards we went to the Aboriginal Cultural Centre and then to watch the sunset and ever changing colours at Uluru.
A beautiful place.

Uluru (Ayres Rock)
When you think of Australia you think of Ayres Rock, that huge red monolith standing in the middle of nowhere. Some facts: its 3.6km long, 11km around, 348m high and is the biggest single piece of rock in the world. It is truly amazing.
An issue that occurs with almost every visitor is “Do I climb or not ?” and our group was no exception. When discussing the issue it is amazing how little information there is on the subject and how conflicting that information is. The official stance of the aboriginal group that owns the land, the Anangu, is that they ask you not to climb. Some claim the reason for this is that it is sacred and others that it is simply because they do not want people to be hurt – it is a very steep and difficult climb and many have died trying. After much thought and debate with others in our group and with our guides, who know infinitely more than I do about the aboriginal people and the subject, I decided to climb. There is not time to go into a detailed discussion here.
The climb was hard but extremely rewarding: the view was spectacular ! One strange thing was the existence of rock pools at the top – maybe not so strange after all the rain but within them lived small animals about 4cm long that looked remarkably like Horseshoe crabs. Apparently their eggs can survive in the dust and dirt for up to 6 years. Then, when the rains come, they hatch and lay eggs that will be the next generation before dying when the pools evapourate. Amazing. It is an very peaceful and awesome place.

Coober Pedy
After our tour and another day in Alice, it was time to start heading south towards Melbourne to get my flight out of Australia.
On the way we stopped for a night in the Opal mining town of Coober Pedy. It’s an extremely barren place and the landscape around it was used for the film Mad Max. It gets so hot here that a lot of the buildings” are actually dug out of the solid rock. Our hostel was more like the “Bat Cave” than the usual YHA.

Adelaide
I stayed in Adelaide for a day to get a few things done before heading down to Melbourne and was lucky to be able to catch part of the Fringe Arts Festival that was taking place.

Melbourne
Back in Melbourne for a few days to tie up some loose ends before flying out into the wild blue yonder. I was able to meet up with quite a few old friends here including Manoj. For those of you that don’t know, Manoj and I worked together in Germany and actually set out on this trip together all those months ago. We parted company in Borneo back in June ’99 and it was great being able to catch up with what’s been happening with each other.

Australians reputedly have a big problem with gambling and in the south east of Australia “Pokies” are big business. When I first saw a sign on this seedy looking building I thought that it was maybe some kind of legalised brothel. It turns out that Pokies are a form of One Armed Bandit or Fruit Machine except – and here’s the clever bit – there is absolutely no skill involved !! You put in your money, press a button and the computer reels go around, if you’re lucky you win if your not you lose. That’s basically it. Maybe I expect too much from life !!

Summary
So here we are – It’s time to move on again. I’ve been traveling almost 11 months now and have been in Australia a little over 5 of those. I’ve travelled pretty much around the whole of the mainland and have had a really good time, have seen some amazing things and have met some amazing people.
People have asked me what has been the best part and to be honest I don’t know. I’ve loved all of it for different reasons. The west coast is completely different to the east and the south from the north. The country is huge – unless you’ve been here I don’t think that you can fully appreciate just how huge it
is. The people here are extremely friendly and there is a good feel to the country. I’m sure I’ll be back.

Take care and I’ll talk to you soon,

Iain