The Heart of Australia

I left Adelaide on Wednesday morning on the only airline that flies to Alice Springs, Qantas. This little town is located in the center of Australia and is known for its large number of aboriginals and Ayer's Rock, or Uluru as the aboriginals call it. This is the world's largest monolith and part of aboriginal heritage. It is a gigantic rock out in the middle of the desert and when you see it on the map it looks real close to Alice Springs when in reality, it is about a 5.5 hour drive away. When my flight landed I was sitting in the last row of the plane on the aisle. I stood up and took a couple of steps back because I figured I would be the last one off of the plane. As I stood there waiting my turn I was tapped on the shoulder by a flight attendant who politely told me I could exit at the back. I was amazed because I had never been on a flight where this was so. I walked down some metal steps that were pulled up to the plane and went down to the runway. As soon as my foot hit the ground I was immediately attacked by something I had heard about from many many people before I got there, the flies. Just like that I had about 30 flies vigorously attacking my exposed areas, especially my nose, mouth, and the worst, my eyeball. These things would fly around your head and no matter how many times you would swat away, they were relentless. I quickly ducked into the main building of the airport where there was only one baggage claim and about 4 or 5 check-in counters. I don't think I have to tell you that this place was small. I was able to catch a ride with a bus that was chartered by the hostel I was going to stay at. They gave me a ride into town and directly to the hostel where I stayed. I decided I would look at some options for tours to the rock. After I talked with the staff at the hostel, the only option I had for going to the rock would be a day trip since I really only had one full day there. It was $200 dollars just to ride for 11 hours and see the rock for maybe 3 hours. Since I live about 45 minutes, if that, from the world's second largest monolith, I figured it was not worth the money. I had also heard that there are hundreds of tourists there and also a let down when you see it, considering it is just a rock. I decided to do the option that waq more fit for my kind of lifestyle. There is this park right outside of town called the West MacDonnell Range National Park. It has many different sights to see and as many watering holes to jump in and swim. They told me that it was not very crowded and I should have most of the places to myself. The option I had was to rent a car from them, less than half the cost of the Uluru daytrip, and take myself around at my own pace to wherever I wanted to go. This was much more my flavor. I went ahead and booked it and decided to have a walk around the town. Alice was full of aboriginal people walking all around the place. They are known as huge alcoholics as well as the fact that they don't regularly take showers, both of which were apparent. The "abos" as most Aussies call them are very distinguishable. They have a distinct look to them and really look like they are straight from the outback. I realized that they are kind of like the American Indians in America. They were killed and persecuted and nobody respected them. While the Indians in America are alot further up the social tier nowadays, abos are still at the very bottom. There is alot of racism towards them and they earn very little respect in the community. I picked up some food for the next day at a local supermarket and headed back to the hostel. When I got back, I met the first two Americans on my entire trip, minus the 75 year old woman from Seattlethat was on the train. They were from Vermont and being that Americans are like magnets in foreign places, I guess, we hung out the rest of the night. I went with them to get some food and then some drinks at a bar where the group that they had gone to Ayer's Rock with was at. It was alot of fun getting to meet everyone there and having a group of people who all knew each other pretty well by that point. I woke up real early the next morning and picked up my car from across the road. Throughout the trip I have kept gettting closer and closer to feeling truly Australian, and driving on the left hand side of the road was just one more step. It took awhile getting used to but I soon got the hang of it. The biggest problem for me was the turn signal. If you didn't know, the turn signal is on the other side of the steering column so everytime I signalled to turn, the wipers would go off and usually give me a jump. The first place I stopped at was known for Black-Footed Rock Wallabies. If you come in the morning or are very silent, you usually see one. I walked down the trail looking for them when I rounded this big boulder and found myself no more than 10 feet away from one. I quickly took a couple of pictures before it hopped away into the rocks. The next few stops were full of beautiful sights, gorgeous gaps, dry creek beds, and all sorts of wildlife. It is hard to believe that there is that much wildlife in such a dry desert. I had lunch at what is know as the world's oldest river. It has not changed course in 100 million years. Trust me, it looked like nothing special. I guess imagining it being in the same place for that long is what made it cool for me to look at. I had a fly net over my head the entire time and I realized that when the flies don't get their way of eating your face, they get pissed. They would get louder and louder until finally they would land on the net and look for an entrance to get a suckle of my sweet eyeball juice. Somehow, one would ocassionally find its way in and have his way with me. I was starting to think that maybe the same flies were just following my car around the entire day because I couldn't imagine what they do when there isn't a person around to harass. What is their life for if not to irritate me beyond belief? The rest of the day was filled with refreshingly freezing cold swimholes, magnificent overlooks, long straight desert roads, absecences of people, and familiar animals and insects with all sorts of different colors you don't find in America. I left the MacDonnell Ranges that day with a new appreciation of the Outback of Australia. I saw what the desserted areas look like and also the spectacular sights out there that so many people pass up on their trip to Alice Springs. It truly set in that I was driving through Australia when a kangaroo jumped across the road on my journey home. I literally started yelling and cheering to myself in the car when I saw it. It was so perfect at the moment too, driving across a straight desert road with slowly undulating hills hiding the dried out creeks at the bottom of them right as I was reflecting on how awesome Australia is. I couldn't have asked for anything more perfect. When I got back into town that night I booked a little excursion to the world famous desert park before my flight the next day. The park is known for having the largest nocturnal house in the world and also some of the best desert set ups in the world. When I went there the next day I spent three hours going around it. The park was done from an aboriginal perspective and showed more birds than I cared to look at. The coolest part was the nocturnal house and the kangaroo and emu section. They had about 20-30 different species in the nocturnal house, most of them threatened or endangered. It was really spectacular seeing the night species because most of them will probably be gone from the planet by the next time I come back to Australia. The kangaroo section allowed you to get real close to them and, even though you weren't supposed to, pet them. The emus were awesome close up too, as they have these amazingly huge, sharp claws that reminded me of the Velociraptor from Jurassic Park. After my trek through the desert park I got a ride to the airport and caught my next plane to Cairns.