Journey to the Red Centre
Back in 1988 a rather wacky Australian filmmaker named Yahoo Serious released a film called Young Einstein, a comedic adaptation of the life of the great scientist, only in this case he's born in Tasmania, eats apples, and travels to the "mainland" (of Australia) to pursue and share his theory of relativity as it applies to bubbles in beer. Nothing Academy Award worthy, but funny, and with some great cinematography of a truly beautiful country. One particular sequence in the movie cemented in my 10 year old brain that I must someday visit the Australian outback.
20 years later, and here I am, living in the land of Oz. It took us some time to organize, but two weeks ago, we finally found our way to the center, sorry, centre of this big, dry, sunburnt place.
We packed all our camping gear and boarded the one and only weekly direct flight from Brisbane to Alice Springs (on wednesday morning, if you're interested).
Seeya later Brisbane... and rivers... and green stuff...
You truly get a feel for what a vast and rather empty place this country is when you take this flight. After only 15 minutes or so of flying due west from the Pacific coast, the green hills and sub-tropical rainforests very quickly turn into this:
Sand. Red sand, and lots of it. The great Simpson desert is big, really big. Most of the 3 hour flight is over terrain like the above. The sand dunes give way to some rocky canyons as you near Alice Springs, which is in fact nestled in a very mountainous region, between the one and only pass through the MacDonnell Ranges.
And finally coming in for a landing at Alice Springs airport... which by the way, has one single runway. You land, hook a U-turn and taxi back down the runway to the terminal.
For reference here's a map of our loop:
20 years later, and here I am, living in the land of Oz. It took us some time to organize, but two weeks ago, we finally found our way to the center, sorry, centre of this big, dry, sunburnt place.
We packed all our camping gear and boarded the one and only weekly direct flight from Brisbane to Alice Springs (on wednesday morning, if you're interested).
Seeya later Brisbane... and rivers... and green stuff...
You truly get a feel for what a vast and rather empty place this country is when you take this flight. After only 15 minutes or so of flying due west from the Pacific coast, the green hills and sub-tropical rainforests very quickly turn into this:
Sand. Red sand, and lots of it. The great Simpson desert is big, really big. Most of the 3 hour flight is over terrain like the above. The sand dunes give way to some rocky canyons as you near Alice Springs, which is in fact nestled in a very mountainous region, between the one and only pass through the MacDonnell Ranges.
And finally coming in for a landing at Alice Springs airport... which by the way, has one single runway. You land, hook a U-turn and taxi back down the runway to the terminal.
For reference here's a map of our loop:
Erik
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I think I should visit that area, just to hike on the red sands!
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And then we're off! Driving west along the West MacDonnell Ranges
Desert... spinifex... mulga trees... desert scrub... what's this?!? A gorgeous swimming hole? Yup, it happens. One of many gorges where rivers do in fact run very rarely in a wet time - some of the holes are deep enough and shaded enough by the gorges to hold water almost indefinitely. Even in the desert like this, there was a family of ducks living in what is now just a small pond. Amazing.
We arrive at Glen Helen, the lone outpost in the West MacDonnel ranges. A nice little station with a petrol pump, a diesel pump, pub, campground and even some nice hotel rooms for the weaker at heart. Our first home on the trip. Not a bad view of the Glen Helen gorge.
Let's go for a hike. Find the doc:
At the gorge we find another gorgeous water hole, again, remnants of a river. If we had come about 8 years ago, there would have been a river raging about 10 meters from where our tent was, right along the base of this gorge.
Just in case.
We turned in for our first night. You know those stories about how its really hot in the desert by day but really cold at night. Well they are TRUE! It was 0C this first night (32F). Being from the northeast US, MrsIt and I have camped in colder, but the shocking temp change from near 80F during the day to 32F at night was, shall we say, interesting.
I'd say it was worth it though, sunrise treated us to our first proper red centre morning. Out the door of the tent:
*It's the iron in everything to accounts for the amazing red color.
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Next stop, Kings Canyon via the unsealed Mereenie Loop Road (look hard on google maps, its there). Bit bumpy, ok, in some parts really bumpy for our little baby 4wd, but the views and connection to the landscape were well worth it.
Are we there yet?
Don't forget your water out here. That's a camel carcas (yes, Australia in fact has more wild camels than the middle east).
Pavement, sweet glorious pavement!!! Er, sorry, bitumen.
King's Canyon and surrounding plateau/canyon lands looms ahead.
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Very cool stuff!
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After driving over 150km of unsealed and at times very rocky and very sandy unsealed desert track (including one short foray into the "bush" off the main road), this happened while I was turning around at the petrol station at Kings Canyon... which is paved.
I thought I already paid my karma with my extravagant night time muffler explosion?!!!
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Look close enough, can you see the specks on the other face of the canyon? Those are people, real full-size ones.
The "diving board" rock, as I called it (to the left).
Later on, looking back from the other side.
Hiking out at sunset.
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Back at the campsite, a more mischievous and furry variety... the dingo ate our salami! No kidding here. We had originally put up our tent at the outskirts of the campground, ah, privacy, but as we started setting up for dinner, I heard a rustling. I flashed up my headlamp and there he was, sizing us up from 10 meters or so. MrsIt didn't like it all so she scurried to a more populated section of the campground. As much as I tried to whistle and shoo him away, he just waltzed right over to our cooler (esky) and casually went through it until he found something he liked. Our salami! I have to say, he had good manners, unlike what you think a wild dog might do, he didn't rip through our whole stash, just sniffed until he found what he wanted, grabbed it gently and trotted off with it. I hope it gave him heartburn, thief. We've camped with bears and the like before but these doggies were fearless and very matter-of-fact. We saw them throughout the campground all night. Shame, clearly they are fed and know where to go now.
Off he goes with our dinner...
Still spying at us in the morning.
And Australia's ever persistent parrots. These gallahs are everywhere, beautiful, travel in flocks, and loud too.
You'll be wondering, where are all the kangaroos and rock wallabies? Good question, all we saw were dead ones on the side of the road (and plenty of them).
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Have I mentioned how beautiful and blue the desert sky is?
After several hundred kilometers of driving, we arrive at the spot I've been wanting to see for those 20 years. Was it worth it? You bet your sweet a**! It's amazing. I'm no Ansel, but it's not hard to get a good photo here. The air is clean, the sand is red, the spinifex is alive, and the sky has the most amazing blue gradient you'll ever see.
Great Southern Land (ripping through my head at this point)
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The different faces and shapes and colors you see in the rock as you go around it are truly awesome. It's like the rock is alive. It has scars from ancient battles, it bulges a bit in places, and it's outer skin is sliding off in other places from the millions of years of exposure. They say that the earth in central australia (and moreso western australia) is some of the oldest in the world. As in, because of subduction and plate tectonics, much of the exposed earth is in fact "recycled". Not so much here, these rocks have been sitting here for ages. Amazing.
Let's go around, shall we?
Don't slip... (controversial topic btw, this is very sacred Aboriginal ground)
The sun is going down, and we cross over in the "dark side", some scary stuff back here
And then back around to the other side, the sunset completely lights up the rock. It is practically on fire! If anything, this photo is desaturated, it truly does become that red.
And just like that, the sun is gone and we have yet another dusk color.
A repeat performance at sunrise, only in reverse...
Now, a strange thing happened on this day... clouds!!! (yours truly doing his best Yahoo Serious impression)
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There they are in the distance (that's 50km away at this point)
There should really be dinosaurs living in here, this valley amongst these giants!
(see the hiker far right for scale)
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yup, 5 or 6 times more of it is underground. Now I want to see the other huge monolith in western australia, Mount Augustus!
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Right, anyway, a smattering of other photos...
Getting a sunset time lapse with the G9
The sand is SO red!
We timed our trip perfectly, gray skies and rain is not something you see too often in this part of the world.
Heading back the "the Alice" on the Stuart Highway, where, consequentially an Australian-Pacific version of the Cannonball Rally was staged. They even have a monument to this illegal underground event, gotta love the Aussies.
Thanks for coming along, hope you enjoyed the trip, we definitely did.
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Good thing we like to camp, traveling there is NOT cheap. Oh, and never, ever, ever rent a vehicle from Avis = lies, highway robbery.
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They are all arse holes tarred with the same brush.
It's amazing in a "what am I doing on the surface of mars" kind of way. So different from what most of us are used to.
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Photos that don't suck / 365 / Film & Lomography
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Is it just me, or does the "blue gradient" seem way more intense than in the American Desert (I saw a similar thing in Central Asia). Is this true, (it's been a long time since I was in the desert in the US, so I could be misremembering)?
P.S: Are you ever coming back to the US? Cause if that was my backyard I would have to think real hard about leaving it.
When I eventually get around to Oz, you are gonna have to show me around!!
www.tednghiem.com
(I come home before the end of 2008)
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I wondered about the blue myself, but I've only taken one proper trip to the American west and it was cloudy the entire time. Comparison to other deserts aside, its totally striking, for the obvious reason that the horizon is so low and flat everywhere.
Yeah, its a gorgeous backyard, but its not home, see above.
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That's like this December!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thought you were a forever Ozzie!!!
www.tednghiem.com