4 Oct 10 Monday
Saturday arvo Steve got the van started so we were actually hopeful he would have it ready today. We tried to sleep in a bit but the ragrats had to go to school and the brother kept bouncing his ball against his bedroom window where we were trying to sleep, waiting for mother to take him and the sister to sleep.
Big brother is 11. He is a state and national motorcross champion. If he is your big brother, he is the most typical big brother ever created. He never wears a shirt inside. he’ll fart in your face, and practice the latest wrestling moves on you. He’ll eat your food, make a talking face out of his stomach, bomb you in the pool and give you a wedgie. But he’s also very considerate. He cleaned up his room for us to stay in, made me pancakes, jumped on the bed and stole my doona when I was hungover.
Little sister is almost 7. She loves to talk, entertain and do girly things, inspired by her 16 year old sister (like shaving her legs). She loves Barbie, and if they don’t have the right size violin in the music shop she’ll be getting a Barbie laptop for her birthday. She stands up to her brother and enjoys crushing cans in the vice in Dad’s workshop. She is also into motorcross, and rides quad bike.
Big sister is 16, elusive and comes and goes as she pleases. Her “just friends” male friend drives her around town in a ute, and brings her home too late. The car Steve gave us is actually her car, but it so “uncool”!
We hung around the house watching some American prison show on Foxtel on the massive TV and drunk cups of tea. We did a few loads of washing. The clothes dry in ½ hour in Alice Springs. We packed up and went to the workshop when the van was ready.
A bit of work was still needed on the car so what better plance than to give an impromptu violin and guitar lesson to the big brother and little sister, since they were hanging around the workshop back from school. Little sister tried out Twinkle twinkle little star on the full-size violin while big brother tried out Smoke on the Water on guitar. It was the first time he was shy!
Once the van was ready we said our goodbyes, did some shopping and headed out of town down the Stuart Highway. We stayed at a camp spot on the Finke river about 2 hours south, not far past where the van blew up 6 weeks ago. The van went well, and with the engine watchdog installed I couldn’t help glancing every 30 seconds what the engine temperature was. It sits around 83-84 degrees and when it stops it goes up to about 90 because the wind and the fan aren’t cooling it.
For dinner we had a simple meal with chicken, canned tomatoes, fresh garlic and chillies.
5 Oct 10 Tuesday
We cleaned up the van a bit. As I was packing Anthea’s hiking pack I noticed one of the parts of the waist buckle was missing. It looks as if someone has cut it off. It’s pretty hard to carry a heavy pack without the waist belt securing it to your hips. We have no idea how this happened. Maybe it got caught on something? Very strange…
It was hard to believe the van was actually ok. We got on the road about 9am and drove towards Ayer’s Rock. We turned onto Lasseter Highway and stopped at Mount Ebeneezer Station to stretch our legs. It’s all tour coaches and campers around here. I saw a guy with a 30cm beard.
To go into the national park Ayer’s Rock the Olgas it costs $25 each and the tickets last for 3 days. As we approached the big rock it was hard to believe we were actually there. It is so huge, surreal and magical. It’s taller than the Eiffel Tower!
We decided to do the base walk. I climbed the rock when I was 13 like everyone else, but now it is being very discouraged as it is very disrespectful to the Aboriginal people. They are trying to educate visitors about the local culture and religion, instead of just saying don’t do it. Also Kevin Rudd refused to close the climb as he believed the tourism dollar was too precious. He did say sorry, but he wasn’t that sorry. I say why do we have to climb everything? We’ve got the harbour bridge climb, isn’t that enough?! The other reason ofcourse is that people die on the rock, and crap all over the place and leave rubbish everywhere, and when it rains it poisons the surrounding waterholes. If they close the climb, who knows, they might hollow out rock, build a hotel inside and put a lift in up to the top.
The base walk is 10km long. Along the way there are several areas where you are not allowed to take photos because they are sacred sites relating to secret mens and womens business. We got about ½ way around when it began to rain. We knew it was a bit gray but for some reason we didn’t think to bring our goretex jackets or anything like that. Soon enough it was pouring down and by the time we got back to the car it was very dark and fountains of water were falling from the big rock. Luckily we had dry clothes and towels with us so we got changed. Our shoes were soaked and I didn’t have a 2nd pair of shoes because I’m trying to save space! But I think I’ll atleast have to buy a pair of volleys or KT26’s when I get to Adelaide. Atleast I had thongs. A 4WD was waiting for us to make sure we weren’t bogged in the carpark.
As we left the park to go to our free camp spot we were slowed by a convoy of campervans. A HiAce was towing another HiAce out. We knew how they felt. But it was pouring, dark and about 500 kms from Alice Springs. Huge puddles of water everywhere all over the road. Hopefully it wasn’t a major problem like a blown engine!
Our camp spot is about 25kms away from the rock. It rained all night so our clothes couldn’t dry. We couldn’t cook. We had our best meal yet. Spaghetti on bread. And a glass of Coke. No dessert. We stayed up playing guitar and singing 4 chord songs.
6 Oct 10 Wednesday
We woke up and it was dry. Coffee and muesli. We drove to the Cultural Centre and listened to a talk given by a talk given by a ranger to what we didn’t realize at the time was a bunch of kids on a school excursion. Ofcourse after the ranger explained for 10 minutes why they don’t wan’t you to climb the rock and why they won’t ban climbing, a bonehead teenager puts his hand up and asks whey don’t they just ban climbing? The cultural centre had heaps and heaps of information and we stayed for about 3 hours. They even had a Sorry Book. It was a folder full of letters from visitors who felt so guilty for taking a piece of Ayers rock with them that they decided to post it back and say sorry. Some of the letters describe being cursed by the rock. The kiwi salesman mentioned he got cursed by being bitten all up his arms by mozzies for impersonating an Aboriginal dance. Perhaps our van got cursed? But that was then, it’s all good luck from here on. We gave Alice Springs a healthy economic injection stimulus I reckon from our mechanic’s bill. That’s gotta be worth some good luck.
We headed back to the resort to do emails and have lunch. We discovered the business phone was in the bag we took on the walk yesterday. It was all wet. Anthea went to find a bathroom with a dryer in it to dry out the phone while I did the emails. Lunch consisted of tuna, tomato and cheese (a classic!) and a popper. During lunch it began to rain so we cancelled our plan to go to the Olgas this afternoon. Instead we hung around the resort, drinking coffee and visiting every single shop there. Souvenirs are so tacky!
Headed back to our camp spot and cooked up a curry. There are lots of people here. Unfortunately there is no toilet at this camp spot and Anthea involuntarily experienced her first ‘en plain air’ toilet experience. While she was away I was entertained by what I think was a bilby. It was about the size of a rat, had huge eyes, big back legs like a kangaroo and hopped around. Chocolate and tea. Four chord songs.
7 October Thursday
Today we went to Kata Tjuta – The Olgas. They are really surreal, more so than Uluru. We did the 8km Valley of the Winds walk. There are people of all nationalities around here. Italian, German, Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese you name it. Oh.. and a few token Anglo Aussies! It's crazy weather out here. It's sunny and hot during the day, then it turns grey, windy and nasty in the afternoons and it'll probably rain again. It's not much fun walking in the rain. But atleast my shoes are dry.
