Kata Tjuta

After the day at Uluru we got up bright and early to catch the sunrise from a sand dune between Uluru and Kata Tjuta. Kata Tjuta is the lesser known part of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. It's a collection of sandsone and conglomerate domes that together cover just over 8 square miles of bush west of Uluru. I was particularly looking forward to visiting Kata Tjuta for several reasons. It's bigger than Uluru, its less well known than Uluru, its more sacred to the Anangu than Uluru, and more of it is off limits to non-Aboriginal people for cultural reasons than Uluru. Neither site has been commercialized to any great degree but to me Kata Tjuta feels less touristy than Uluru. I can't describe why exactly, but Kata Tjuta felt more primordial to me than anywhere else in the Outback.

Uluru is big in an obvious way. After all, the incongruity of a massive chunk of sandstone rising hundreds of meters straight out of an otherwise flat-as-a-pool table landscape is difficult to miss. Kata Tjuta, on the other hand, is as understated as Uluru is obvious. It's far more massive than Uluru, but deceptively so. It's not a single monolith, but a series of gigantic stones several of which are inidividually taller than Uluru, all packed together with spaces in between. The enormity of Kata Tjuta is easy to miss because the relatively featureless scrub surrounding it can make it seem a lot closer than it is at any given point, its far enough away from Uluru that an accurate visual comparison is difficult to make, and Kata Tjuta's stones are arranged in a roughly circular pattern. This means that from anywhere except overhead Kata Tjuta always looks more 2-dimensional than it is in reality.

The law component of Tjukurpa includes certain aspects that are particularly relevant for men or women. In our language these are called simply women's law and men's law. I was only able to scratch the surface of the Tjukurpa associated with Uluru and Kata Tjuta, but I was left with the impression that the significance of Kata Tjuta cannot be overstated, particularly in men's law. I was told that Kata Tjuta means "many heads". In Tjukurpa the domes of Kata Tjuta are understood to be the tops of the heads of the Mala men, ancestral giants that figure prominently in the Tjukurpa stories surrounding Uluru as well. There are several other snippets of stories about Kata Tjuta that seem to have leaked out the Anangu culture, but for non-Aboriginal people there remain many more secrets than explanations of the traditional significance of Kata Tjuta.

There are only two routes that non-Anangu people are allowed to take into Kata Tjuta's interior. I took the Valley of the Winds walk, which is the longest of the two, and as its name suggests follows a natural wind tunnel between the rocks. It opens into a natural ampitheather formed by the surrounding domes. The expansive landscape inside Kata Tjuta is undetectable from the outside. As with Uluru, the geologists seem to be unable to agree on a scientific explanation of Kata Tjuta's origins, but they do agree that much more of the domes are currently below ground than above it.

Maybe the geologists ought to talk to the Anangu. They seem to know exactly where Kata Tjuta came from. Too bad they're not telling.

Uluru

The next morning began my 3 day tour of the center of Australia's best known attractions. Between stops we took in some other sights, including some wildlife, a working cattle ranch, and some interesting roadhouses. Uluru was first on the itinerary.

For those who have heard that Uluru is in or near Alice Springs, it isn't. We spent the first morning from about 6 am till right about noon covering the roughly 250 miles of bush between them. A word to the wise concerning outback travel: you can get more places in a ute than you can in a big air conditioned tour bus, but they are nowhere near as comfortable. If you ever find yourself on a ute tour of the outback sit in the front seat if you can. Your back and butt will thank you. Also, pack light, wear comfortable shoes, and don't bring anything that you don't want impregnated with stubborn red dust. And one more thing: be ready for scenery that's out of this world.

Before we got to Uluru we had to gas up at a roadhouse and a quick inspection of the back paddock revealed a pair of camels. Few people outside Australia understand the significance of the camel in Australia's history, but this animal was critical to European exploration and settlement of the outback. The camels came to Australia as pack animals with Afghan immigrants, who were themselves brought to Australia to work on developing infrastructure (primarily railroads) in the arid center of the country. The transcontinental railroad here is called the Ghan in honor of the Afghans' resilience in the desert environment, and their contribution to early exploration of the interior. Their camels quickly became the favorite mode of trasportation for savvy outback travelers due to their durability, ability to haul heavy loads, and modest food and water requirements when compared with horses. Given these attributes, their less desirable behaviors such as spitting and biting were understandably forgiven. I gave the local cameleer a couple of dollars to do a lap around the paddock on one of his beasts and was immediately impressed by how tall they are. I have ridden horses a fair bit, and you are a LOT higher off the ground on a camel than on any horse. They are so tall that you can't climb onto them like a horse. The better trained ones kneel so you can get on or off, otherwise you have to use a ladder. Camel saddles are much simpler and harder than horse saddles, but they were a welcome respite from the horrors of the back seat in our ute. To borrow an Australian turn of phrase, riding in that ute was hard yakka. It got to feel like a kick between the big toes.

Once we got to Uluru we had a walk around the the base and visited a few of the culuturally significant sites around the base. The most striking thing to me about Uluru is its size (the path around the base is nearly 4 miles long), but almost equally as surprising is the way the texture of the rock changes with location or perspective. From one place it may look perfectly smooth, from another it will look wavy, and from another it could appear jagged and craggy. In some places the rock almost appears to be rotting away as the surface is pocked with hundreds of little caves and tunnels. The walk around the base took almost 2 1/2 hours and it seemed that at every vantage point the rock had a different texture or appearance, even though the entire structure is a single giant piece of stone.

The Anangu people are the traditional residents of this part of Australia. The Anangu consist of two separate groups, the Yankunytjatjara and the Pitjantatjara. Their Tjukurpa or Wapar (in the Pitjantatjara or Yankunytjatjara languages, respectively), which means roughly religion, heritage, and law all rolled into one concept, provides traditional explanations of how many of Uluru's features came into existence. In some places this knowledge is recorded in rock paintings, but the Anangu say the natural texture and color of the rock tells the history of their land, which in turn forms their religion. In their traditional belief system you don't need a natural history textbook to tell you how modern landforms came into existence because the land itself is the text. The Anangu are not unique in this regard. Most Aboriginal groups regard ancient history to be self evident in today's landforms to those who know how to interpret them. The law component of Tjukurpa or Wapar is conveyed orally.

One of the most important aspects of Tjukurpa or Wapar is that long ago, ancient beings called Tjukuritja shaped what was previously a featureless earth through their activities. The Tjukuritja were the ancestors of modern humans, plants, and animals. When humans inhabited the earth the Tjukuritja didn't leave, but either took spirit form or became integrated into the land. Thus in Tjukurpa, a mountain or stream may not only be the track left by Tjukuritja, it may be the Tjukuritja itself. Because the land not only tells the stories of their ancestors but also contains the ancestors themselves, the land is sacred to the Anangu and stewardship of the land is their sacred duty.

There are many stories that together make up the history of Uluru as the Anangu understand it. Most of them revolve around a conflict between two giant snakes. Even in my very short time there I heard different versions of the story, but the basic thrust of the story as I understand it is that one snake, Kuniya, came to Uluru from the west. At the same time a venomous snake called Liru approached from the opposite direction. A conflict ocurred in which Kuniya ultimately killed Liru. In some versions Kuniya and Liru take the form of opposing tribes which identify with snakes, and Kuniya is often associated with a mother or motherhood. The versions that include the tribes of people explain that the holes in Uluru's face are the marks left by the combatants spears, and waterholes around the base are drops of blood from wounded combatants. I was told that one rock formation in particular is supposed to be Kuniya in snake form looking back at Uluru as she left the battlefield. I came away from Uluru thinking that like most purely oral traditions, Tjukurpa or Wapar seem to have central themes that are constant, but that the details can be adjusted to suit the teller or the audience. To me the story of Kuniya and Liru seems to be about the conflict of good over evil and the cost of waging that fight.

Photos:

1. Our ute and trailer next to the quintessential outback road: long, straight, dusty, and empty.

2. Camel riding

3. The group with Uluru in the background. The couple on the right were from Scotland, the two in the back were students from the US studying in Australia, the woman on my left was a British traveler just in from southeast Asia, and the one in black to her left was Dutch.

4. This is probably the best photo I have to demonstrate the size of Uluru. It seemed to go straight up, and the summit isn't visible in the photo.

5. The stone that is supposed to represent Kuniya. The snake is looking back to the right over itself.

Alice Springs

For those of you who have been reading this and giving feedback through Angel and the rest of my family, thanks. It's nice to know people are reading this. I apologize for not keeping up to date over the past several weeks but there hasn't been much to write about. Hopefully that's about to change so stay tuned.

In the meantime it's a good opportunity to catch up on my trip to the center of the country. After I got done in Sydney I was off to Alice Springs, which I used as a jumping-off point for Uluru, Kata Tjuta, and Kings Canyon. Uluru and Kata Tjuta are also known as Ayers Rock and the Olgas, respectively, but as mainstream Australia has become more aware of Aboriginal culture these landmarks are becoming better known by their traditional Aboriginal names. All are well known but Uluru in particular is one of the most photographed landmarks in world.

Most people get to these places through Alice Springs. I had a day to spend in town so I gave myself the walking tour. I had read that it was home to nearly 30,000 people and growing rapidly so I expected a busy town. I could not have been more wrong. If nearly 30,000 people live in "Alice" as it is known, then most of them are either invisible or were on vacation that week. School was in and the holidays weren't for another month so vacation seemed unlikely. More on the invisible residents of Alice later.

I ambled through a couple Aboriginal art galleries on my way to the one thing in Alice that I was keen as mustard to see: the Royal Flying Doctor museum. The RFD is a medical service that provides emergency care to rural Australians who live so far away from urban centers that conventional emergency services aren't practical for them. Alice Springs is just about the geographical center of the country but isn't close to anything else. In a quirky way that is oh so Australian, its extreme isolation makes it the perfect place for the hub of the RFD network.

Lots of museums I've been to are filled exclusively with old stuff, but not the RFD museum. The museum touches on the history of the RFD but emphasizes the RFD's important role in contemporary outback life. The RFD is so integral to the security of outback residents that some households maintain private airstrips just so the RFD will have a place to land in case of emergency. In addition to flying ambulances, the RFD provides medical chests with drugs and equipment to outback residents, and will dispense advice on how to use them by radio. Everything in the chests is numbered, which helps clarify potentially confusing instructions. They even have an observation room where I watched dispatchers take calls and plot the day's flights. These dispatchers often have to share microphones with doctors giving critical advice to caregivers in order to keep victims alive until the RFD arrives on scene.

Like many things in Australia the RFD has its share of amusing anecdotes. My favorite concerns an old stockman who's wife became ill. The stockman radioed the RFD for advice, who prescribed a single pill from one of the vials in the cattle station's RFD chest. The stockman had been less than fastidious in his maintenance of the chest's contents, and found that he was out of the required medicine. Not to be deterred, he administered enough medicines from the other numbered vials to add up to the number on the vial that had been prescribed. Apparently outback medicine is equal to the sum of its parts, because the stockman soon radioed the RFD that his wife "came right straight away".

On the way back to my hostel I walked by the Todd River. The term "river" is a bit of a misnomer for the Todd. It's really a dry gulley that gets a little damp once in a great while. When I was there the "river" hadn't flowed for six months or so. Every year the town has a cardboard boat race down the Todd. Contestants have to construct a boat to enter, but rather than paddle them down the river they sprint down the dry riverbed carrying, dragging, or wearing their craft as they go. The organizers are quite proud that this event is the only boat race in the world that is cancelled in the unlikely event that the race course is actually wet.

Aboriginal culture is prominent in Alice Springs. There are several Aboriginal art galleries in town that appear to generate tidy sums for the indigenous communities, and many Aboriginal people work in the tourism industry as guides, for the government as park rangers, or running their own businesses. There is growing pressure to conduct the tourism industry that drives Alice Springs' economy in a manner that is not only sensitive to Aboriginal culture, but that emphasizes the Aboriginal perspective on natural and human history, and empowers and benefits the Aboriginal communities around Alice Springs.

This brings me back to the invisible residents of the town. A progressive approach to tourism has not benefitted all Aborigines equally. After walking along the Todd for a few minutes I had noticed quite a few Aboriginal people coming and going across the channel, and it became clear that there was a sizeable group of them living on the outskirts of town. I talked with a townie about it and she confirmed that there are quasi-settlements on the fringes of town where some Aborigines live in deplorable conditions, and that substance abuse is rampant in these communities. According to her the people I saw in the riverbed were members of these communities. Tourism drives the Alice economy, but poor inebriated indigenous people don't make for a pleasing tourism experience. These folks are the invisible part of Alice Springs' population.

Photos:

1. The nerve center of the Alice Springs RFD hub. These dispatchers were taking emergency calls as I watched and had one patient with a life threatening injury in transit when I was there.

2. The mighty Todd River.