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Here we are in Alice Springs, a frontier town of about 25,000 people in the middle of the Outback. The emptiness of this part of Australia, the Northern Territory, is unimaginable, but the place is alive with exotic lizards and birds, and even camels!
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Scenic view from inside the
Walpa Gorge at Kata Tjuta
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| Yesterday we traveled on the only road across this vast landscape and saw only two buildings — roadhouses where travelers can buy food and "petrol" for the rest of the journey. We tried to imagine what it must have been like for the earliest settlers here in this unforgiving and wild place. It is almost winter here, so the temperature has been a comfortable 80 degrees Farenheit, but in summer this part of "the Red Centre" can reach 113°F.
Our guide, John Smith, pointed out interesting creatures on the six hour trip from Uluru, or Ayers Rock. At Uluru, most of us walked the entire 5.7 miles around this enormous red rock, stopping to look at ancient Aboriginal paintings and meditating in the quiet sacred places of Uluru. We also visited another sacred spot to the Aboriginals, the Olgas, or Kata Tjuta in their language, walking over the rocky trail to a quiet spot between the huge rock walls.
On our way to Alice, we kept our eyes peeled for the wild camels that roam the desert, and we were not disappointed. There are hundreds of thousands of these feral camels, the descendents of camels brought by early settlers. Camels are still used in Australia, and they have become a lucrative trade for camel farmers, who export the animals to other countries for transportation or human consumption. (You can order camel steak in Alice Springs, along with Kangaroo.)
We stopped at a camel farm, where almost none of us could resist the invitation to ride the camels — including daring Professors Martin and Morton! Professors Rhodes and Tucker declined, claiming they had already ridden enough camels.
We have only been in Alice Springs a short time, but already we are feeling at home. We have seen the School of the Air, which is a "school" over the radio for children living in the far reaches of the Outback, and we visited the Royal Doctor Flying Service, which provides medical care for people in this isolated place.
The nearest neighbor for those who live on cattle stations in the Outback outside of Alice can be 400 kilometers (about 250 miles) away! But community is found in the School of the Air, and most of the students took the opportunity to donate books to the school, writing our names and "USA" on bookplates inside the front covers. The children might email us in return, and that would be very exciting!
Here in the Outback, we don't know exactly what to expect next! But we look forward to the next few days, living here in Alice.
We have left the cinnamon colored sand of the Red Centre and are now in terrain that looks much like the American Southwest, except of course, for the Parrots, Cockatoos, and Camels you might see if you keep a sharp eye out! Australia continues to surprise us.
— Dr. Lynn Morton |
