Middle of Nowhere

Surprise! You didn't expect to see me so soon, after that emergency telegram I sent you, did you?  You did get it didn't you???

  
[Click me if you didn't]

There is still a bit of a hold up happening here.  I wish I had some exotic excuse for it, like I contracted Ross River Fever and became delirious, and lost my way, or my camel  was allergic to koala fur and we had to find a vet who practiced alternative medicine... 

  ..but all I can truthfully say is that I am mentally tired and haven't been up to writing much lately.

I mustn't allow this writing to become a chore for me, or you will pick it up in a moment. How could I hide it from you if the creative flow began to dry up, and what was once a pleasure became an onerous task? No, it is much better to be patient and wait...

But something drives me on. It's like that urge one gets to keep driving, hour after endless hour, wanting to get that first glimpse of Ayers Rock. Will it show up from miles away, or suddenly loom up before us as out of nowhere? What will it look like?

That's something like how I feel writing this. I have no idea what I am going to say to you, I just know that when the time comes the words will be there. So I keep going. In a way we are all in this together, except that I have been there, so I am at a slight advantage... which is only fair I suppose as I am your tourguide.

Do you get the impression that I'm stalling? You're right.

A quick look at the map the other day was enough to tell me that between here and Alice Springs my memories of the trip range from sketchy at best, to virtually non-existent. There were no familiar-sounding landmarks to assist me, except one - the Devil's Marbles. South of Tennant Creek, which is halfway between Katherine and Alice Springs, along with the Barkly Tablelands, these huge boulders spread along a broad shallow valley where they rest on top of each other. Just west of Tennant Creek are the sister rock formations The Devil's Pebbles.  At sunset the play of sunlight on the minerals in the rocks create a display of exquisite colours.

The huge boulders have the effect of hinting of bigger
and better things to come, being reminiscent of the massive rock formations comprising the Olgas, or in aboriginal Kata Tjuta, and Uluru, the aboriginal name for Ayers Rock.

Tennant Creek has history of gold, silver and copper mining, which continues to the present day. Legend has it that the town's location is attributed to the breakdown of a beer cart. It is said that instead of carting the beer and building materials back to the intended site, the camp was moved to where the beer had fallen! The shops and pub were supposedly built closest to the creek because the miners didn't want to walk any farther than they absolutely had to!

The Warumungu aboriginals were the original inhabitants and they call the area Jurnkurakurr.  More on that later.

Don't get the impression from the lack on my part that there's a dearth of interesting places to see in the Northern Territory, will you? So far I have relied on certain vivid memories to carry us along, and there are more to come, but filling in the gaps is proving difficult. It's hard to write riveting accounts of nights spent gazing at the starry sky, with no city lights to spoil the view for hundreds of miles, when I have only a vague recollection of such events. It's hard to capture in words a sense of the vastness of that place, or how it feels to camp out (safely insulated from creepy crawlies inside a campervan), in the 'middle of nowhere', and wake up to see the sun rising over an uncluttered horizon. To tell you the truth, I wish I could remember it better, come to think of it. It makes me want to go back there and experience some of that raw beauty again - there's just not enough of it here in suburban Adelaide!

This might be a good spot to let Grant have his say. (Grant is my husband, for those of you who haven't caught up with this important piece of info. yet)  Until now he has been the proofreader, quietly performing his duties in the background, but as often happens in these cases, he is starting to get a bit caught up in the events that are unfolding, and he is actually offering suggestions now. I alluded earlier to the fact that he was quite keen to find out how things work out in the end, but not being satisfied to remain the detached observer, he has recommended that I put something in here about distances and travelling times. He seems to think you might not have grasped the incredible vastness of the place yet, nor the flatness of the terrain. Ironic really, because right about now the terrain takes on a different character and the flatness gives way to tablelands (still flat, only higher up), but to keep the dear man happy I'll say a bit about flatness and vastness, shall I? (The reason I shy away from facts and figures is that I have to use my brain, but, for the sake of thoroughness, I'll give it a go.)

If you were really keen, you'd be following this trip in your own atlas, poring over it with all your might, trying to glean as much information from the pretty coloured shadings on the topographical map as you could, but if my suspicions are correct, most of you are just giving these things a cursory (though appreciative) read, and haven't got time for all that sort of thing. So.. without going into too much detail, here are some mileages for places you are now familiar with.

Remember when you first joined the trek, I was just landing in Darwin and seriously considering turning back. Well, I'd just flown 2000 miles 'up' from Adelaide that day, and the first stop on the way back 'down' was Howard Springs, a mere 20 miles out of town. I seem to remember having a swim in the croc-free swimming hole there, and not drying off until some time later the next day, miles down the road, because of the humidity. From there, the distances between 'watering holes' (which is a colloquial term for any sort of place where you can get a drink) becomes much greater - it's possible to drive 150 to 200 miles without seeing so much as a roadhouse (a place to buy petrol and food).  FromDarwin to Katherine is 250 miles, which in NT terms makes it almost a neighbouring town. Mataranka, where we are currently stranded awaiting the return of our intrepid tourguide (me) is a mere stone's throw from Katherine. The next place warranting recognition as a landmark township is Tennant Creek, 400 miles further south towards Alice Springs, which is another 300 miles after that. If you're anything like me, all those numbers become something of a blur, so I think another map would be in order here, just so you can get your bearings.

You might notice a slight preference coming through on the map for a certain area way down south. That's only natural having been born and bred in the river town, Berri (home of Berrisen and Ted, for those who know my dad), and then living in Adelaide for the last 22 years.

Alice Springs is almost dead centre between Darwin and Adelaide - in fact it's incredibly close to being dead centre of the whole of Australia.  It also very close to the Tropic of Capricorn which is the southernmost point at which the sun is directly overhead.

Speaking of 'dead'...has this episode bored any of you?  Consider it travelling burnout shall we, and let's make it that we have already nearly covered the 700 miles from Katherine to Alice Springs, having passed through the Barkly Tablelands, and are now entering the central red desert area. Ooh - I love it! We've spent a few nights roughing it under the stars, listening to the silence. I'll leave you there now to appreciate the beauty... soak up the sense of immensity - the vastness of sky and land...

A land such as this, with its great loneliness, its dearth of life, and its enshrouding atmosphere of awe and mystery, has a voice of its own, distinctly different from that of the ordinary Australian bush.
- Ernest Favenc, Voices in the Desert, 1905

And may I suggest you make the most of it, because we're re-entering civilisation very soon. It'll bring you back to earth with a shock if you're not prepared. First night in Alice, we're going to spend the night parked in a street lined with shops, and we'll wake up to the sounds of people walking past, talking loudly, oblivious to our predicament inside the campervan, as we try to get a good night's sleep. But the redeeming feature is that we get to have a decent shower at last. And that's something to look forward to!

In case you feel a bit let down by the thought of leaving behind the red desert no sooner, it seems, than we entered it, I'll reassure you that it's only a brief touchdown, and we'll soon be off on the 270 mile drive west to go in search of the Rock! Once we've had a thorough scout around out there, we'll come back and give Alice a bit of a going over, before we have to head home to sunny Adelaide, where you'll meet the family.

After that, if you like, we can go and visit Mum and Dad up at Berri, on the River Murray - I'm sure they wouldn't mind putting us up for a few nights. And Dad can take us out in his boat on Lake Bonney. He'll probably tell us the story about the time he lost his watch at the bottom of that lake and someone found it years later, still working!

Gotta go... I'm gunna be flat out like a lizard drinking over the next few days, sorting through all the photos of Ayers Rock and trying to decide which ones to show you.
Catch yas later.