Uluru and the Lucky 2%

 

Just back from a camping adventure in and around Uluru in Australia’s Red Centre:

It was definitely not “glamping”, but it was epic!  But before I get to that, a few other updates since my last post:

Spent the last couple of weeks in FNQ (Far Northern Queensland), also known locally as:

Melanie and I celebrated our 37th Wedding Anniversary (that's 259 years in dog years...Woof is right!) in Port Douglas, a beautiful beach town north of Cairns:

checked out the local music scene (never heard a didgeridoo before):

and did some cool hiking:

and aboriginal cultural tours:

including one where we attempted to catch fish and crabs using traditional aboriginal spears:

Suffice it to say that if we were contestants on that survivalist show "Alone", we'd starve to death pretty quickly, while the guides we were with would be having a feast!

Fortunately, we had more success on the wildlife-spotting front than on the wildlife-spearing front!  In the Atherton Tablelands, we finally had luck spotting one of the animals that we have spent countless hours searching for:  the platypus (a venomous, egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed, semi-aquatic mammal that is so weird looking that when the first scientists examined a preserved specimen they thought it was a fake, made of several animals sewn together!).  We actually saw a few, but I still haven't figured out if the plural of platypus is platypuses or platypii:   

We also had our first sighting of a Kookaburra (though not in an old gum tree, as the song goes...):

No luck spotting a tree kangaroo (who knew there are kangaroos that can climb trees?) or a cassowary (a 6 foot tall flightless bird that can disembowel a person with one swipe of its foot). But that just adds to our list of reasons to come back to these parts!

Now, if I haven't lost your attention yet, on to Uluru.....

Because we’re in Australia, every trip seems to start with a warning:

But at least we planned the trip during Australia’s winter, so as to avoid the extreme summer heat. As the Uluru guidebook promised “the weather for the six months from Easter onwards is delightful. Cloudless skies, balmy days and cold, clear nights." We were looking forward to laying around the campfire at night staring up at the stars.  Life Lesson: DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT YOU READ! At least as far as the weather in Australia is concerned….

We still slept in our sleeping bags and swags (canvas bags with thin sleeping pads in them), but rather than sleeping around a campfire gazing up at the stars as planned, we slept side-by-side like sardines on the concrete floors of rudimentary screened-in shelters at muddy campgrounds (except for the last night when our campsite was completely flooded and we got to stay in the backpackers' bunkhouse - quite the treat!).

It was a “participatory” camping trip, meaning that we all participated in cooking, cleaning, collecting firewood, etc. I ate interesting authentic outback foods like camel burgers (no jokes please, gents) and kangaroo steaks (felt a little strange about this one, but when in Rome….). Luckily, we had a great and energetic (purple-haired) Aussie guide, and it was an interesting international group of 21 from Australia, France, Ireland, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany and the US mostly in their 20’s and 30’s (just like us 😜).  Still haven't figured out why the most popular American song among Europeans seems to be John Denver's Take Me Home Country Roads.....

We hiked at Uluru, Kata Tjuṯa and King’s Canyon - all significant aboriginal spiritual sites. Previously a very popular hiking destination, Uluru has been closed to climbing since 2019 out of respect for its Aboriginal owners - the Ananu people, so one walks around it, rather than up it.

Because this post is already WAY too long, I won't get into recounting the Uluru creation story which the Ananu have passed down in their oral tradition, but the rock art in this area has been carbon dated to as far back as 65,000 years ago.  Certainly A LOT older than any biblical stories!

So you may be wondering why this post is entitled “Uluru and The Lucky 2%”. Well, the answer is connected to the delightful weather we encountered during our trip. According to our guide, due to the scarcity of rain in this part of Australia, fewer than 2% of visitors ever get to see waterfalls at Uluru. We saw plenty - at Uluru as well as at the other sites we hiked - and they were beautiful (even our guide, who does this trip weekly, was giddy at what we experienced).

 

Of course the rain also created rivers, not always in the most convenient spots…

We were pretty well waterlogged and exhausted by the end of the trip, but that’s what made it an adventure!  At least we had time to get a good Thai massage back in Sydney (though I don't think Bob Kraft would have been satisfied with it 😂):

Tomorrow we’re off to the highlands of Papua New Guinea in search of Birds of Paradise. Melanie and I saw a nature documentary about these amazing birds a few years back and committed to coming to see them one day. Fingers crossed that we succeed!

Wishing you all a Happy 4th of July! Let’s hope there are no fireworks while we’re in PNG….