Cruising the Stewart Highway

I meant to write sooner, but the wireless service in the outback is somewhat lacking! For a change of pace, I headed north from Port Augusta. I thought the Nulabour was an empty place, but has nothing on northern South Australia. There are hours of literally nothing. Not a tree or creature in sight- the most ambitious plants I saw where ankle-high bushes with sharp spines to compensate for their small stature. The lack of vegetation is most likely the result of a complete lack of soil. The ground was covered in small red gravel and that was about it. It was 5 hours to get to Coober Pedy and I still had another 800km before reaching Uluru (Ayers Rock for you colonial types). I stayed at a hostel called Radeka's Underground Backpackers, which was built into an old opal mine and my room was literally a cave in a large catacomb below the main reception building. Sounds cool enough (pun!) but the bed was like sleeping on a railroad track, so I didn't enjoy the novelty as much as I might have.

My friend Alyce was in town doing some work for Barrick Gold and she took me out, along with her boss, for a proper meal with plates and everything (I mostly eat out of the pot I cooked with to reduce washing time). No jobs for me at Barrick but at least I got a free meal out of the company.

I got up bright and early the next day and made the drive up to Uluru. Yet another barren highway, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that once I crossed the border from South Australia into the Northern Territory the speed limit went up to 130 kph. I arrived around 3pm, which turned out to be 2pm since there is no daylight savings time in NT, and $25 later I was hiking around the base of the world's biggest rock. Australia really is a geologist's dream world. The hike was about 10km all the way around and took me about 3 hours, but it was the last journey for my hiking boots which were so warped from the heat back in the Pilbara that they gave me huge blisters. Granted they are 2 years old, which is like 75 in boot years, but I tend to form emotional bonds with inanimate objects and will be very sad to throw them in the rubbish bin after hiking through 4 countries with them. Alas.

At sunset all the tourists gather at a viewing spot and watch the sunset on the Rock and even though I felt a little lame doing such a super-touristy thing, it was absolutely worth it. The colours change about twenty times as the sun goes down, finishing with a spectacular purple before darkness sets in. It was so good I got up to see it all in reverse at sunrise. Part of me felt a little uncomfortable the whole time I was there though... it is a very sacred place to the Anangu aboriginal people and there are certain sites around the base you are not allowed to photograph or walk up to, and climbing it is taboo but they still allow it because of the worry that tourists would stop coming if they weren't allowed to. I equate it with Vatican City where there are all sorts of places that only the Pope and the cardinals can go to. Could you imagine if they opened up all the really holy bits for the tourist hordes? I am obviously a giant hypocrite, but at least some of my entry fee goes to the local community. It is all terribly complicated.

When I got back to Coober Pedy I went out again with Alyce, and maybe had a few too many Coopers Pale Ale and woke up feeling not too well at all. My plan was to head to Adelaide first thing in the morning, but I had a sneaking suspicion that I was still drunk so I went to sleep in my car for a few more hours and dragged myself back to consciousness with powerade and coffee at around 11am. Food was beyond me for the moment so I put on some soft music and suffered on until I started feeling a little more human a few hours later. I made it to Adelaide by 7pm and now I am in the big city again. After being in the outback it is a bit of a shock to the system, to be sure. I will let you know how it goes.

-A.