AYRES ROCK (ULURU)
The Artisan takes this tube, and covers the mouth with a beeswax, creating a mouth-piece. The outside is painted with an ochre paint, and sybolises some aspect of the dream-time. Our didgereedoo is cover with lizards and turtles, and one big snake.
Now the main feature. We arrived in Alice Springs, and spent a night in a hostel. This was a glorious treat for us because the temperature has been over 40 degrees Celcius most days, and we have been sleeping in our car almost every night. Usually around dark we cook a small meal on our stove, and then lie down and begin to sweat. After an hour, I am asleep in a pool, which cools overnight, leaving me looking for a blanket at around 3 a.m. (The hostel had A.C.). After leaving Alice Spring, we drove south, and then turned off towards Ayers Rock. (Uluru). Before we headed to Ayres Rock we took a side trip to a place known as King's Canyon. It is a deep gorge cut out of the sandstone layers that surround the area. The shear cliffs that make up the walls of the canyon are layered with beautiful exibitions of ancient crossbeds, as well as layers of ripple marks. Both of these show the formation processes of large braided river beds. At the head of Kings canyon, was the garden of eden, a smaller gorge that ran off the side. The Garden of eden, held a small, deep, cool pool that was wonderful to swim in.
That night we stayed in campground in a place called Kathleen springs. We then drove over to Ayres Rock (Uluru) the next day. The beautiful monolith, (which is slated to be the second largest in the world, although we couldn't think off-hand what the largest would be...) was a deep red colour, and poketed with eroding holes, a testiment to its age. interestingly enough, Uluru is composed of a arkose sanstone, and is tilted 90 degrees on its side so the actual layers of the deposited sand we turned on their side almost 100 million years ago, during a mountain building eposide to the north. We also went to see the Olgas, a group of large boulders, some taller than Uluru itself. We walked around a pathway that is referred to as the Valley of the Winds, this walk showed us some of the breathtaking views of the surrounding valleys. Although the Olgas is only 50km away from Uluru, it is compriosed of a totally different type of rock. The olgas are composed of a granite conglomerate. The beauty of the these two sites was unimaginable. It is easy to see why the Aboringinal people have always held these sites as sacred places.
From Melbourne with Love: January 26
Well Ladies and Gentlemen, here we sit in the sourthern most tip of our Australian Odessy. It is from this point that we once again begin to head North. It is also from here that we put our car up for sale, and once again start packing our backpacks, instead of just throwing crap in the car.
Since we left the Outback, we have had a relative cold streak decend upon us. It was over 40 celcius for more than a week. We were beginning to melt, and it was hard for us to enjoy spending any time in the car. With this in mind, it was a treat that the temps dropped to the low twenties. We were even wearing sweaters when the thermometer sat at 26. (In Canada, I normally would be close to naked at this temperature).
We pointed out car to the east and drove to the Borassa Valley. This valley is the wine capital of Australia, and world famous for the ease of tasting. While driving around, we found roughly 30 different wineries that we could drive into and sample the produts (FREE!!). We decided that this could get dangerous, and with enough wine Mari and I might start driving on the Right side of the road again, so we decided to take a tour. We parked at the Seppelt Family Winery, and paid $4 for a tour of the facilites. For a full hour we walked around huge barrels filled with everything from vinegar to fortified ports. It was truly impressive, but the fun was yet to start. We were placed in front of a large bar, and given a list of over 40 wines. We started with a large cold glass of water (to clean the pallet eh!), and then we each made selections from the white wines.
The most difficult part of the next hour was looking dignified (in our grimmy t-shirts) while we sniffed, swirled, and sipped. To us, we appeared knowledgable while I'm sure everyone else thought of us as rogues. who cares though, because we were getting free wine.
After a session on red wines, followed by ports we paroused the gift shop before deciding we should get something to eat. Later that afternoon we finally headed east.
The one feature of Australia that I had been waiting for was Mt. Arapiles. This park is a collection of cliffs and boulders spread out over a large campsite on the western section on Victoria. Mari and I bought a small climbing guide then spent 3 days in the park bouldering, finally leaving when my fingertips were worn and my forearms were too swollen to grip the steering wheel. On the morning of the second day, I awoke at 6 and dressed to go bouldering. For some strange reason my tent-partner stayed in the sleeping bag. I walked through huge boulders in the cool of the morning, lightly stretching and selecting good problems to play on. I worked through a few easy problems when something caught my eye. A group of 6 easteren grey kangaroos were running around my rock. I raced back to tell Mari, who told me about a fox that ran past the tent, and the kangaroos she had also seen.
We left for the south again, winding up in The Grampians, another famous climbing hot-spot. It unfortunately was raining at this point so we settled for a nice hike.
One of the absolute highlights of our trip came when we reached the great Ocean Road. This 300km section of highway winds (and I mean winds, this trail is so crooked that we headed north and south as much as we headed east) along the southern tip of Victoria. The land drops off over huge cliffs into the wind swept ocean, and stops along the way mark the various geological formations (such as the 12 apostles, a dozen rock pillars just offshore) and the various shipwrecks. Halfway along the road, we parked in a small park and set up camp for the night. With nightfall approaching, we decided to go for a quick walk, and there in a tree 2m off the ground was a Koala. Sweet!! We raced to get the camera. In retrospect it was funny that we took so many pictures, because by the time we finished our walk we had seen 10 Koalas, none higher than 15m up a tree. It was a wonderful treat.
We drove into Melbourne,and here we started cleaning our car. We were feeling worn and decided to treat ourselves to breakfast. Upon leaving the restaurant, a nice lady in her forties called me over, and politely asked me to kill a spider. "No Problem" said I, the tough man.
I looked into her car, and was ready to meet the tiny spider. I was greeted by a hairy dangerous wolf spider about the size of my fist. As I stood screaming inside my head, and bravely crapping my pants, I pulled my sweater over my hand, scooped the spider out of the car, and stomped on him a dozen times. "NO Problems" I calmy said, and then went to change my pants.
Well Australia is almost over, soon we will land in singapore where we have friends waiting. We will give an update the moment we sell the car though. later