Today we wanted to spend a bit more time at the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and go and see a bit closer up the other ‘rocks’, those that we had yesterday seen from the air in the helicopter – Kata Tjuta! We planned to try and complete at least one walk today and if our little legs were not aching too much then perhaps follow it up with a second but even though it was still only early in the day it was already warming up towards being quite a scorcher.
Whereas Uluru is a monolith, that is a single huge rock, Kata Tjuta one the other hand is an entirely different creature as it is an agglomeration – a mass of smaller rocks all held together – proving that I do listen and/or do my homework before writing this tosh … lol! The indigenous people call them the ‘Olgas’ meaning a load of heads and as we drove closer we could see what they meant, the rocks really did look like a group of people having a bit of a natter – okay they would have to be very very large people but then I do have a quite an imagination!
The first walk we did here was a shortish one to the Valley of the Winds and along the way we saw the Olgas faces up close and personal and although the rock looked a bit like Uluru, they also did not if you know what I mean! However, there were quite a few people with the same idea but it still turned out to be a good stretch for the legs. It was a fair bit quieter and to be honest a fair bit hotter on our next walk – the Walpa Gorge walk. The gorge was quite a nice stroll but as the walls closed in it was almost like being in a strange but huge red corridor. What made it even worse or better depending upon your viewpoint, was that the walk was not too long as our legs were now starting to feel a bit worse for wear especially after our exertions yesterday around ‘the rock’. At Walpa though we had hoped to see a bit of wildlife, especially some birdlife but we ended up hearing much more than we actually saw.
It was great for us to have had a closer view of the other great rock feature in the area and as we drove back towards civilisation we came across a lay-by with a viewpoint that gave us one last opportunity to view both great rocky sights before we headed on back into town.
Once back in town we had the opportunity to take advantage of one of the free things you can do here by listening to some aborigine bush yarns! We arrived at the small green in the centre of the little town at the appointed time and a chunky looking aborigine, who we soon enough found out was called Leroy, rolled up with a box that seemed full of ‘stuff’. Peeking out the box, we recognised the boomerangs but had no idea what the other vicious looking equipment was. Our storyteller was here to talk about the weapons the aborigines used for hunting in the outback possibly before the invent of the supermarkets! Leroy turned out to be quite a cool guy with a very laid back story-telling style and he explained to us all about how the roles in aborigine society are quite divided – the men do the hunting and the women the gathering and never the twain shall meet! He did not think of the division in their society as being ‘sexist’ rather that men and women are taught different skills to make them better prepared for doing the role they are assigned. I suppose when finding your next meal might mean the difference between life and death mixing the two roles would be a luxury the indigenous could ill afford simply on the off chance that it would pay off! The weapons were really cool but probably deadly in the right hands and Leroy taught us some new facts, like that there is no word as boomerang in Aborigine – so what do they say when they need to borrow it I wondered? Leroy had the answer, he said it was called it a ‘kuliand’ or something that sounded a bit like that – oh yes after my earlier factual success this is possibly quite a craptastical fact(let)! However, some of the woods the weapons are made from have to be treated beforehand to make them hard enough to break animal bones and the like! It turned out that the indigenous peoples also invented the very first glue from a sap which had a very high content of silica (from the sand) and this made the glue set like rock but then when it was reheated it would then soften! With stories such as these, Leroy kept us all enthralled, it was great to listen to him and every now and then he would pass round a weapon or something for us to have a bit of a closer look at. We both thought it was great to find out more about aboriginal life as it seems to be quite difficult here to find yourself one-on-one with an indigenous person and the things that you want to find out more about you don’t really want to ask the questions for! It was a great and very fitting way to end our trip to the centre of Oz but now it was time to make our way back out again.
Job done we once again jumped into our box-on-wheels – well our little camper van – and off we zipped back towards our next camp back near Alice Springs once again. On the way and probably because the weather was that much better than when we last travelled these roads there were many new wonders to see! We stopped to have a look at a huge salt lake with what looked like an island in the middle and this was across from the viewpoint for Mount Connell which looked like a huge plateau away in the distance – all these things we had managed to miss eh!
Towards the end of the day and nearing the campsite it turned out to be a tale of two battles, one against our ever-dwindling petrol reserves which we managed to win – though God only knows what we would have done if we had lost that one – and the second was a battle against those formidable foe, ‘the ants’ and this one we well and truly lost – damnable critters they are!
Our Excellent Adventure! 