Family meets the OUTBACK!

Hi Mates!

Welcome to the Outback where everyone is your “mate!” The Australian outback is completely different from the rainforest. The outback desert makes up the majority of the Australia and gives Australia it’s reputation of being one of the driest countries. The outback is pretty inhabitable as there isn’t much water out here. We are in the Northern Territory and it’s a typical desert environment with it being hot during the day and cold at night. Apparently it can get up to 60 degrees CELCIUS during the day during the summer! The scenery is really beautiful with tons of red sand everywhere but also lots of trees and vegetation. I’ll break it down by day:

Friday July 2
On Friday we woke up really early for our flight to Ayers Rock. This region is ½ hour behind the east coast of Australia. We got in at 9:30 and were picked up by the free shuttle to get to “Ayers Rock Resort” also known as “Yulara.” The resort area consists of 6 places to stay, different restaurants and a shopping area. It kind of is like a small ski village. The hotels and restaurants are all connected where you can charge everything to your room and can use the different services and facilities at each hotel. We stayed at the Desert Gardens hotel. We got to the hotel around 11, settled in and walked around. We went to the information center and went to the museum they have there and learned a lot about Uluru and Kata-Tjuta. Uluru used to be known as Ayers Rock but was changed back to Uluru when the aboriginals regained their rightful ownership over the land. The museum also told us more about the weather conditions and the types of vegetation and animals that can survive in this area. We then headed off to the shopping area to Gecko’s lunch. We then were picked up at 2:15 for our big Uluru adventure. Michael was our APT tour guide and we were going around with about 25 other people in a big bus. We first went to the cultural centre where we learned more about the aboriginals’ history with Uluru and some of their stories behind Uluru. We then entered the park and did two guided walks around Uluru. The first was to Kantju Gorge and the second was the Mala walk. Uluru is so beautiful and cool!! It is huge with a perimeter of 9 km. Uluru is filled with paintings and different paths to explore. While you are physically able to climb Uluru, it is greatly frowned upon and the aboriginals ask you visitors do not to respect their culture. The aboriginals do not climb Uluru and ask that guests do not either. Most days the climb is not even open because it’s too hot, but when we were there we saw some people climbing. Anyways, we did the two guided walks and learned about the aboriginals stories surrounding the areas. Many areas around Uluru are sacred to the aboriginals. Walking through Uluru you learn so much about their culture and way of life from the structures they built and the paintings. There are many black areas lines around Uluru from when it (rarely) rains. After exploring for a while, we drove around the entire Uluru to see all of it and how it changes in each section. Uluru is made out of sandstone that has rusted and it this brilliant red color. We then headed to a sunset viewing area where our tour gave us drinks and nibbles (which were delicious). We then watched the sunset and it was really amazing seeing Uluru change colors as the sun set. It was so crazy because the sky right above was still a brilliant blue, but at the horizon the sky turned pink and then another blue. The sun set so fast – it was daylight one moment and night the next! After the great sunset we came back to the hotel and had dinner. Then we were all exhausted so we went to bed pretty early.

Saturday July 3
Today we woke up at 5:30 to go on our sunrise Uluru tour. We were picked up just after 6 and headed back on the bus with our guide Michael. We headed straight for the sunrise viewing area where we were met with tea, coffee, hot chocolate and biscuits. The sun was already starting to rise and turning the sky red. The sky changed to an amazing pink and it was just a really beautiful sunrise! There was a whole sunrise walking track that we went on and saw the sun rise at the viewing dock. It was awesome to see the colors come out on Uluru as the sun rose. After the sun rose we drove to Kata Tjuta (which used to be the Olgas). Kata Tjuta literally translates as “many heads” and has 36 domes around it. It is humongous and is over 20 km in perimeter. It is made up of granite, bathsalt held together by sandstone. We went to a viewing area of Kata Tjuta just to see how big it actually is and then drove into it so that we could walk around. We did a guided walk at Walpa Gorge which means wind and lets just say that Walpa certainly lived up to it’s name – it was like a wind tunnel! However it was truly beautiful! On the way we learned the story of Kata Tjuta and how it represents the 36 men the aboriginal tribe buried in this area when they tried to steal their women. Kata Tjuta is a sacred place for the aboriginal men and is where the men go to teach their sons about being an aboriginal man. We walked the gorge which was a beautiful walk. Then on our drive back to Yulara we saw some wild camels! Apparently camels (along with many other things from vegetation to animals including; pigs, kangaroos and wallaby) are pests. Australia has one of the largest population of camels in the world. Anyways then we were dropped off at the hotel and just squeezed into the end of breakfast (which was delicious). Then we spent most of the day just hanging out. We went to the Sails in the Desert hotel pool (which is heated and Brian actually went in), had lunch, did some of the walking trails of Yulara and went up to lookout points and read. We then went up to a lookout to see the sunset which was again really beautiful. For dinner we went to an Australia BBQ restaurant which is outside (with shelter and heaters) where you buy your meat and cook it yourself at a BBQ grill. I got fish and it was really good. There is also a salad bar and hot food (baked potatoes and corn). It was a really good meal and there was even bread pudding for dessert. Now we’re just getting ready for bed and packing up for Alice Springs tomorrow!

Sunday July 4
Happy Fourth of July! We woke up relatively late for us (7:30 am) and had another great breakfast buffet. We then got on our airport shuttle and just as we were walking on “Born in the USA” by Bruce Springstein came on the radio – talk about a good start to the 4th of July! We then went to the airport (which is really the smallest airport I have ever seen) and got on our small plane for the 45 minute flight to Alice Springs. The flight wasn’t too bad and we even got a cute little snack pack from Qantas which was great! We then landed in Alice Springs, checked into our casino hotel and had lunch. At 1:15 we were picked up for our tour around Alice Springs. We had a pretty full bus and a great guide, Harry. We first went to Mbantua which is an Aboriginal cultural and art museum. It was so interesting! We had a guided tour where we learned a lot about the different symbols that are used in Aboriginal art, the origins of Aboriginal art (mainly the dot style) and about some of the famous Aboriginal artists. We then got back on the bus and headed for the Royal Flying Doctor Base. We got to the Royal Flying Doctor Base and first watched a movie about what they do. It is such an interesting organization! Basically Australia is such a huge country with the majority of it’s population living on the east coast, but there are some who live in the outback far away from hospitals and ordinary life conveniences. Some people realized the problems with this back in the early 1900s and dreamed up the idea of the Royal Flying Doctors. The dream became a reality in the 1930s and has since grown. There are currently over 50 planes in 26 bases throughout the entire country. If there is a problem anywhere in Australia the Flying Doctors are able to get there to assist within 2 hours of receiving a phone call – this is pretty amazing considering the fact that in the US you normally have to wait 2 hours to be seen at a hospital! So the Royal Flying Doctors serve any type of emergency and are also there for consults. The majority of the time, problems can be solved via phones. Every place the Flying Doctors goes to has a Royal Flying Doctors kit with medication in it that the doctor can just prescribe by learning about the ailment (they even have a chart set up to make it easier). Doctors rarely are needed to fly out, normally it is just a nurse and pilot, but doctors are on hand if needed. It is a really incredible organization and I am so happy I learned about it! From there we went to learn about another fantastic organization – the School of the Air. Coming from the same scenario of Australia being a huge country, with some people living in sparsely populated areas, someone (who worked for Royal Flying Doctors) realized that many children in the outback were not being taught or socialized well – in that they barely had social skills for people they had not met. To rectify this situation the School of the Air was set up. It used to operate by radio use, but now it works through computers and web-cams. 133 children are in the school, are between the ages of 4.5-14 years old. It is the “largest classroom in the world” since the students live 521,000 square miles apart (double the size of Texas!). The way the school works is there are 11 teachers who work from the School of the Air base school in Alice Springs. There are 2 studios in the base school that the teachers can access their students from. The week is broken into different times that each teacher and class goes online. Typically each grade has a live-online class every day for about an hour. Then for the rest of the day, the students with their tutors (either governess or parent) complete around 4 hours of correspondence work, which the students receive from the base school. The school (through government funding) provides the technological support (the computers, web-cams etc) to the students, along with books. While the focus is on education, the live-online classroom time gives the children a chance to socialize with people their own age, which they do not normally get to do in their environment. There are other types of classes too including gym, art and music, which the children can participate in. The teachers provide a lot of individualized attention to the students by visiting each of them at least one time per year at their homes and having private teaching times once a week. This type of environment gives the children the ability to have extra work, or be on an accelerated track. The School of the Air also reaches out to some Indigenous students and helps support their schooling. I am so impressed by this school and truly loved learning about it! We even got a book for the library that gets sent around to the children throughout the Outback. From there we moved on to the Overland Telegraph Station. The Alice Springs Telegraph Station was midway along the Overland Telegraph line from Darwin to Adelaide (basically through the center of Australia). The telegraph line opened in 1872 and gave Australia (and New Zealand) a much faster way of communicating with the world: 8 hours rather than 8 months! We learned all about the telegraph machine’s development and toured the facilities. We also learned how the facilities were later used as a “bungalow” for half indigenous children. Right behind the telegraph station is Alice Spring, the “spring” from which the town received it’s name. Turns out it is not actually a spring, but rather granite is below the surface which causes the water to stay and not sink into the ground. There was actually water there when we saw it, but often times the water is only underground. With the water up, the spring area was really beautiful. We then went to Anzac Hill to see the view of the town and surrounding area, including the mountain ranges. It was a really great and interesting tour. We then got dropped off in town centre and had dinner at Café Oscar which was really delicious. Then we came back to the hotel. Brian and my Dad went to the casino, while the rest of us watched a movie. Now it’s time for bed, and it’s off to Melbourne in the morning!