You've got five, ten minutes, then we're leaving!

Our 3-night, 4-day tour of the Red Center of Australia was fascinating, informative … and hectic.  Our guide, Narelle, was part professor, part anthropologist, part translator, and part drill sergeant.  She sort of had to be, as we were to cover about 900 miles and 3 national parks, and set up in three different tent-camp sites, all while herding and feeding 16 of us.  So we were on the road a lot, and we got used to her stern warning "Right, you've got five to ten minutes, then we're leaving!"

Narelle was quite amazing - she'd only been working for this tour company for 10 months, yet her knowledge, which spanned from Aboriginal culture and history to the flora and fauna of the desert to its geology, never ceased to amaze us.  One reason for this, we learned, is that there's a fairly rigorous certification process through which guides-to-be have to demonstrate knowledge and then go on training trips, before they're determined ready to guide.

Anyway, Narelle often stopped to tell us about the specific "bush tucker" (plants and animals gathered and hunted by local Aboriginal people) we were walking through or how a rock we stood beneath bore the imprint of a particular creation story.  Here's one of Narelle's classrooms at Kata Tjuta (note the many fly nets being worn).

Our group comprised a Belgian couple, a Spanish couple living in Sydney and her sister, three young Chinese women (two of whom were going to university in Melbourne), two Dutch brothers, an Australian psychiatrist (originally from South Africa) and his three sons, and us (we were the elders!).

Our vehicle was a diesel, four wheel drive truck whose rear compartment was made out like a bus.  It was reasonably comfortable, though over the course of the 4 days the space began to resemble coach-class during a trans-oceanic flight … personal belongings strewn all over the place.

Our campsites had permanent canvas tents, a mess tent, and a fire pit.  Toilet and shower were either group facilities as in an American national park campground or, in the case of our one "bush camp" near Kings Canyon (our second night), a corrugated metal toilet and wood-fire heated shower:


Wood.  We used wood for cooking at each site, so had to gather it along the way.  The wood we gathered was Mulga wood, a treasured resource for Aboriginal people in the area, great for burning but also full of sharp branches and stickers, so blood often flowed during these forages.  Here we're gathering wood while Narelle loads it into the truck.


Though not as hot as during the summer months, the sun beat pretty down pretty hard by late morning in the desert.  That, and the draw of stunning sunrises, led Narelle to push hard to get us up and out of camp by 5 or 5:30am or so.  That meant rolling up swags (heavy canvas bedroll with two inches of foam and room for a pillow and sleeping bag, which many in our group slept in under the stars - Kate and I tried it one night) and sleeping bags, eating breakfast and cleaning it all up, sweeping out tents, and packing up the truck, all by flash- and fire light.  Oh, and cleaning the bush toilet on that last night … that was my job!

Anyway, though there was some gnashing of teeth at this break-neck pace (exacerbated, on our part, by  lack of sleep), the rewards were great.

This is sunrise in Kings Canyon, probably the highlight of the tour.  We started 3 1/2 hour hike by climbing up to the rim of the canyon before the sun crested.  From there, we got to see amazing rock formations, an 800 year-old Cycad fern, a fossilized sea shell demonstrating that this area was submerged under an inland sea millions of years ago.

The canyon, itself, was quite stunning; here, a sheer wall formed by a rock slide about 90 years ago, and the bottom of the canyon where the lush "Garden of Eden" gave us cool respite.

Next: The relaxing last day...