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May 30, 2008
Primeval Red Centre
Driving out to remote communities really gives you a feeling for the true soul of Australia's arid heartland. It's easy to forget when you're living in Alice Springs with an airport, pubs, shopping centres, internet and all the other amenities of home. It's a similar situation with the majority of tourists who visit the Rock or do a three day tour of it and King's Canyon. They see all bitumen roads with not much in between, other than enough roadhouses along the way to keep some semblance of civilization in the backs of their minds.
The "campground" at the Rock that the tour companies use has running showers, toilets, kitchens with electricity (for charging phones and ipods, etc), and even an internet terminal. I reckon they don't know what they're missing. If you're thinking of visiting the Red Centre, make sure you take some extra time and get off the bitumen - choose the path less taken.
It's only then, when you're driving down a red dirt road, surrounded by srub and grasslands running the full spectrum from yellow to the deepest of greens, and an infinite ocean of sky above that you can appreciate the nature of the Red Centre.
In trying to describe the feeling, the experience I'm at a loss for coherence. The only suitable word that comes to mind is 'primeval'. 
The red of the earth, green of the plants and blue of the sky... basic colours that paint an ancient landscape - almost dinosaur like. The majority of the rocks around were formed well before suitable life was around to be fossilized.
Erosion has had a long time to work out here. Hills and mountains seem to rise from flat ground and are typically all that remains from larger ancient ranges. Simply look at Uluru and Kata Tjuta which now stand as remants of several alluvial fans of sediment deposited by millions of years of erosion from the ranges to the west. Humans have been standing in awe of the landscape here for somewhere around 40,000 years give or take. Primeval..... almost an understatement.
Posted by Dr.Unk at May 30, 2008 12:07 AM
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