Day 31: North or South?

December 15, 2010

Since we turned south to go to Sydney from Alice Springs we knew we had a decision to make: what to do after Sydney? Our camping preference is always for the solitude of the outback. But we’re heading into the Australian summer, when few campers venture north into the heat and humidity – and the wet season. Monsoons, cyclones and thunderstorms are not uncommon from December to March in the far north and along the Queensland coast. The heat didn’t bother us terribly much coming over the dry central desert, but we have no idea how we’d handle up to 100% humidity, or camping in torrential downpours.

We vacillated considerably whenever the subject came up prior to Sydney. Some days we were in agreement, others in conflict about what to do. Turning south seemed a good option in terms of heat, but the southern coast is a magnet for the entire east coast during summer holidays, and finding quiet spaces amongst the throngs of tourists didn’t seem likely.

Wednesday morning arrives. We have to pack up and leave the caravan park. Johan’s leaning south; I’m leaning north. Neither of us feels firm enough in our resolve to try and persuade the other. It’s just not clear what to do.

At nine o’clock we tentatively decide to go north. Rain is forecast for southern Queensland and a severe thunderstorm warning is out for areas around Brisbane. It puts a damper on our enthusiasm but maybe we can overlook that for now? Ten o’clock we’re leaving the caravan park when suddenly I say, “I think we should go south.”

So we do. Getting out of Sydney isn’t easy, especially when you’re avoiding toll roads and it takes us a good two hours of stop and start traffic before we’re on a rural highway. We head towards Wollongong via the coast route. On the outskirts of Wollongong we meet more traffic, congestion, stop lights, speed humps. We stop at a lovely park on the oceanfront for lunch, set up our picnic on a table overlooking the water with the coastal mountains as a backdrop. A man driving a tractor-sized lawnmower veers towards us and cuts back and forth, back and forth while we’re eating. Joining him are two other gardeners, one on a smaller sit-on mower, the other using a whippersipper to get the places the big guys can’t. Our idyllic lunch spot is surrounded by noise.

Camping on the coast means staying in large caravan parks, frequently used by adventures-seeking campers. Mini-golf, tennis courts, swimming pools, recreation areas, adventure parks – it’s all there. It’s also expensive – and they’re not big on peace and quiet.

So we turn inland, take the Illawarra Highway up to Jamberoo. A community of Benedictine nuns lives up here and I’ve wanted to visit for years now. We meander up the windy Jamberoo Mountain Rd with its heavy overhanging foliage to find their Abbey. It’s the most delightful, peaceful, beautiful setting you could imagine for a bunch of women who’ve dedicated their lives to prayer and contemplation. I want to stay for Vespers, Evening Prayer, but am reminded by one of the nuns that it likely won’t give us time to find a suitable camping place in the area before nightfall. I resolve to come back tomorrow morning.

Carrington Falls is 13kms further along the Jamberoo Mountain Rd, in the Budderoo National Park. It has a free camping site that’s clean and quiet, alongside a gently flowing creek. We pitch camp, carrying the weight of our busy, congested driving day and thankful to have found such a special spot so close to the monastery. Our resolve to tour the south has been weakened by what we’ve met on the roads and in the towns we passed through today. I don’t want to travel like this, I say to Johan.

Mist-shrouded campsite at Carrington Falls

Day 30: Driving in Sydney & the Big Interview

December 14, 2010

There something about the signs in Sydney. It has happened on the highways coming in to the city, in the Blue Mountains, on the foot paths in the CBD and on the walk trails around the caravan park. They lead you partway to your destination – and then they leave you stranded, not another sign to be found.

It’s been six years since we lived in a city so maybe we just don’t understand how they operate, which is certainly at a more hyped-up level than we’re used to after so long in the bush. On the day after our arrival we decide to drive into the CBD to investigate the parking situation in anticipation for our interview at the American Consulate the next day. Our GPS is on the blink and won’t tell us how to navigate Sydney so we’re on our own – with only general maps. Thankfully we have a laptop and mobile Broadband so I prop it on my lap in the passenger seat, connect to Google Maps and work out a plan for how to get from the caravan park to the CBD. The problem is Sydney is checkered with toll roads. Cryptic signs supposedly tell you how to negotiate the tolls, but it’s clear they don’t like cash and we haven’t a clue what an e-card is. Our aim quickly becomes to avoid them. It’s not that we don’t want to pay; we just don’t want to get caught in a situation where we’re trying to figure out how to pay – while a stream of restless drivers waits behind us.

So Google Maps has us heading towards the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Great idea – we’re tourists after all – but the big red and green toll signs increase and it’s clear we’re trapped. Only here are a couple of lanes that don’t have red and green toll signs. So we take one – why not! And before we know it we’re cruising over the bridge in a traffic-free lane while the majority of morning rush hour traffic is queued in the three lanes to our left, dutifully paying their tolls. At the end of the bridge is another row of toll booths – ah, now it’s clear: we have to pay after we’ve crossed. Only no one’s stopping and the booths don’t seem to be in operation. We coast into Sydney wondering how we managed a free entry.

We pull up behind a delivery vehicle in a ‘No Standing’ zone to regroup. I google ‘Sydney CBD carparks’ and find one close to the address of the American Consulate. Traffic is bumper to bumper at 9am and our journey of one kilometer takes us ten minutes. We take a sharp left when we find the big blue “P” sign at our destination and descend into an underground carpark. Several luxury cars are queued in front of us. After each one moves through the boom gate, it stops and a finely-dressed, impeccably groomed man alights, a suit slung over one arm, briefcase in the other hand. We get to the boom gate and discover it costs $16/hour to park -- $35 for two hours. I think we’ve made the wrong choice here. We smile at the unsmiling lady at the gate and tell her we just want to turn around, which she agrees to let us do – no charge.

We try another car park but can’t negotiate the one-way roads and the heavy traffic enough to explore that option. I’ve had enough of this and direct Johan, via Google Maps, to Mrs Macquarie’s Rd in the Royal Botanic Gardens. Ah, once again green surrounds us – and there’s ample parking -- $4.50/hour. We can relax.

I suggest we skip the whole idea of driving the car into Sydney for the interview. As we need to get our car serviced, we’ll book it in for 7.30am tomorrow, get a lift from there to the train station and take a train into the city. Getting around crowded, hurried places isn’t easy for us – Johan’s back pain is always a threat and stress increases the likelihood that it will interrupt our schedule. But after today’s driving experience, it seems a less stressful option – and Johan agrees.

The Big Day comes: our interview at the American Consulate for Johan’s permanent residency visa. We’ve brought a bag of city attire – nice shirts, slacks, jewelry and make-up for me. For some reason it seems necessary to impress them. We rise at 6am, shower, a quick breakfast and we’re on the road by 7am, aiming for the Subaru dealer a couple of suburbs away. But traffic is heavy and the going is slow. We’d been warned by signs on the motorways to expect traffic delays on Tuesday morning as there was a major city event taking place. We’d seen signs of it at the Opera House the day before– bandstands built and temporary fencing to barricade the onlookers. Helicopters hovered overhead sending an ominous drone across the city. We had no idea what it was all about.

At 7.45am, as planned, we get in the service centre transport vehicle with two other customers getting their cars serviced. A young man drives us to the nearest train station, full of enthusiasm about the day’s event: Oprah’s in town. His sister won two free tickets and how lucky is that? He’d found out recently that hawkers were getting $20,000 per ticket -- $40,000 his sister could get if she’d only sell them. But no way; who’d pass up the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Oprah? I mean, really, the President was here a couple of years ago and no way was the security as tight as it is now. But he wasn’t going to join the thousands queued up around the Opera House for a potential glimpse of the celebrity. Better to just watch it on TV. “Better to just not watch it,” I say with a smirk, but then regret it. Who am I to destroy the celebrity fantasies of the young with my middle-aged cynicism?

The train ride goes well, despite the full trains and the hurrying masses who aren’t impressed by the bewildered tourists stopping the flow to negotiate buying a ticket at the vending machine. But we manage it. Rumbling over the Sydney Harbour Bridge is nearly as breathtaking as our free ride on the motorway yesterday.

We arrive in the CBD in plenty of time. We rest on a bench mesmerized by the frenetic flow of humanity in the shrouded dimness of tall buildings, everyone intent on going somewhere. Martin Place is the heart of the CBD, but we don’t know which of the impressive ornate buildings houses the American Consulate. While Johan nurses his back pain, I go off to investigate its location. By the time I return, we have ten minutes to get to the 10^th floor of the MLC building. “How did you know it was there?” Johan asks, obviously impressed by my navigation abilities, even without Google Maps. “I just looked for the tallest building around and figured that’s where the Americans would put their consulate,” I quip. Well? I was right.

Getting into an American Consulate is only slightly more harrowing than getting through security at airports. Drivers licenses are confiscated as are all hand bags, electronics and mobile phones. They let us take our water bottles, but only after we’ve taken a drink to prove the contents aren’t lethal. We’re then escorted to an elevator where we’re told to ascend to the 59^th floor - no escort; could be too dangerous.

We both expected a somewhat formal interview situation with a stiff-necked bureaucrat around a table in a private room where we’d be asked all sorts of questions about our private lives. But the employees of the Sydney American Consulate stay well-barricaded behind bullet-proof glass plates. Though our interview was scheduled for 9am, a sign asks us to take a number when we arrive and we then wait for 45 minutes before it’s called. While we wait, other immigrant applicants are called to the windows where they stand for an interview that can be heard by anyone seated in the waiting area. I’m starting to feel very uncomfortable about this – as soon as our number is called, we’ll be required to stand up immediately, move to the window and stand for an interview that could take 10 or 15 minutes. In my experience with Johan’s sciatica problem, this is a recipe for disaster.

But Johan’s drugged up with extra doses of pain medication and though the pain has been threatening all morning, is hasn’t come in hard enough to slow our progress. When he’s called to the window, he pulls it off beautifully. I’m usually pretty attuned to his pain, but I didn’t even know it had come in during the interview until he told me after it was over.

The whole process seems like an exercise in bureaucratic compliance. There are no personal questions, as we’d heard with the other applicants, and they even accept the photocopies of the papers we’d submitted for my 2009 U.S. tax returns – even though they hadn’t yet been verified by the IRS. The only thing pending is receipt of the Australian Federal Police check, which we will receive in the mail in the next week or two.

It all seems too easy! We are giddy with relief when we descend from the 59^th floor to ground level and celebrate with a coffee and croissant at the nearest cafe. Our goal to reach America by next April seemed certain.

My goal for the day is to walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which I’d only found out was possible when I’d heard some friends had hiked across it during a recent visit to Sydney. We kiss good-bye at the end of Martin Place and while I go off to find the Bridge, Johan goes to Hyde Park to people watch.

It's the lunch hour on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Amongst a few intrepid tourists are a stream of joggers, some with armbands measuring their pulse, and well-clad business men, pens in pockets, runners on their feet, and young thin office clerks, tight fitting dresses with plenty of cleavage, clunking along in oversized runners. Everyone seems on a mission to get somewhere, or to get healthy. Everywhere we've gone in Sydney, people are running.

I stand at the north end of the bridge looking down. There is a park directly below, a circle of green grass edged by foliage that juts out into the harbour. A man with long disheveled hair and black clothing is walking in the middle of the park, which is otherwise empty. He walks five paces, turns abruptly to his left, walks a few paces more, stops, turns a full 90 degrees and walks another ten. His walk is erratic but consistently focused on a section of about ten square metres in the middle of the park. It’s not intentional. He’s not practicing some latest eastern path to well-being. He’s just nuts – or so he seems in a city full of purpose. 

The bush rangers do Sydney

Couldn't get much closer to the Opera House -- it was Oprah's big day...

Getting relaxed in Kings Cross

Negotiating the Sydney CBD

Johan after the interview -- the American Consulate building can just barely be seen
 behind the clock tower and the long building behind it

Provocative statues in Hyde Park

Day 29: Camping in Sydney

December 13, 2010

There are good things about caravan parks. You get a break from all the dirt and dust, there’s a toilet and a shower, a laundry room and a shop, and time to swap stories with other travelers, if that’s your thing. So I don’t dislike them. It’s just the noise that gets to me and, after so much time alone in the silent bush, the public nature of it all.

At the Burrendong Dam caravan park three nights ago we had a beautiful quiet spot next to the water with only one other caravanner for company. We’d been warned by the kiosk owners that young people from Wellington often came on the weekends to party, but the ranger was hoping to clean up the situation by encouraging “people like us” to camp down there – we only had to complain once and he’d be down straight away to shush them up.

So we counted ourselves lucky when we crawled into bed just past ten and no revelers had rocked up. But somewhere in the night I was woken by the rumble of a V8 engine descending the hill towards our camping spot. The ute drove around for five minutes before the driver killed the engine and out jumped a group of young men ready for some fun. The presence of two darkened campsites didn’t deter them from their whoops and hollers. It must have gone on for two hours – and I couldn’t sleep. No thought of calling the ranger – who do you call in the middle of the night?

Next night we’re at Katoomba Caravan Park wedged into a crowded area of tent campers. We’re all pretty quiet and by ten o’clock it looks like we’ve all gone to bed. Somewhere in the night, the volume of someone’s radio goes up – I can’t tell where it comes from but don’t think it’s from our area – and the sleepy campers are subjected to two hours of radio rock ‘n roll. I couldn’t sleep.

Then comes Sydney. The Lane Cove River Tourist Park sits astride the Lane Cove National Park, one of several nature conservation areas within the Sydney city limits. The caravan park is at the top of a valley of natural trees and bushlands, with wildlife occasionally venturing up from the bush to investigate dinner opportunities from willing campers. It’s a beautiful setting and the nearby walks are a bonus – especially the long river walk with many Eastern Water Dragons (large goannas) scattering about. The caravan park has been established as an eco-friendly commercial enterprise for the national park, with solar panels, a recycled water scheme and recycling depots at all the rubbish collection spots. It’s impressive and lovely – and only ten minutes from the Sydney CBD.

The problem is that we are surrounded on five sides by noise and busy-ness. We are one of five sites set aside for camper trailers. In between us and our neighbor to the right and our neighbor to the left are two public walkways, used frequently by the visitors staying in the chalets across the street. At the back of our site is a public area with a camp kitchen and a kids’ playground – both are in constant use, especially by the many kids across the street running back and forth to the playground.

And the fifth direction? Look up. Straight overhead is the flight path for incoming planes to the Sydney airport. As we’re only twenty kilometers from the airport, the planes are low and slow, rumbling overhead at the pace of one per minute, sometimes two. Thankfully, they seem to let up around bedtime– or at least we’re not kept awake by the constant drone.

The family to our left has two kids; both are fond of squealing and making rumpus on the nearby playground. But it’s not really their noise that rankles as much as their parents’ continual harping, trying to get them to quiet down and obey. “Come here you little ratbag,” barks the mum. “I’m getting sick and tired of not being listened to,” harps the dad. When at last they retire to their tent, the barking and harping and whining and squealing leaks through our thin canvas tents for another half an hour before some kind of truce prevails and peace finally descends.

Johan and I crawl into bed with the laptop and Disc 3 of Lost–Season 2. We plug in the earphones from my iPod and each stick one of the ear pieces in one of our ears. Aware now of how easily noise travels, we don’t want to disturb the neighbors while we indulge in a bit of escapism.

 Exotic residents of the Lane Cove National Park

Lane Cove River Tourist Park

Day 27-28: Blue Mountains

December 11-12, 2010

The Blue Mountains are a string of mountains running down the east coast of New South Wales. That’s about all I knew about them as a provincial west-coaster. What I didn’t know is that they run so close to the Sydney metropolitan area, offering Sydney-siders a nature playground virtually on their back-doorstep. I also didn’t know they’d been classed as a World Heritage site. They must be something special.

They are. It’s not only the fact that there’s a hint of blue sheen to them – apparently produced by a chemical emitted from the particular species of eucalyptus trees endemic to these mountains (I couldn’t quite see it). There’s something magic about these ranges. Unlike the pleasantly ordinary hills that provide a backdrop to Perth, the Blue Mountains offer spectacular scenery that rivals anything we’ve seen in the outback.

Our first stop is Perry’s Lookout, just outside of Blackheath on the west side of the mountains. The Visitor’s Centre at Lithgow said there was a bush camp there, one of only a few in the national park. We take a windy gravel road out to its end, where a line of half a dozen cars sit in a carpark. The SUV in front of us parks in the last spot and out pours an Asian family, two young girls, a mum and a dad and lastly the matriarch. Grandma doesn’t look to happy about being in the bush and she grimaces along a fair distance behind the rest, calling out in a loud acerbic voice in a language we can’t understand.

The camping area is pleasant but designed for backpackers. A row of bollards prevents us from getting the car and caravan into a site, and a large sign clearly states no camping allowed outside the six designated sites.

We read through the interpretative panel and decide the Grand Canyon walk is the one to aim for – described as the “most spectacular walk in the Blue Mountains”. Who could pass that up? The walk starts at Evans Lookout, a few kilometers down the road, looking out over a wide span of rolling hills, lovely to look at but nothing too distinctive. The trail heads straight down, via steps embedded into the dirt or natural rocks, down, down, down into the deep ravine several hundred meters below the lookout. As you descend, the eucalypt forest gives way to a tropical wonderland, full of ferns, moss, rock pools, and falling water everywhere. It is indeed spectacular, as is the steep climb back up to the ridge three kilometers down the track! I was exhausted – but wowed!

We camp at the Katoomba caravan park, in a small grassy plot allotted to non-powered campers. There are a dozen other campers squeezed into this area -- young, hip couples in Wicked rental vans, middle-aged men in "Spaceship" rental utes, and a menagerie of tents -- our camper trailer set-up looks massive compared to the compact units of our neighbours. 

Across the street is a trailhead leading into the park and after dinner we amble over to check out the viewing platform advertised on the entrance sign. The view south offers an expansive outlook across the relatively untouched park and sensational views of the sheer rock faces that are prevalent throughout the park. They tell of the 250 million year history of these weathered giants with their variegated layers of sandstone, shale and black coal. The view down from the platform is equally impressive: a sheer drop into the rainforest canyon 500 meters below – enough to take your breath away.

The next day I walk down into the canyon via the “Giant Stairway”, a steel and mesh contraption bolted into the vertical side of a rockface – gut-wrenching. That and the lovely forest walk below were built at the turn of the century (19^th to 20^th) to provide robust Sydney-siders some vigorous recreational activity. Though there were hundreds of starry-eyed tourists lining the viewing platforms on the ridge above, not many ventured into the canyon below. It provided a nice means of escape from the maddening crowd as well as a fantastic walk through an other-worldly landscape.

Two days of (mostly vertical) walking have made my legs rubbery but put a smile back on my face. All that long driving was worth it to have experienced the mountains so up close and personal. After a picnic in the park, we climb back in the car and head east for the last 100kms stint to Sydney – a new and different kind of playground.

The Giant Staircase - straight down

 Hundred year old trails -- lots of climbing

 The beautiful Blue Mountains

Day 25-26: East to Sydney

December 9-10, 2010

As soon as we leave the Flinders Ranges, our outback holiday seems to go into suspension. We have one thing in mind now: getting to Sydney by the 12^th. We drive two long days, 420kms one day, 500kms the next. We drift through South Australian towns whose names pass briefly through our awareness without lodging in our memories as anything significant – Carrieton, Orrorro, Peterborough, Nackara, Paratoo, Winnininnie, Olary, Mingary – until we arrive in Broken Hill, the first town east of the New South Wales Border.

Broken Hill is home of the mining giant BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary) and the town boasts of many fine buildings that attest to its wealth over the past hundred years. For us it’s a place to stock up – food and fuel – but a supermarket is not forthcoming as we drive through the wide streets. Eventually we stop at an IGA on a side street, but the shop is small, dingy and unappealing. Still, I can’t be bothered driving around looking for a supermarket so I buy enough supplies to get us to Sydney.

The Barrier Highway is mostly a desolate road that juts through the central north of South Australia and New South Wales and used primarily by transport vehicles. We camp a night near a swift flowing river on the edge of Yunta, a small farming community, and another night in a roadside rest area between Wilcannia and Cobar.

The ABC news reports tell of record rains and flooding in many of the areas we are to pass through. We listen intently, following along on the map as the reporter rattles off names of towns that have been inundated and roads that have been closed. Indeed that dry, arid landscape we’ve passed through over the past three weeks has given way to a land teeming with water. A farmer’s wife we talk to in Nyngan says they’ve received twelve inches of rain in the past week. Their bumper crop, which promised three times the normal yield, has been flattened and the wheat buds have started to sprout. It’s only good for stock feed now, she grimaces. Another disappointment to bear after twelve years of drought and a brief promise of reprieve with the wet, wet winter.

As we edge closer to Sydney, the countryside turns lush green, creeks flowing across fields of long green grass, rivers running high and mighty. The small towns remind us of England both for their lush greenness and their quaint architecture – there must be intriguing histories in these places that grew out of the tentacles spread out from Sydney in the early settlement years. But we don’t stop to investigate – our goal is to reach the Blue Mountains by Saturday – a last dalliance with nature before heading into the big city for three days.

The high flowing river near our camp at Yunta -- beautiful terracotta colour

Camp near the river at Yunta

Despite all the news reports that threatened road closures, we only had a few minor inundations to pass through

We camped a night at Burrendong Dam, currently at 106 percent capacity (last year it was at nine percent)

The beautiful views from our 'bedroom'

Day 24: Willie & Aboriginal Mind – Part 2

December 8, 2010

The imprint of Aboriginal culture seems less evident the further south we get. The towns are now well groomed. Colonial style buildings line the main streets and tidy green parks offer islands of oasis from all the red dust. We haven’t seen a black person since Coober Pedy.

Along with the scientific west’s version of events, there’s another story surrounding Wilpena Pound. The Adnyanuthanha people of the Flinders Ranges believe the pound (an old English word meaning ‘enclosure’) was created when two serpents travelling up from the south encircled a group of initiates and ate them all up. They were so full they couldn’t move so they lay down in two entwined parallel lines, which became what is now known as the Wipena Pound. Two men escaped and became embedded in stone, which are two peaks just south of the pound. An artists’ interpretation of this has been carved into a giant rock at the base of the Wangarra Lookout. It is chillingly life-like.

Further south, as we’re leaving the Flinders Range National Park we stop at the Yourambulla Caves. It’s well sign-posted with a fenced car-park at the end of 200 metre dirt road, but it doesn’t look like the site receives many visitors. In the hour we spend exploring the area no one else turns up.

Yet it is one of the most remarkable places we’ve visited thus far – and the most striking representation of Aboriginal presence we have seen yet. A hike up a rocky hillside leads to a large cave, accessed via a steep ladder. Inside, the cave is a mural of old Aboriginal rock art, some chiseled into the rock, others painted with natural pigments. A sign below the ladder explains what the various symbols mean. It is thought to be a story of one of their sacred rituals, but the age of the work is unknown.

 There are two other caves, up more steep rocky paths. As I sit quietly next to the last one, I imagine little wiry black men, clad in only a loin cloth, using their fingers and tools and mouths (to blow paint) to create these cryptic messages. Why did they do it? Same reason artists today have? – they just need to express themselves? I’m fascinated by how old these images are – fifty, a hundred, a thousand years? – and wonder why modern science hasn’t yet established a date.

The view from the caves must not be so different from when Aboriginal people owned and wandered this land. Except for the straight highways heading east and south, the long view down the valley that cuts through the southern hills of the Flinders Ranges is largely untouched by modern civilization. I have a profound sense of how integrated these people were to the land, scrambling around on the rocky hills, discovering caves that offer perfect protected murals to express their culture, who they are.

As I ponder all this, I remember Willie. He was one of my students at the prison. Unlike many of the Noongars in the prison who were of mixed blood, Willie had dark brown skin and a face that held the classic character of his people. He was only 20, a small, lanky fellow with a quiet disposition and a gentle nature. He couldn’t read or write very well and he’d got mixed up in drug-taking, which didn’t help his cognitive abilities much. We played a cat-and-mouse game for a while, as often happened with the low-literate students – me trying to coax him towards a greater self-confidence with language; he, fearing the usual reprimand for his lack of ability, shying away into his conditioned “No I can’t do it, miss” response. He was with us for six months before he got a job in another part of the prison. In that time he completed several assignments, including writing a report, a poem, a short story and creating a poster on Aboriginal art. It was from that project that I learned most of what I know about traditional indigenous art. Before he left he told me this was the first time he’d ever completed an assignment or written anything in his life. He was very proud of what he’d accomplished. So was I.

I really felt for Willy. Partly because he was my own son’s age and had gone off the track to the point where he was hurting himself, and others – not the least his mother. But mostly I felt for his lost potential. Sometimes I would watch him and imagine what kind of young man he would be if he lived in a traditional community, initiated into his manhood in a way that would leave him feeling proud and strong and capable. He would be a dancer, an artist, the quiet introvert of the community who would share his creative insight, like the men who crawled up here to create their art. Instead he was killing himself with marijuana, petrol-sniffing, a bad diet and a rough and lawless lifestyle.

It seemed so tragic – especially as he told me about ‘uncles’ (which can refer to many different older male relatives in Aboriginal communities) who were still practicing some of the old ways – and trying to teach him. He wasn’t much better at staying focused on that than he was with his English. But you could tell he had a real respect for it, probably wanted it more than he knew at his young age. He would tell me things, about the ways of his people and his family. He had a rough understanding of Aboriginal law – enough to know that it was secret and not something he could discuss with a white woman. Some of his ideas veered towards superstition, but I put that down to his age and a lack of mature understanding about his culture and spirituality.

What he needed most was a mentor, an elder to help him get back on track. But I’m not even sure if that would be possible, for him or any other of the black men in prison. I was told that doing time was a black man’s modern form of initiation – and the majority of them ended up there; I met 40 and 50 year old black men who’d spent more time in prison than out, their wife and kids struggling to survive on the outside. They weren’t given long sentences; they just kept coming back. In and out, in and out; it became a way of life.

I didn’t have an answer for these guys, or the bigger predicament of their people, only to care for them as best I could in the short time I had with them as their teacher. Willie’s modest success at English wasn’t going to have a profound impact on his life; the forces working against him were too strong, too soul-destroying.

Most Aboriginal people do way better in art class than they do in English or Maths and I think that says a lot about the Aboriginal mind. We don’t respect that much in our culture – an artist’s view of the world. If you’re good at language and logic, you’re thought well of. Art is a hobby. But art, or the creative, instinctive mind that gives form and meaning to our imaginative conceptions of life, is vital if we are to keep a wholesome perspective of who we are and what life is about. That’s why I think the Aboriginal stories about the land – what we call mythology – are as valid a form of explanation as our western scientific stories. It’s not an either/or, right or wrong situation. Both tell a dimension about this land, its spirit and its history that, together, give us deep insight into our origins.

Many of the Aboriginal men I worked with had been indoctrinated with western values to the point where they were not interested in learning about their culture, its language and history. “That’s finished,” they’d say, “we need to move on to the white man’s ways if we’re going to get anywhere.” Unfortunately, that’s probably true, but I never supported comments like those. The loss of Aboriginal mind is not only tragic for indigenous people; it’s devastating for the dominant wadjala, white man’s culture – the loss of a great gift that could save us from our downward spiral towards environmental and cultural destruction.

It is hard not to get overwhelmed by the profound sense of hopelessness in all this. Yet our ancient stories give us clues about where to look for hope in desperate times. Like the Aboriginal myth of the two serpents wiping out all but two young members of a clan, an old biblical story tells about the defeat of a giant strong man by an unassuming young man with a sling shot. Both stories tell how the small, seemingly insignificant forces in a culture ultimately bring about its salvation, ensuring its continuity. Maybe then it’s people like Willie, with his shy, sensitive nature and his longing for the ancestral Dreaming, who will save us. It’s a long shot – but then so was David’s.

Day 23: Flinders Ranges

December 7, 2010

Shortly after we pitched camp at the Merna Mora station campground I decide it’s time to wash my dirty hair. I’m perched on a camp stool, leaning over between my two knees, my head full of willowy white shampoo when a motorcycle purrs in the distance. I pour cupfuls of water from a bucket over my head and apply the second wash as the sound gets closer and then idles. My eyes are squeezed tight to keep out the stinging soap but I can hear Johan talking to a man, presumably on the motorbike. I have just enough water to get most of the soap out, then I fling back my dripping hair, wipe my eyes with a washcloth and turn around to see what’s going on.

 Hair washing hour

A ruddy-faced man, young by our standards, dressed in a blue worker’s jumpsuit sits on his bike with a black and burnt orange sheepdog straddled on his lap. He points at various spots on the horizon, all which contain menacing grey and black clouds. He stops and stares dumbly at the disheveled woman, rivulets of water trickling from her hair and chin, walking towards him. Eventually I gather my wits enough to smile and say hi. His blank expression turns friendly, even relieved as he smiles a greeting in return.

We’re not camped in the river bed this night, but apparently, when the river runs high, it can swoop over the section we’re in and the station owner is concerned about the advancing storms. He points to a section fifty meters away and tells us we’d be safe over there. He says the river can start running with little warning, but if we hear a rumble coming through the ground, it’s likely the water pushing a wall of debris ahead of it. We have less than five minutes to act, he says, casting a pessimistic eye over our set up. But it’s up to us what we want to do. He’s got to be off rounding up his stray sheep before the storm sets in.

I brace myself for another round of indecision about what to do. But Johan’s not convinced, dismissing the warning as just an overzealous farmer. Indeed the section our camp’s in has rock campfire rings and decent sized shrubs, none of which looks like it’s suffered a flood passing over it very recently. We decide to stay put.

 Clean hair and cocktail hour

Pending storms overhead (no pun intended...)

The rain starts somewhere in the night and keeps up till dawn. A warm wind sets in by the time we emerge from the tent and there’s little evidence of the rainstorm except a few puddles in the riverbed.

We attempt another side track into the west side of the Flinders, but here the rain’s influence is evident. Sloppy red mud and pebbles splashes up on the windscreen and we hit muddy bogs not too far in. Too bad because the track cuts off about 75kms of driving to our destination: Wilpena Pound in the centre of the Flinders National Park.

We head south to the v-intersection in Hawker that leads back north into the park. It’s actually nice to see the ranges from several angles and we tarry at various look-out spots.

The word “resort” always rings alarm bells in me when we travel, but the Wilpena Resort is low-key and surprisingly attractive. Much of it is a rustic campground meandering up through the bush and after finding a pleasant spot overlooking a reedy creek with giant striated river gums as our view, we decide to stay for the night.

It’s still early, time enough for a walk into Wilpena Pound. From the air, the pound looks like a volcanic crater or the site of a meteorite implosion. But the interior of the bowl-shaped landscape is the remnant of a valley between two mountain ridges. Over the past 200 million years the towering 3000 meter high mountains have eroded away to their present 1100 meter height – another startling example of the ancient architecture of this continent. The walk through the only gap into the pound is lush and beautiful with its huge craggy river gums and near-full creek.

Three kms up is the Hill’s homestead. The Hill family had a pastoral lease in the pound in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. It looks a beautiful place to live, but as Johan says later, it’s easy to get romantic about such things. Life was probably hard and often miserable. The Wangarra lookout is another 600 meters up a steep rocky climb. It offers spectacular views of the pound. My appetite is whetted for further walks to the distant peaks, but it’s nearly five and another hour walk back to camp. I turn around.

 Hill's homestead

360 degree view of Wilpena Pound

View of river gums from camp

A soaring flock of white cockatoos looked beautiful from up on the lookout, their reflective white wingspans glittering against the green land. But down below, back at camp, they’re a bunch of loud-mouthed cacklers, squawking a cacophony of disruption until well after sundown.

Another hot night that threatens rain. I’m just falling asleep with a cooling wet cloth draped across me when a whoooosh drives up the canyon. The wind brings popping flashes of lightning – one every second – that lights up the campground like a flickering fluorescent tube. It rains all night, but this time we’re well above creek line and we sleep comfortably.

We have a guest for dinner