Reflections In A Crystal Wind*

14 March 2010

For a brief moment at 06.40 this morning it looked as if there might be a sunrise, a strip of red light on the horizon promised much but delivered nothing. The cloud quickly enveloped what little sunlight there was and we saw no more of it all day. Nevertheless we took yet more photographs of Uluru and set off for our walks – we had already walked 2.5km to view the sunrise that never happened so we were in the mood. We started a guided walk led by one of the park rangers but it turned out to be more of a talk about the Dreamtimes associated with the Mala myths and ceremonies, so we quietly slipped away and set off to the Kantju Gorge and very enjoyable it was too, again only another 2.5km but it took us about an hour because we stopped every couple of minutes to take yet more photographs. Obviously we were still in awe of this place. The gorge has some fine small waterfalls, especially after last night’s rain, and steep red walls with caves at the base, some of which contain rock art.

By now it was just 09.00, the flies were driving us mad (even with our face nets in place and long sleeves and trousers) we had walked 5km and it felt like lunchtime – the cups of coffee and marmalade sandwiches at 05.30 had not been terribly satisfying so we jumped in the car and headed back to the cultural centre in the hope of getting some tea-tree oil preparation the park ranger hold told us about which, allegedly, kept the flies away. They had none in stock but they did have carrot cake and flat whites – and so did we.
We decided to leave the long Uluru base walk until tomorrow hoping that there may be some sun and instead set off for Kata Tjuta, or The Olgas, as they used to be called but once again are now referred to by their Aboriginal name. These are huge domes of red rock which lie about 40km east of Uluru, and like Uluru rise dramatically from the ground and have the same intense red colour but there the similarity ends. Kata Tjuta is made from a sedimentary rock called conglomerate, which is a mix of gravel, pebbles, stones and boulders all fused together in red sandstone and the valleys and gorges reflect fractures that formed about 300million years ago. Chemical weathering by groundwater has widened the fissures and rainwater run-off has gradually formed the canyons and domes we saw today on our walk along the Walpa (meaning windy) Gorge. So even though we were only 40km from Uluru the place had a completely different geomorphology, a completely different flora but exactly the same bloody flies – only even more of them! It was quite a rocky track which required careful walking and demanded a few steep climbs as well as crossing a few streams but it was very enjoyable and we saw a number of different plant species – many of them in flower following all the recent rains. Near the end of the walk was a large water hole which reflected the gorge and had in it the biggest tadpoles we’ve ever seen.

Here the wind was quite strong as it was funnelled through the high walls of the gorge – we welcomed it not only for its cooling properties (even though there was no sun it was still very warm) but also because it seemed to blow the flies away. We had to return to the car by the same route and just as we neared the car park it began to rain quite heavily. We had hoped to do another walk along the ‘Valley Of The Winds’ but as the rain became heavier and as this route is frequently closed by flash floods we gave it a miss and returned to the Ayers Rock resort to write up the blog and catch up with the laundry.

On the drive home there were road signs warning of kangaroos – we didn’t see any but we did see a dingo and three camels! We weren’t hallucinating there are camels here – like so much else they were introduced into the country.

They were used a pack animals but as train and motorised transport took over they were allowed to go free to fend for themselves and have thrived.