Annabelle - amazon woman, and keeper of knowledge and culture

Annabelle - amazon woman, and keeper of knowledge and culture.

That's Annabelle, our tour guide, up on top of the trailer.

 

Not only did Annabelle crack the whip to keep our group of fifteen moving along, but she also drove, cooked, cleaned, informed and entertained us immensely. She also swears a lot, but  conveys a genuine understanding of Aboriginal and European history, culture and geology of all the places she took us too.  She is a talented story teller and if she ever writes her book called "There is a camel in my swag", do yourself and favour, and buy it!

This is a geology lesson.

Telling us about bush tucker. It is amazing how many plants are useful for food or medicine.

 

Storytelling around the fire. Very funny.

 

 

 

Somehow Annabelle managed to herd all 15 of us cat-like tourists for 5 days without losing one of us. She even got us to stand still in a group. We were a multi-cultural bunch - from France, Belgium, England, Canada and Australia. At one point she had us lined up along a very high narrow ridge for a photo and then said "Now, just take 3 steps back." It would require a great deal of patience and a good sense of humour to be a tour guide.

 

 Looking after us tourists was obviously bloody hard work. Catching a few z's while Leah tells us about bush food and living in country.

 

How I 'miss' Annabelle's early morning before sunrise wake up call - "Good morning, campers!"

Day 1 - Uluru

Is that an elephants bum?

Nah - it is Uluru at sunset.

Just a few of the few hundred people watching the sunset. Pete (my brother), Ryan and Nada (both in blue, friends from Canberra)

After a 5 hour drive, we arrived at Uluru where we did an afternoon walk around half of the base of the rock. None of us wanted to climb it which is permitted by not encouraged.

 

Uluru is the biggest rock in the world. It rises 348 metres above the flat desert and 2.5 km below the ground! It is awesomely huge and very rusty. It gets its reddish colour from oxidisation on its surface. It is grey inside under the rust. Also know as Ayers Rock, so named by a European explorer in 1873 after the South Australian governor of the day.

It is a mystical place of great spiritual significance to the Aboriginal people. It is an impressive geological feature and I could feel its spiritual presence as we wandered around the track gazing up at it.

 

 

Way way out back

Central Oz holiday Part One - 5 day camping tour with http://www.wayoutback.com.au/

Great way to see the main sites. A LOT of driving - we began with a 5 hour drive from Alice Springs to Uluru. Each day included 3 or 4 hours of driving. Australia is a BIG country.

 

We loved Kirra! Yes - Kirra is our tour truck's name.

Camping in glamping tents and sleeping under the stars in swags.

The desert night sky is truly beautiful with a spectacular number of visible stars due to no light pollution.

 

 Telling stories around the camp fire.

 "Wolf Creek " was brought up the first time our guide, Annabelle, drove us off road, deeper and deeper in to the mulga...were we to be doomed to a  quick but gruesome death or would we suffer a long slow death stranded and lost in the desert?

 

 No - just collecting firewood - essential as all our food was cooked on an open camp fire.

Annabelle's cooking was very good, lots of food all cooked in big dutch ovens on the open fire. She made the best damper I think I've ever tasted.

Whatever floats your boat

My little brother turned 50 earlier this year and decided he'd like an Aussie outback holiday to celebrate.  So, along with his partner, and two friends, we flew to Alice Springs on August 16, which just happened to be the day of the ridiculously nutty Henley-on-Todd Regatta. A regatta is a day of boat racing which usually requires something called "water". This is us crossing the Todd River. Not a drop of wet stuff anywhere.

Alice Spring's water is generally located well below ground surface which makes it a little difficult to float a boat. The Todd River only flows for a few days each year. If it did flow in August, the regatta would be cancelled!

The regatta involves racing boats with the bottoms cut out, carried by people running. There is also good commentary, lots of pirates, vikings and sailors walking around in the crowd, and a not small amount of alcohol involved. The final event is a flour bomb and water cannon battle between three large boats built around trucks manned by pirates, vikings and the navy. The winners are decided by the loudness of the audience cheering and applause.  Run by the Rotary Club since 1962, is their major fund raiser and a great community event.

 

A Nine Wombat Day

It had been a while since my last wanderings in my favourite part of the world, ie. my own backyard of Cradle Mountain. Well, only about six weeks but it is a place I find I need to retreat to regularly to refresh. So my friend Sheryl and I resisted the temptation to sleep in on Sunday and headed for a day of wandering, and what a day it was!

It was a little cold! There had been a heavy frost over night. Even late in to the afternoon little patches of ice and frost persisted in some places.

 Sun shining on reeds and ice crystals patterning the surface of a mountain tarn.

 

There was not a cloud in the sky all day until the sun began to drop near to the horizon. We bathed in the sunshine (not literally, obviously) and breathed in lung-fulls of clean crisp air as we walked about 12 kms around Lakes Crater, Lilla and Dove, and up to Marion's Lookout and back to Ronnies Creek. I do not know how people can not believe in God on a day like this in a place like this. 

Near Ronnies Creek, where our wanderings for the day began and ended we saw a total of nine wombats, quite a good score. This pretty blonde was quite happily munching away just a metre from the board walk.

The day ended perfectly back at the visitor centre café with coffee and sweet potato wedges (yam fries, if you are Canadian) - OH WOW!!!! They were SO GOOD! A prefect ending to a truly magical Tasmanian winter day. A 9 wombat kind of day!

Art and sand

A weekend of wandering around just a small part of the east coast of Tasmania.

Yes! This is Tasmania! In winter! OK - so it looks warm and sunny, but, I admit, it was also quite cold!

 

My only memory of visiting St Helens in the past, is of my Grandma buying me an ice cream in a cone when I was little. It is quite a nice seaside town of bays, beaches and fishing boats.  (Above: St Helens is to the right behind the sand dunes and the bay.)

 

I had never been to the Bay of Fires, recognised as one of the world's best beaches. The sand is incredibly soft and white. I have never felt anything like it anywhere else.

Thanks to my friend for the introduction to St Helens and its surrounding beaches. It was a short visit to one of the world's most beautiful areas.

A few photos....

St Helens

What you lookin' at?

Beautiful sunset at St Helens.

Over the Queens Birthday long weekend St Helens hosts the Bay of Fires Arts Festival, which includes the Bay of Fires Art Prize, a youth art prize, night time projections, films, and an arts and craft market. The town was buzzing with activity.

 

What are they looking at?

Projected art at the Bay of Fires Art Festival - outdoors in the night time - yes, it was cold!

We also viewed the art prize exhibition, youth art exhibition and crafts at the market. Beautiful. Inspiring.

Bay of Fires

The only bikini babe in sight at Tasmania's iconic Bay of Fires and Binalong Bay.

A photo of my friend taking a photo of my friend taking a photo of...

A rainbow

And rocks and trees

More rocks

 

Beauty as far as the eye can see

 

 

South of St Helens 

Windswept beaches

 Shells and kelp

 Sand and grasses

Pounding surf with surfers

 



The Turning has begun

"Nothofagus gunnii. Decidious beech. Small yellow leaves with deep veins dividing the leaf into fourteen distinct segments. The only Australian native deciduous plant, it looks vibrant and spectacular across the alpine slopes of Cradle Mountain and Crater Lake in the autumn. The small yellow leaf contrasting against the white crystalline snow on to which it had fallen was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. So she thought as she lay there on the damp ground, with autumn flakes floating down around her. "

This is the opening paragraph of my short story "Nothofagus Gunnii Snow Fall" which is about a woman who has fallen and injured herself while bush walking. 

Last Sunday I spent the day wandering around Lake Hanson and the Twisted Lakes at Cradle Mountain. The fagus is just beginning to turn. In another two weeks, the slopes of the mountain will be covered in patches of yellow and orange. It is truly spectacular. Many people make it an annual pilgrimage to travel to either Cradle Mountain or Mt Field National Park to see the "turning of the fagus." I am blessed to live close enough to visit quite frequently whenever my itchy feet insist.

 

Cradle Mountain viewed from the east and reflected in one of the Twisted Lakes.