Endings

When you fly, do you love to strike up conversations with the person next to you? Do you like ignoring everything they say, and push on with trying to force your misguided ideas as to what Mathematics is onto them? Then you were sat next to me!

Yes, my journey to the Northern Territories was a most despairing one. Thankfully, my chirpy friend only joined me for a third of the journey as I changed at Melbourne and Alice Springs before finally sweeping over the majestic Uluru towards Ayers Rock Airport to visit my final state. Along with the Sydney Harbour Bridge & Opera House, and the kangaroo, few sights evoke thoughts of Australia quite as much as this huge sandstone outcrop in the middle of the red outback desert.

When Ayers Rock first began to gain popularity as a tourist destination in the middle of the century, enterprise almost ruined it’s charm instantly. Campsites, motels, caravans and all manner of typical tourist sights began to appear around the base of the rock until the Australian government finally decided it had had enough. Nothing was allowed in a wide radius of the rock, and nothing but the planned Ayers Rock Resort would be allowed to be built again. The resort, a synthesised village aimed to cater for all visitors, is solely owned and ran by a single company. Such a bizarre utopia is almost impossible to imagine; residents in the $37 hostel can catch the free local bus (which really isn’t needed since you can walk from one side of town to the other in 10 minutes) round to the $500 per night luxury hotel to use their facilities, admire their art gallery or eat in their restaurants. The town shop services everyone and everything, the souvenir shops all sell exactly the same things, and there was no bank to help me after nab inexplicably removed all of the money from my account for a day.

And then the view is spectacular.

If you can cope with the searing heat, the millions of flies that constantly try to land on your face, and the jaw-dropping price of every restaurant in a hundred-mile radius, then it really is an incredible place. I spent my first day mainly gawping at Uluru and trying to take the perfect photograph from the various lookout points.

The next day involved a bit more gawping before a touch of education. The Resort information centre was a treat of knowledge detailing everything from the local flora and fauna I could expect to find (luckily, not many poisonous creepie-crawlies), to the bushfire management scheme. From how the first journeys to Ayers Rock were made, to how it was handed back to the Aboriginal community as Uluru. The tales in there alone would fill a whole post on here, but they’re not the focus right now!

No, the focus must be on day 3, where I finally made the bus journey to Uluru to do a ‘lap of honour’ of sorts. I had no intention of climbing it as, while allowed, the Aboriginal community ask you not to as it offends their beliefs. In any case, the wind had seen the path closed off. It truly is fascinating to walk around the structure, one end of a crumpled sheet of sandstone stretching tens of kilometres beneath the surface, since subjected to everything from rains, wind and local drawings as it grows old.

Most stories have lost their meaning as their artist moved on, but several symbols are known to represent a specific place or object. Information around the Rock also tells the Aboriginal stories of how Uluru came to be here, of the mythical beasts that have fought over it to teach what is right and wrong; what is noble and what should be avoided.

The occasional waterholes are fascinating areas of peace and cool, with the eternal lure that creatures may not be far away. Unfortunately, recent rains mean that most creatures spread as far apart as possible while temporary waterholes are abundant, so I had no luck in spotting anything more than a million more flies.

With it being a lengthy walk round, it also afforded me a lot of time to reflect on my journey around Australia. Northern Territories were my final area of Australia to visit, Uluru the final destination I had to visit, and it was an awesome way to conclude my travels. My journey in Australia isn’t quite complete yet, but it has definitely dropped down a gear now. The running joke in NT is that the state initials actually stand for Not Today, Not Tomorrow, Not Tuesday, Not Thursday – a reference to the laidback and relaxed lifestyle in such a place. I hope I can take a bit of that away with me.

And finally, I leave you again with something unexpected. I heard this track for the first time on the radio while in the NT, and it’s lyrics were just so emotive of the area that I wished to share it with you.

The track is Heart Remains, by an Australian going under the name of Joelistics.