ronnyandringo

The Red Centre and 4 Tasmanians

In short: A 900km smash through the Tanami Desert; A meander in the West Macdonnell ranges, Kings Canyon, Curtain Springs, Uluru, Kata Tjuta, a week at Serpentine Gorge; An ancient adventure to Palm Valley, Boggy hole track, Finke River and Hugh river stock route to Chambers Pillar; A relax in the East Macdonnell ranges, Trephine gorge, Ruby gap and Gemtree.

Our fellow Tasmanian’s Bryce and Jacquie (B & J) also travelled Australia in the latter half of 2012. They have their own blog called Another Beautiful Stretch, which also tells the tale of 4 Tasmanian’s in the Red Centre in more detail than I am about to pen. (www.anotherbeautifulstretch.com)

To reach B & J from the Bungle Bungles, we headed straight for Alice Springs via a short cut; the Tanami desert. First stop, Wolf Creek crater. This was an awesome sight and a spin out to think about its creation; the result of a meteorite crashing into the earth. There are many craters in the Red Centre and it seems to be a hot spot, a bullseye on the earth. The vegetation inside Wolf creek crater changes along a moisture gradient, radiating out in a perfect circle from the centre, the lowest point. The centre is green and swampy and is fringed by woodland that grades into dry grasses, giving the appearance of a green eye.

Back on the track we camped on a dry creek bed tucked back off the road. We watched the most beautiful sunset that reminded me of a tequila sunrise; a raspberry pink and orange juice infusion, casting gold and purple shadows across the sparsely vegetated plains. The next day we drove the rest of the Tanami track (900 km, our biggest day ever) and arrived in Alice just in time for tea with B & J.

First up on our trip was the West Macdonnell Ranges. We swam in pretty much every water hole of every gorge, including the frigid waters of spectacular Ruby Gorge, where we did a bit of exploring via the gorge pools (this is one of Les Hidden’s favourites, the Bushtucker Man).

Kings Canyon was next and we took the Larapinta drive that links into Mereenie loop road through Aboriginal land and past another crater, Tnorala or Goose Bluff. At Kings Canyon we did the rim walk up the steep face of the gorge and along the rock plateaux to a point above the canyon chasm. The walls were steep and landslides were evident where the sandstone cliffs were a bright white and yellow, not yet oxidised to the deep red.

The Northern Territory camp grounds often had great fireplaces where billy blackening ceremonies and some great meals were had. Our new camp oven got a very good work out on this trip and was baptised as Sid, our camp oven kid – my parental duties included feeding Sid and Ringo’s bathing him. Jaks cooked up a delicious rogan josh curry with cous cous that we are yet to send into Ruthy on 4WD Action. Dot’s stuffed pumpkin was yet again a hit, melting blissfully in Syd. We also had a mustard infused chicken curry, risotto, pancakes cooked on Sid’s lid by Ringo and damper to name a few. A lovely smoky flavour seeps into everything Sid cooks and meat and potatoes are pulverised into a delicious soft, melt in your mouth texture. Damper took some practice and the first couple were charcoal crusted! The trick seems to be lowering and evening out the temperature, by taking a shovel of coals from the fire onto the dirt, placing the camp oven on top, then another half-shovel of coals on top of the oven.

But I digress… next we went to Uluru/Ayers Rock, having camped at Curtin Springs station on route. In the tiny bar of Curtin Springs we met the first station owner who told us tales of setting up the chain on Ayers Rock to allow people to climb it and encourage tourists to the region. A larrikin with funny tales (told the way old men do) he was a charmer. He was near blind and his protective loyal dog near deaf, but together they made it home from the bar to bed each day after a pony or two of beer.

We climbed Ayres rock after some deliberation (Ringo in bare feet) and the view was spectacular. We also did the walk around the base and went on a guided walk. The guide was very knowledgeable and it was well worth going along. She explained that knowledge is something Aboriginal people gain during their lives as they become ready to receive it. Initiation rights and maturity determine when an Aboriginal person will receive more information about the world and their responsibilities. I find this is an interesting concept, very alien to western society where anything and everything can be accessed by anyone at any time on the internet. I think it has merit, entrusting people with new knowledge only when they are responsible enough to handle it and use it properly. We are swamped with information and often lost in the bombardment of useless information and sensational snippets that we receive via email, adverts and printed media. And there is a lack of responsibility about information quality in our society today, misleading and incorrect information is everywhere, manufactured or manipulated to suit the writer’s argument. It is degenerative, degrading and damaging and so very useless. But I digress.. White people are only ever given the children’s level of Aboriginal knowledge, including the national park guide, which is probably why the dreaming stories often sound naïve; they are only the simplest form of explaining the complex relationships these people have with their land.

We visited Kata Tjuta in this region as well, the Olgas. They were more of a conglomerate rock in comparison to the great monolith of Uluru. The walk through the massive Olga boulders was beautiful. We also took a guided plant walk in this area with a very knowledgeable and personable semi-retired ranger. Although I don’t remember much about the plants, he told us how to pronounce Aboriginal language – the first syllable is stressed, i.e. ‘U-lu-ru’ rather than ‘u-LU-ru’ and the letter T at the beginning of words is silent, i.e. Kata Tjuta is pronounced Kar-ta Joo-ta. He also took us past a fruiting quandong tree and we sampled the fruit that Rigno and I have so adored since our days in central South Australia, eating quondong pies and jams at Blinman and Quorn.

So much for a short narrative! Must be the coffee. We drink real coffee brewed in a stove-top pot; I even made an accessory for the trangia stove so we can have coffee without needing to get the gas stove out.

B & J had to return to Tasmania for a week during our travels, so Ringo and me camped up at Serpentine Gorge and lazed about. It was great, we had the place to ourselves and walked around in our under-ware drinking coffee and reading books, napping and eating and generally being very lazy.

When our comrades returned, we journeyed out to Palm valley to see the tall cabbage palms, relicts of a wetter era still surviving in a deep gorge with a permanent spring. Then onto a 4WD track to Boggy Hole, where we camped up on the Finke River. The Finke is the oldest river bed in the world, having stayed true to the same course; and it had water in it! We swam and relaxed and fished but didn’t catch.

Leaving the west, we headed across to Chambers Pillar, another rock, via the Hugh River stock route. The pillar was used as a land mark for surveyors and explorers in the 19^th century who carved their initials into the stone. The sunset was pretty as the colours of the rock changed with the fading light. Jaks and I cooked up a chicken stroganoff with dumplings in Sid that night, another Sid success.

Back to Alice to restock and then off the East Macdonnell ranges; a softer landscape with taller trees and sunken dry river beds lined with grass. We camped at Trephina gorge and Ruby’s Gap. Ruby’s gap was once the site of a ruby mine, although it was a short-lived settlement when it was soon discovered that the rubies were in fact garnets. Nevertheless, it was a great camp site with swimming holes, an impressive gorge and some green grass.

After Ruby’s gap we headed for Gemtree where we shared a final meal and a beer before parting ways, B & J off east to the sunny QLD coast and Ringo and I off north to the Top End.

THE RED CENTRE

Beautiful birds at morning light,

Singing and beating their wings with delight

They buzz in unison from tree to tree,

Green backs flashing at alarming speed

Orange red cliffs, worn over time

Lean in the sand or stand in lines

They glimmer in the heat of the hot midday

And glow in the sunset as light fades away

Dry and ancient, stand the west Macs

Forgotten palm valleys and winding bumping tracks

Where shining river red gums line the bed of Finke

Whose cool delightful waters wash away our stink

Let us not forget the rock, Ayers or Uluru

We climbed upon the top, some without a shoe!

The rounded weathered Olgas and the Canyon of a King

And of course a chilly nudie swim

The east Macs were pretty with a softer shape and line

Where mulga thickets, paper barks and ghost gums shine

And now we sit at Ruby Gap, I rest and write these words

Watch the fire, cook some grub and listen to the birds.

Last one in is a rotten egg!

Serpentine Chalet camp

Spinifex pigeons

Sunset at Serpentine

Black Dingo

Serpentine hills at sunrise

We swam in every gorge

Ruby’s gorge, icey swim!

Parrots in flight

Kings Canyon

We made it! Uluru

The barefoot rock climber

Ayers rock sunset beers

The Olgas and sheoke woodlands

Olgas rain weathering pattern

Quandong tree

Trangia brewed coffee

Dot’s stuffed pumpkin

Ruins of the Owen Springs station

Wildflowers

Palm Valley

Palm Valley sunset

Palm Valley

The resiliance of desert fig trees

Camp on the Finke

Finke river at sunset

The pancake baker

The end of Finke Gorge NP

Ringo at Chamber’s Pillar

Chamber’s Pillar

Bryce, serious sunset photography at Chambers Pillar

Sheoke woodland at sunset

Hillary over rough terrain

Ghost gum, East MacDonnell Ranges with a size gauge

The gang

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Greetings from Cairns

Feb 2

Posted by ronnyandringo

Dear All,

Hello! Sorry it has been so long since we last posted on our blog. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and 2013 is treating you well.

We have semi-settled into Cairns and have been busy finding jobs, a place to live and making some new friends.

We are both working on the Great Barrier Reef but for different companies. This is great as it means we don’t talk about work too much!

Ringo is working as a dive instructor, taking customers on introductory dives. Arm in arm, they swim along underwater for the first time with him, eyes wide and bubbles streaming up around them. Big smiles replace the breathing regulator at the surface and his hard work steering them around underwater has paid off. He also takes people helmet diving, which looks like astronauts walking underwater. This option keeps the customers hair dry! It is very popular.

I work as a reef naturalist, taking people on snorkel tours around the coral reef. I swim over the top of the divers bubbles for a free spa treatment 🙂 I take a life ring that the customers hold on to. I show them the giant clams and I introduce them to Nemo, the brightly coloured parrot fish, the monogamous pairs of butterfly fish and the occasional turtle and reef-shark. I show them the plant-like feather stars and christmas tree tube worm animals that filter plankton from the water passing by. I have also found beautiful cowrie shells, schools of squid and many other types of fish including a group of the impressive hump-head parrot fish, massive green fish that graze the coral with large flat teeth. They swim towards us with their mouth ajar, white teeth plates gleaming, then just when I begin to wonder if they really are just coral grazers they turn away. Many fish and other marine life are curious, which makes my job a lot easier and very enjoyable. I also collect sea cucumbers and sea stars that I put in a shallow touch-tank and host a little show every afternoon with them. They don’t jump through hoops or smile at the crowd, but they do feel very interesting and people love them, including me.

Our house is an old Queenslander, a bit run-down and not in the best of neighbourhoods, but comfortable and available without a lease-period. It is about a half-hour walk to work and town centre. One of Ringo’s work mates was kind enough to take us in and he is an easy-going fellow with tight golden brown curls and deep dark eyes. He smokes like a chimney and is fond of a rum and coke after a hard days work, and falls asleep in his chair nursing it. He also loves sailing and has taken us along to meet the yacht club for sailing on Saturday and Wednesday afternoons. We have great cook-ups and get along well.

We have made friends with a wake-boarding pair called Tim and Greg, and have tested out the local water-ski park. Ringo has made quick work of mastering the jumps but I’m still trying to make it across the simplest slide jump without falling off. We haven’t been for a while but Jason and Kate are coming to visit soon and no doubt there will be wake-boarding involved 🙂

My favourite place in Cairns is Rusty’s market. It is an outdoor market, mostly fruit and veg, but also featuring local coffee, homemade breads and dips, deep-fried delights from all over Asia including squid balls. There is bright jewellery and clothing and a sixty-something Greek man with elvis hair and a friendly face, crooning old love songs with his tape backing. I love to walk around this market taking in the smell of tropical exotic fruits and brewing coffee, meeting the stall holders and watching the bustle. My favourite stall is Happy Eggs, a humble chinese man and his son run it, selling free-range eggs. Their philosophy is ‘happy chooks make happy eggs that make happy people’. I also love the mangos and passionfruit, so cheap and so good.

I have been getting back into cooking on my days off, inspired by the market. Yesterday I made choc-coated frozen bananas, yum! I have wanted to make these since we ate them in Carnarvon. I have also been making fresh fruit smoothies and lately we have been trying to make salads interesting because it is too hot to eat anything else! We had a Costs-inspired Greek salad with lamb the other day and tonight I’m going to make a Jen-inspired chicken-mango salad.

We have had a visit from Aunty Heather lately all the way from Exeter in Devon. We visited a crocodile park, the Atherton tablelands where we sampled the fresh produce. Aunty Heads and Ringo went down to see cousin Phil and his daughter Hayley in Townsville, and then it rained. And rained. And rained! They were cut off from Cairns for days by the swollen rivers and flooded roads. Needless to say they were well catered for by Phil and Sue with delicious food and great wine, and had Hayley’s two gorgeous little twins to play with.

So the wet has begun! It is much hotter here now and more humid, and there are more mosquitos – we are in the thick of a tropical wet summer.

Last night we met up with friends from Exmouth, Dre and Tom, who have just moved here. We went to the Green Ant with Greg for a home-brew and burritos and a good catch up. It is a local for all of us and it makes great mexican food.

Speaking of eating and green ants, I have tried the bush-tucker of green ant bum! Unlike sugar-bush (pepper-berry) it is quite good, despite how it sounds. You hold the golden-legged ant between you thumb and fore-finger and whilst it is still wriggling about you bite off the bright green bum. It explodes in your mouth like a green apple sour warhead, causing your lips to purse and eyes to squint.

Well I’m beginning to ramble so I might leave you with some photos and sign off. Our camera is broken so we haven’t taken many lately but I have a few on my phone.

Cheers, Ronny