fact: Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) was even more stunning than Uluru. But that begs the question: is Damo even more stunning than Kata Tjuta? We hiked between the weirdly shaped bulges as Damo posed and preened.
fact: Uluru (Ayer's Rock) is indeed a great big rock. I know that may seem pretty self evident given its previous name but it wasn't until we got there that the immensity of this giant pebble hit home. It's not a big hill or a small mountain--it's one big red rock. Like an iceberg, a good chunk of it is underground. 345 metres are above ground and that's what we climbed.
fact: it is strongly recommended that you don't climb Uluru. Climbing was part of an initiation ceremony that marked the passage of boys into manhood so there's a cultural reason why they ask you not to climb. Secondly, it's just dangerous. At times, you're on a razor edge ridge, with just a metre of sloping space before the edge steeply drops off. There is a safety chain, but despite that, I got a bit freaked. I'm not scared of heights but I just don't like precarious situations and this was one of them. Damo, ironically, wasn't scared at all and he has a height phobia. But the Rock was there and, like countless other tourists before us, we couldn't resist its challenge.
We now ask that you travel back in time with us, not long ago, on a planet not very distant at all, in fact closer than you can imagine, Nico and Damo hit the Great Barrier Reef. Well, not hit it, but took a three hour boat tour (egads, first warning) out through inclemant seas to the Great Barrier Reef.
several passengers were delicately grasping barf bags in the rear of the 
vessel (a reenactment of what this looks like is to the right.) Fortunately for us, this old crappy boat was not our final destination. Our final destination was The Reef Encounter, a live aboard pontoon boat for an overnight stay on the reef....it even had a hot tub to warm up after snorkelling or scuba diving.
But, now you know this story,
Look up, way up, on the ceiling of this rock overhang, to see the cute little Mimi spirit. As it was generally accepted that no human hands could reach over and below the overhang from the clifftop, nor could they reach that high from the ground to paint this little critter, it is said to be the work of the Mimi spirits--a little "hello there!" to the the humans.
Day Four of our camping tour: After an early morning primer at the Warradjan Aboriginal Cultural Centre on the cultures of the different groups who lived (and still live) in the Kakadu area, we hiked out to Nourlangie Rock to see the rock art, such as Ms. Nipply pictured here (a bad spirit).
possibly 65 000 years old. Down south where we live, the recent bush fires in the Grampians National Park uncovered sites that no one knew about. There are also other sites that have restricted access due to the sacredness of the teachings and images.
eat and which parts to cut and use. Also probably a bit of magic involved in these paintings--good luck for hunting or reverence for the creature who provides subsistence. Look closely behind the fish to see the kangaroo, an older style painting over which the XRay fish and turtle were painted.
ntings of megafauna that have been extinct for 20,000 years must be at least 20,000 years old. Those showing a boomerang used in hunting would coincide with the time that the area was open dry plains instead of heavily forrested (try using a boomerang in a heavily forrested area - it doesn't work.) Those of boats, called 'Contact Art', less than 300 years old.
As Marco, a fellow campmate said, it was like God just realized, oh, oops, he had a whole bunch of beautiful waterfalls left over during creation so he just put them all in the Top End. Scott took us hiking up and down the rocky ridges of Kakadu on this hot day, each time to a waterhole even more lovely than the one before it. The highlight of each hike was, of course, a plunge into the cool water.
