Our last few points of interest included Uluru rock and Coober Pedy (The mining town where Mad Max was filmed). Uluru is a giant granite Monolith ( largest rock in the world) 2 miles long and 1000 ft high, of the same geological making as Devils Marbles. A giant redish granite rock dome breaking the limitless monotoney of desert scub. Noted at the most powrefull of all Aboriginal sites, Uluru is located dead center of Oz. It's the Notredame Cathedral of aboriginal culture. Though tourists can walk the saced trail to it's summit, a path used for 10's of thousands of years, on the mariquis describing the significance of the site wast written a request not to climb it out of respect. As much as I wanted to, had been running 10K every morning acclimating to the desert for this very purpose, in the end I chose not to and found a secluded grotto in the big rock to have a few minits of solitude and wonder. It's was a powerfull place, when one first see's it breaking the flat horizi
on and limitless sky, one cannot help but be awed, nor fail to imagine it's significance to a people who lived the last 30,000 years stoneage & nomadic, untill the last 100 years. I'm affraid to admit the Aboriginals have gotten a bad rap, much like our native americans, worse so in some ways, clinging to custome, ancient unwritten languages and heritage, while being dilluted with the lure of western white mans vices like capitalism, tobacco and worse, alchohol. It's the same all over the world, another prople plucked form the dawning age of man, then fenced in to thier own back yards at an arms lenght of 'civilization', disdained in thier own land for lack of ambition, falling further and further behind Modern Mans advancement, demoralization, eco-insensitivity & hypocracy.
Enought of that shit! back to my last emails mention of smarter than average wildlife. We camped in a gorge with a permanent spring fed water hole. Over the last weeks I had noticed an intelligence & tenacity to the bugs, reptiles, birds that make the northern hemishpere, islands of both hemispeheres, South America, New Zealand seem a bit 'Laisser Faire' (spell check PLEASE!)
Aparently an evolutionary phenomanon, millions of years evolving in the extreme desolation of 3/4 of the continent ( it's central portion), the chain of life shows uncanny inteligence & unfaling tenacity Example: In the small coastal rain-forests, a couple weeks back, I watched a type of ant, en group of perhaps 20, tote a large cecada weighing maybe 1/4 ounce along the wires of a chain link fence, zigzagging at right angles on a makeshift ariel highway. I knocked it off to see if they would take up the effort at ground level. I realized the cumbersome task of carrying it across the grass & watched amazed as they made their way back and up the fence to resume the hauling of their semi-truck size task. I again hindered their progress by pulling the cecada from their grasp, they held on determined as I very slowy pulled away untill I had an ant bridge 4 long each holding head to toe between the fence and the dead bug, others scrambling arcoss the ant bridge to bite me. Feeling
a bit guilty for my childish natural science harrassments, I gave them back their diversion time by placing the whole entouage about 100 feet down the fence line. Next industriouse version of nature was at the water hole where I sat photographing some Rock Wallabies and felt a slight presence landing on my bare foot. An aparently affectionate little lizard looking very anorexic, was darting his head from side to side, I moved my foot a little , he hopped off for a momnet and then back on to his perch waving one arm up & down as id his foot was hot. I was chuckling as one of the incessant million flies approached him, drawn to hs arm movement and 'snap' was gone. Over the next few min, he snapped up half a dozen more while jumping from one fly attracting foot to the next. Alf walked up, aparently stinkier of foot, many more buzzing about his anckles, and my fickle friend took up position upon him. We were all laughing for the next while as the lil dude jumped & waved from foo
t to foot noticably growing in girth as he indulged in perhaps 30 flies. Do the" Don't Feed the Wild Life" signs covered this? aparently this lizard works the tourists for all they were worth.
We also spent the night in Coober Pedy, an opal mining town, where the locals are absolutley nuts, total Mad Maxers. They have issues with athority, as we all do, but since they have such good acces to explosives/gelinite for their mining efforts, they take their anti-establishment to the extreme. No tourist have ever been hurt, or locals for that matter, but every time the cops take things too seriuse they blow up the polices station ( 2X now) or blow up a police car (2 X now also), or each others equipment when one burrows into/under anothers claim. Half the population lives underground in thir own mine, which is no wonder, it' so fucking hot out, reaching up to 126 degrees F, & below zero at nights in the winter. With out aircon, the subterranian homes stay a perfect 75 year around and every time they make an add on, they are usually rewarded with Opals. Mad Max was filmed in Coobver Pedy and the locals certainly seem to live up to it theme. I got a hand full of opals a
nd need a favor mom, will you call joe & trista and get their mailing address, I promised to get some travel trinkets for trista and would like to mail some to her, please don't tell her why you want the add.
I'm back in Sydney now, soon to be heading back to the boat. We finally finished with the desert & drove the coast for 5 days. Mountains, rainforests, cool beaches as it is now autum and antartic fronts have been bringing down the temps.. Actually when we left the desert, within 2 hours a front came through and we went form 110F days/90F noights to 60/40F it was like camping on another continent. Spent the last 4 days at Bondi Beach a beautiful cliffside suburb, exchanging dust for sand in all orifices. I'm now ready to get back aboard the Gypsy Soul, ready for some more ocean time after last years 14 month seagoing trip. It will be an easy sail up the coast line, no big crossings for some months, just island and bay hopping up the Gold Coast and through the Torres Strait & into the South China seas. I just renewed my visa for 6 months, but only need 4 I think, before sailing to Bali.
So my excuse for not writing is lack of access, but alls well, looking forward to getting back aboard & bveing able to write when I like & be more in touch, love you, ben.
PS: just got a email from Robert, give Heather & ken my congrats to the new Edelstein addition.
