Feral camels and kangaroos - 4W Driving in the remote outback

Location:
Australia

The dirt tracks and backroads around Uluru/Kings Canyon

By Steven Cassidy

One of the most memorable things about my trip to Australia was being woken up by dingoes.. They howled with the dawn light! After a freezing cold night in the outback the howling sounded terrible. It was the way a wolf howls. You can imagine them out there in the bush, stretching with the new day and announcing their presence to the world.Our guide said they are harmless and just hang around the campsite. But it is a most unnerving sound when you are struggling to wake up after a hard night under the stars. I wouldn't have missed my tour out of Alice Springs to Uluru, Kings Canyon and The Olgas for the world. I truly got a sense of the vast scale and harshness of the Northern Territory. The Red Centre of the continent is what can only be described as historically rich and scenically spectacular and harbours the kind of landscapes that you came to especially to Australia to see. It also is one of the harshest most forbidding places on the planet. Summer temperatures regularly reach 45 degrees celcius and don't drop down to 30 at night. This is a place where water is scarce, the plant and animal life is hardy and the people as tough and unbending as the landscape around them. There is a sense of real wilderness out here, real hardship. Water is precious and as valuable as the opals which come from the red ground. Where mistakes in this wilderness can lead to death and the sight of another human being is as rare and as welcome as you can get. The majority of tourists either use Alice as a base or join one of the 2-5 day tours which stretch out into the outback taking in Kata Tjuca and Kings Canyon and what better way of getting close to the Australian outback then taking a camping trip. They are usually taken by knowledgeable guides who know all the history, botany and legends of the abroiginal lands surrounding sacred Uluru and the experience of sleeping in the desert under the stars is one which will stay with you for a long time. My tour was no frills and we were expected to pitch in from doing the washing up to rustling spare wood from the roadside for the campfire each night. Our guide, Carolyn, was excellent - a fountain of knowledge about the local area. She would brook no nonsense - each one of us had a duty to perform whether it was get the fire started, unpack the "swag bags" or put the "billycan" on the fire. Our "swag bags" were arranged around the fire and we fitted sleeping bags inside these. Most useful as the temperature plummeted to 0 degrees celcius at night. The first stop on the first day was the Erldunda roadhouse smack in the middle of aboriginal territory. It is almost 200 miles south of Alice where the Stuart Highway turns west into the Lassetter Highway. It was a corrugated iron roofed building surrounded by sand. But as you move around you realise that this seems to be a transit point for those arriving/leaving for the aboriginal lands. Behind the cafeteria was a gallery showcasing aboriginal art. About twenty pictures lined one wall showing the artist and what tribe they belonged too. I was stunned on the sheer amount of aboriginal tribes - almost like a continent made of many nations Blink and you will drive past Curtain Springs. It stands on a slight buff cliff overlooking the immensity of the Outback east of Yulara. The flat terrain is broken by Mount Connor which is like a miniature Uluru in its own national park and is often mistaken by overeager tourists for the monolith itself. Directly north from Curtain Springs is the remote Luritja Highway. This is simply a dirt track that bumps and rolls through the spinifex to the Ernest Giles road near Kings Canyon and can only be traversed by four wheel drive vehicles. You can get up really close to the big game of the Australian Outback - the red kangaroos, the emus and herds of feral camels. I'll not deny the going is tough. First consideration is the heat - it was the Austalian early spring but the temperature inside the four wheel drive reached 35 degrees. You were constantly drinking water. Emus were the first animal we saw but they were far in the distance. The muscular shape of a red kangaroo was spotted bounding away through the bush but after an hour we turned a corner and there were a family of dromedary camels blocking the track. They moved off but a few minutes later we encountered an even bigger herd of twenty individuals including vrey cute white furred baby. I was stunned by the size of the dominant male, he must have been 12ft high at the shoulder and spent his time herding the females together. We followed them for twenty minutes until they reached a drinking hole where we went off track to get as close as possible. I couldn't believe the size they had grown to in the Outback. They were introduced by Afghan stevedores in the 19th century as they found they were ideally suited to the harsh climate. We stopped for a rest on a dry riverbed. This river was bone dry, wide and covered in yellow sand. We enjoyed the solitude and sense of space - until the flies found us. We must have been the only moisture for miles around and they buzzed around my eyes and mouth. We also noticed the remains of a fire and used tinnies strewn around. Aborigines had obviously used the riverbed as a camp recently - our driver said for a people who go on so much about respecting the land, they don't always do it themselves...

Further Information

Other helpful information: The first thing is water. It was drummed into us that we must drink 2 litres of water an hour. Dehydration is a real problem especially in the 35 degree baking heat. There was an incident the week before with a Japanese tourist not taking any water up with her when climbing Ayers Rock. She had to be brought down by helicopter. We were also told to wear strong sunblock and a hat. The sun is a real menace and it goes some way to keeping the flies off. Also strong boots - there are snakes out there amongst the spinifex

Must see/do at this place: The rock and canyon are spectacular but I enjoyed the wildlife spotting the most and the feeling of remoteness. The way our driver used to get grumpy when there was more then one piece of traffic on the roads and the trucks that would wave at you when you drove past.

You should avoid here: Anytime around Christmas. Its forty five degrees each day. Its hot at any time of year and they ban you from hiking in the Olgas when it hits 36 degrees. Also, let people know where you are going. The climate is unforgiving and getting lost can be fatal.