God’s Glory!

It was Tacos & Nachos Night at the Juicy Rump last night, the restaurant in our hotel.  What a great name, and the tacos were good too!  It was filled with ”gray nomads”, and I was happy to be among them!

As we leave Alice Springs, we stop by the ANZAC (Australia & New Zealand Army Corps) memorial commemorating men and women who have served in the armed forces, and plaques designating the various conflicts since 1901…Boer War, WWI & II, Korean, Vietnam, Indonesia, 1st Gulf, 1st & 2nd Afghanistan Wars, Peacekeeping.  ANZAC Day is celebrated on April 25.  Aussie soldiers in WWI were called “diggers”, and all veterans have carried that name ever since.  

The ANZAC “biscuit” or cookie was popularized during WWI when mothers, wives, and girlfriends sent them to their loved ones fighting abroad.  Made without eggs, these sweet biscuits made with oats and golden syrup traveled well without spoilage.  They are still a popular biscuit especially around ANZAC Day each year.

A fast food restaurant named “Hungry Jack’s” has a strong resemblance to Burger King.  In the 1980’s, BK recognized the success McDonald’s was having in Australia, and they wanted to get into the market.  However, a local beach hut was named “Burger King”, and the owner refused multiple offers from BK to sell the name.  BK decided to open franchises here anyway, and named them after the CEO of the company, Jack, with all of the regular BK products. 

When the beach shack guy died, his widow found the offers from BK for millions, and she sold them the name, “Burger King”.  The company changed the name of the restaurants throughout Australia to Burger King, and they lost 20-30% of their profits.  Evidently, Aussies like their Hungry Jack’s, and so the name was changed back and has stayed!

The Royal Flying Doctors Service was started by Reverend John Flynn who recognized the benefits the French provided medically by air.  At that time, it might take a horse a week to reach the nearest town in the outback of Australia. Today, these first responders help people in serious need covering over 4 million miles of Australian territory.  Some people maintain their own private airstrips, but the RFDS also lands on roads if necessary.

We walk along the dry riverbed in Simpsons Gap looking for black footed wallabies among the rock cliffs.  They are smaller than the Bennett Wallaby and difficult to see along the pile of rock fall.  We finally see a couple, and one poses for me!

We haven’t seen many wild kangaroos, but they are more active early in the morning and at dusk.  We learn that the kangaroo has a patriarchal society with a dominant male who sniffs the females to see when they are ready to mate.  He will rub his chest on the grass, pee all around the area, and usually holds his position of dominance for two years until he is challenged by another male.  If another male is in the area, he must cough to show his subservience or be prepared to fight.

Mothers can have one joey hopping around, and become pregnant again with sperm she has stored from mating earlier.  The new baby will latch on to a different nipple, and the mother will produce two entirely different milks depending on the age of the joeys.  Scientists also think kangaroos can choose the sex of their offspring since almost exclusively females are born early in the dominant male’s reign and boys are born later.

We stop at an outback station for lunch…essentially a couple of gas pumps with food, drinks, and yeah…a flush toilet!  We have a four hour drive this afternoon to complete, and “lavat-trees” if we are busting for the loo!

One thing there are plenty of are desert flies!  These small black non-biting obnoxious creatures are everywhere, but they especially like your mouth, nose, eyes, and ears.  I have a cut on my hand, and I’ll have 5 or 6 crawling around my bandage.  Evidently, bug spray doesn’t work so we all purchase fly nets for our heads.  This fits over my hat and does not compliment me at all, but thank goodness for this black netting.  Connie, another lady in our group, wears her fly net well, and calls it her mourning attire!

We drove for a couple of hours with scrubby trees and grasses for company.  It’s amazing to drive for hours and not see anything different and no sights nor signs of civilization!  Our guide was excited when the “shortcut”, which had been impassable for several days due to flooding, was open which would save us time reaching our next destination.

This red dirt road might have been a shortcut, but we hit every rock and hole for 1 1/2 hours!   We were riding in an elevated 22 passenger off road vehicle, and money was not spent on luxury nor springs!  We were told not to worry since our guide hadn’t even had to engage the 4-wheel drive YET!  That did become necessary when flood waters had not quite receded as much as expected in a couple of places, but no worries, our guide “was pretty sure” where the bottom of the road was!  It was a ROUGH road, but hey, we were on an adventure, and were very ready for some snacks and drinks by the fire when we arrived.

I was so excited for tonight to sleep under the stars!  For days, rain had been projected, and I’ve been asking God for the weather to clear.  I finally realized I needed to turn it over to Him, and in all things, with thanksgiving, be grateful!  Clouds started disappearing, and blue skies with a light breeze foreshadowed an excellent evening!

We are assigned our cabins for the evening which is our alternative to sleeping in a “swag” which is a bedroll on an elevated platform.  We were warned that this is not “glamping” since the cabins are tiny holding a bed and metal chair with no electricity.  Two communal toilets or “dunnies”….which do flush!…are located down a path with metal signs to hang when they are “Occupied”.  If we want to take a hot shower, bring wood to fire up the boiler!

We relax and sip wine and nibble on snacks around the fire waiting for our French cook to prepare dinner.  An assortment of meats sizzle on the grill…kangaroo and camel steaks, crocodile sausage, and if you are boring, beef steaks, along with Dutch oven fire roasted potatoes, and salad.  The meats were so flavorful, and I loved them all especially the kangaroo and my first taste of camel!

I made up my bedroll before dinner by taking the sheets off my bed and doubling the blanket.  It gets chilly in the desert at night, and I was also prepared with my headlamp, or rather, the boys’ headlamp from scouts long ago.  A little more campfire time, but by 9:00, we were all exhausted and heading either to our cabins or our swags for the night.  That is after a final toilet stop.  I wasn’t sure I could find it again during the night, and the rocky path was only dimly lit by partially working solar lights.  Whoops, the previous day’s rain had prevented the lights from charging!

I settled into my covers for the night not bothering to undress and was cozy under a starry starry sky.  It was absolutely beautiful!  I couldn’t stop crying reveling in God’s glory!  The heavens sparkled, and my tears flowed.  I was thrilled for this special moment and stayed awake for an hour or two praying and talking to God.  I was rewarded with a shooting star and later in the night when I awoke to see the crescent moon another meteor streaked across the sky.  I alternated awake and asleep all night, and when the winds picked up, and I was prepped for rain, I dozed off again and awoke to calm.  It was a magical evening under the heavens in Australia, and I will never forget!

The only problem was awaking at 12:30 AM needing the loo!  It was dark, everything was quiet, and I decided to have a nature pee.  Ahhhh….back to my swag!

It was an early morning wake-up call at 5 AM, quick trip to the loo, and packing up my bag before a cold breakfast, hot coffee, and a walk or hike around King’s Canyon.  We are given a choice of an easy walk along the canyon floor and creek for an hour and a half or a strenuous hike up 300 uneven steps, along narrow ledges, and over rocky terrain for 3 hours.

I debated which one to do.  We were warned to be physically fit for the upward climb which I am not.  However, I wanted to try so off I go!

Thank you, Lord, I only slipped a couple of times catching myself with my hiking poles or against a rock face.  I stopped once for a breather, and otherwise, just kept on nature’s stairmaster.  One lady in our group is 81 years old from Alaska, and she was leading the pack!    I see tiny people along the top of the adjacent cliff and find out that they have climbed “heart attack hill” which is a series of 500 steps and are now heading our way.  We reached the top of the cliff, enjoyed the view, and I just laid back under a bright blue sky thanking God for the opportunity…and survival!

Now, I just had to get back down the same way I came up!

We see several groups of wild camels in the desert along with wild horses or “brumbies”.  One was unfortunately killed yesterday in a crash with a van.  We see cattle, and in these areas, it is wide open territory with no fencing.  The hope of seeing an occasional animal keeps you focused and looking.

During our long drive today, we stop at a cattle station for lunch.  These stations are far between since many farm a million acres or more and run hundreds of thousands of heads of cattle.  The two busiest times on a cattle station are birthing season and round up.

Many of the Australian cattle have been breed to have smaller heads so the mothers can birth the calves naturally.  At round up, special 2-way fences have been constructed around watering areas with one entrance and one exit.  When the cattle enter, they cannot exit until they are loaded for market or turned back out to pasture.  Therefore, the cattle round themselves up!

We ask lots of questions about the aboriginal people, a collection of diverse “mobs” or tribes consisting of over 200 languages and 700 dialects.  The last aborigines who had never been in contact with modern people wandered in from the desert in mid 1980’s during a severe drought.

Our guide, Damien, tells us that they do not share their culture with the white man.  If they do, it is with a a mutual respect that the confident will not share the information.  The aboriginal ceremonies are secret, but Damien tells us we are welcome to Google it, but he nor John can or will divulge any knowledge they have.

Feral cats have become a problem in the bush.  Brought originally by sailors to control mice on ships, these cats escaped, flourished, and aboriginal people hunted and ate them.  These once normal sized house cats have grown to 30-40 lbs with the largest one captured weighing almost 70 pounds!

Unfortunately, these cats which can easily kill 30 birds and other animals in one day have decimated the small mammal population causing the mala, a small hopping marsupial, to go extinct.  There is a bounty on these feral cats or rather than tails!

Cat proof structures were built for malas and rabbits to live in peace which seemed to be working well until a wildfire erupted from a lightening strike burning the enclosed area.  Concern for the small mammals was alleviated when it was discovered the malas used the rabbit burrows to survive along with the rabbits!

The desert oaks are a dominant tree with a life span of 700 years.  For their first 40-60 years, its branches are tightly woven together, and it resembles a shaggy “Thing” from the Addams Family.  This allows the narrow leaves to collect any rainwater and guide it directly to the roots.  During these early years, the tap root grows steadily downward, and when it reaches the deep water aquifer, the branches expand into an oak-looking evergreen.  Nature is something else, isn’t it!

However, being the tallest structure on these flat plains means the trees are a lightening magnet.  When one is struck, the super heated water causes the tree to explode!

Another common plant, the mulga, has a very hard wood and is often called ironwood.  The aborigines use it for spears and boomerangs.  Boomerangs are not designed to return to the sender as I always thought, and instead, there are different ones with varied purposes.

Smaller boomerangs are built to hover to scare animals or birds.  The #7 was shaped like a large “seven” with a short and long ends softly curved on the top and flat on the bottom.  They are thrown at large animals such as a kangaroo or emu to injure its legs or tail.  A kangaroo with an injured tail cannot hop, and then the animal is killed with a swift strike to its head.  Aborigines do not hunt for sport or fun; they only hunt for food or ceremonies.  When early settlers were killing off the kangaroos, aborigines discovered wooly creatures called sheep were a good substitute and much easier to catch and kill than their native animals.  This created quite a lot of conflicts between the settlers and aborigines!

We are heading to an iconic sight in Australia, Uluru, which was formerly known by its English name, Ayer’s Rock.  I think I see it from my window rising above the red plains; however, I discover I’ve seen “fake Uluru” or Mt. Conner, the third of three structures, the smallest, and the oldest.

I’m working on my list of Australian slang words and expressions.  See how you do!

“Pull your head in”….relax!

“Ta”…thank you!

“Spewing”…a rage or torrent of words!

“My shout”…my turn to pay!

“Bloody oath”…really good!

“She’ll be right”…it will be all right!

We arrive at our hotel after hours of driving, learning, and I’m ready to relax by the pool!   My brain is “chockers” or packed full!