LIKE TWO FISH OUT OF WATER
My brother Mike and I have always grown up by the sea. As competitive surfers, we have both travelled the World, always to surf destinations. Coming from a family of surfers, most of our holidays have been by, near, or on the sea. This is the story of a totally different experience for us both. A long but amazing drive to the centre of Australia and a weekend spent with a local Aboriginal community.
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| Our route from Sydney to Santa Teresa, via Alice Springs |
HOW IT CAME ABOUT
My parents have recently taken on an exciting new adventure, 1500 kilometres from the ocean. They have moved to a small, Aboriginal community called Santa Teresa, 100 km outside Alice Springs, Australia. Dad is going to be teaching Year 7&8 primary kids and Mum is going to be coordinating and putting in place the curriculum for the school.
The task of relocating their 4WD (essential for this part of Australia) and trailer full of belongings fell to Mike and me. Starting out from Sydney on a Thursday afternoon at 2pm, we embarked on a 2900km journey to the ‘Red Centre’ of Australia. We had to be there to pick Mum and Dad up from Alice Springs airport at 4pm on the Saturday. Oh, and I forgot to mention that neither of us had ever driven with (let alone reversed) a trailer. EASY...ha!
DRIVE TIME
Catching up with my brother after spending the last few years living on opposite sides of the World was a highlight. The journey itself was really cool too. The amount of space in this country is UNREAL! Sometimes we would go for hours without meeting another vehicle. Other times our 4WD would shake as a ‘Road Train’ truck, which is 3 regular-sized truck lengths or 53.5 m long, zoomed past us. We could spot them coming miles away mind you, as the roads were nearly always straight for tens of kilometres. This leads me to mention a few tips about how to kill time on super long drives. It is amazing how easily amused you can be by the simple things while sitting in a car for 14 hours at a time! There were many games played, but these were my favourite:
· ‘The Thumb Theory’
o This is my personal favourite. Mike is still unconvinced but I stand firm on it! Driving past vehicles with one thumb raised up off the wheel resulted in 9 out of 10 other drivers waving back with a similar one digit wave. A proper ‘full hand’ wave resulted in only 4 out of 10 returned waves from other drivers. Therefore the ‘thumb raise’ is Australia’s favourite driver-driver wave. Fact!
· ‘Guess the Odometer distance’
o When spotting an oncoming truck/car in the distance, guess how far away it is on the odometer. Loser must do 10 push ups in the 45 degree heat at the next rest-stop.
· ‘The Overtaking Count’
o On the rare opportunity of coming up behind and overtaking a Road Train, pull in at the next rest stop, let it pass and then over take again. Repeat and keep count of how many you achieved during your daily drive time. Push ups rule applies here too for the loser each day!
You may think that so much open space wouldn’t be very scenic or impressive, but it was quite the opposite. The novelty of it never wore off on either of us. Every time I looked out the window at the vastness of the landscape, it blew my mind. It was generally flat, but scattered with rolling hills and a surprising amount of vegetation. Every couple of hundred kilometres there was a ‘cattle grid’ across the road, and then fencing stretching out as far as the eye could see in both directions. Mike asked about this at one of the petrol stations and we learned that these fences go on for hundreds of kilometres, resulting in huge cattle stations. People have full time jobs just to look after the fencing alone, on quads and 4WD’s, covering thousands of km a week repairing and checking it. The cattle on these stations are often herded using helicopters because they are so spread out. Similarly, we saw a huge area of crops being sprayed by a low-flying small plane. If you ever feel like you need some ‘space’ in your life, inland Australia is a pretty good spot for it!
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| Wide open spaces everywhere!!! |
I saw the two most beautiful sunsets that I have ever seen on this drive too. Deep shades of orange with purples and reds and yellows mixed through the sky. They last for hours, as daylight slowly melts away, leaving an impressively dark night. The only light at night time is provided by a black sky filled with hundreds of densely packed stars. After the animals settle down for the night, it gets so quiet too. Outback Australia is a beautiful, large and very tranquil place.
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| The most beautiful sun |
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| WE GOT ONE! Haha, just kidding. |
By putting in 10 hours of driving on the Thursday, 15 on the Friday and 12 on the Saturday we got there, only an hour behind schedule. We were 90 km from Alice Springs and we got a blow-out on one of the trailer tyres. I have never been as hot as I was after changing it in the 45 degree heat. My flip flops were sticking to the tarmac. No joke! Poor Mike, he did most of the heavy work though, I mostly just passed him things and took pictures!
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| The hottest experience of my life! |
SANTA TERESA
With the big journey complete and Mum and Dad picked up from the airport, we hit the dirt track for the 100km final leg to Santa Teresa, a small community of approximately 600 Aboriginal people. It is a ‘dry-community’, with no alcohol allowed within an 11km radius of the town. There are often a lot of social and domestic problems associated with alcohol among Aboriginal communities and the people of Santa Teresa have chosen to make their community alcohol-free.
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| The 100km dirt track road from Alice Springs to Santa Teresa |
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| Entering Santa Teresa |
Spending the weekend in Santa Teresa was a really lovely experience. It is not a tourist environment like Uluru (Ayers Rock) and other Aboriginal areas of Australia are. Visitors must be ‘invited’ into the community, by the people of the community.
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| Dad walking around the Primary School |
In the local Eastern Arrente language Santa Teresa, or “Ltyentye Apurte”, means ‘strand of beefwood trees’. English is technically the second language. The school is run by a Catholic organisation which employs the ‘white’ people, like my parents, to teach the 150 or so children.
The weekend that we were there, the 15-17 year old boys and the men from the community were out in the bush doing ‘men’s business’. In other words, they were being initiated from boyhood to manhood. This initiation includes the passing on of the stories of the lands and how they were created. We are not allowed to know these stories, as they are secret to the Aboriginal people. They believe that passing them on to the boys as they become men helps to keep the land and community alive and healthy. The initiation also includes having raised scars formed on the arms and chest, using hot ash. A tooth is knocked out and they are circumcised. The boys had been out in the bush for four weeks when we arrived, during which time they were considered ‘dead’. No one in the village discusses them or uses their name while they are ‘dead’. They were due back the Wednesday after we left, when they are re-born as Men and welcomed back by the whole community. While we were there, they were doing something in the hills behind the village, and we were not allowed to go up there or to the northern side of the town. The Aboriginal people have many customs, stories and traditions that are known only amongst them. I get the impression that their relationships with white people will only ever go so far.
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| The local Church |
We went to Mass on the Sunday morning and then had tea in one of the Catholic Brothers house, where we met the women and some of the younger children from the community. I got handed a gorgeous little 1 year old at the start of Mass and he sat on my knee happily playing with my bracelet throughout the sermon. The walls were painted floor to ceiling with Aboriginal interpretations of Christian scenes. The Mass itself was delivered by the local priest, who is Indonesian. Even the normal Catholic mass was adapted and the prayers talked about how God created the kangaroos and the goannas of the land. It was pretty cool, especially coming from a country where Catholic Mass and traditions are so by-the-book and rigid. The Altar boy was a local 10 year old called Dallas. He did a great job, but had to be prompted and guided on a number of occasions by the Priest. It was funny and he was in no rush. It’s a really laid back atmosphere in Santa Teresa and I liked that. After Mass at Brother Rod’s house, one of the other new teachers gave Dallas his iPhone to look at and he knew his way around it no problem. He even tried to buy a movie on iTunes, ’The Other Guys’. What a wee character!
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| Dad, Mum, Mike and I check out Mum and Dads new backyard!! |
I only had a small taste of life in Santa Teresa, as I had to head back to Sydney on the Monday morning (by plane this time!). However, I am really looking forward to returning for a longer visit once Mum and Dad have settled into the community more.
This trip was a new experience for me and for my brother Mike. I loved it! As a surfer, I can definitely be accused of having a pretty limited experience of the World and of its different cultures, despite how much I have travelled. It was really nice to experience a new type of travel adventure and culture, outside of surfing, and I look forward to more trips like this in the future.
Now, where’s my fin key. I think I’ll try out new fins in my board for today’s surf session...
