Fire

We've been on the road about seven weeks, up and down the Stuart Highway. There's now a lot of the tourist literature stuffed into the pocket behind the passenger seat of our car. Some of it has been useful and informative, some is just advertising junk, some inadequate. I'll probably put it all into the recycle bin when we get home.

A fact mentioned in a lot of the material is that the environment needs to be regularly burnt, has been burnt for thousands of years by Aboriginals and lightning strikes, that many plants nee the heat of fire in order to regenerate. But, I have seen a lot of damage on our travels and I'm sorry now that I didn't photograph the ugly as well as the beautiful. I've seen many kilometres of roadsides where the plants have not recovered, I've seen mature trees burnt beyond recovery, I've seen Mulga trees completely destroyed by fire and no young plants growing to replace them. Maybe the fires have been too hot. Maybe they've been too frequent. Maybe they've been too large rather than a patchwork of small fires.

I think it's a big problem. Is it used as a management tool for weeds? Are the fires planned or random? Is it occurring just along the highways or is it happening on the stations as well? Where are the mature trees with hollows? Where is the biodiversity that used to exist? Where to the small fauna go when the fire is large? And if they do manage to hide underground what do they eat when they emerge after a fire? I need to do some more reading on the subject.

We saw a lot of fires through the Alice Springs area when we travelled through three years ago. This year we haven't seen any. But we did see a lot in the savannah woodland in the Top End.

Desert Oak

On this holiday through central Australia I have become fascinated by the Desert Oak Allocasuarina decaisneana, the only Casuarina that grows in the desert. It's a slow-growing tree of the dry and sandy areas and there is something quite beautiful about a stand of mature trees on a red sand dune. Spinifex plants often dominate the understory.

Mature Desert Oaks

The young trees are narrow in form with no branches. As they mature they start to branch out. It all takes a long time.

'Middle-aged' Desert Oaks

A stand of Desert Oaks - a mix of maturity

Follow this link if you want to read a delightful blog spot written by someone with more knowledge than me, Ian Fraser.

Uluru

I am totally impressed with the rock and the way the crowds of visitors are controlled so that damage to the environment is minimised. Phil was here in about 1969 with some mates and they camped at the base of the rock. I was here in 1972 and there was little infrastructure here then either. Now visitors are housed at Yulara, there is a combined entrance fee to Uluru and Kata Tjuta, there is a fantastic cultural centre, you have to exit the park by a designated time, parking is more or less under control although people still stop to take photos in odd spots, the climb itself is discouraged for cultural reasons and closed altogether when conditions are dangerous (it was closed this afternoon when it was too windy). the only thing lacking at both Uluru and Kata Tjuta are information boards about the geology.

We (and hundreds of other tourists, I'm not joking) sent to see the sunset colour on Uluru last night and it happened to coincide with a moonrise as well. And then today we hired bikes and rode around the rock on the walking track. We had both forgotten just how immense Uluru is.

6.17 p.m.

6.49 p.m.

7.06 p.m.

7.18 p.m.

Done with the cliche. Now for the interesting stuff. There is a lot to see and do at Uluru.

We ate our sandwiches while we were entertained by the climbers trying to descend.

It's a great way to circumnavigate Uluru.

Tawny Frogmouths gave away their position by hooting quietly.

These marvellous seats have been installed at both Kata Tjuta and Uluru.

Desert Sheoaks of various ages.

Just mucking around with reflections in our kettle. Uluru in the background.

Uluru and Kata Tjuta

This place will always be special to us because while we were here our new grandson, Angus, was born.

Kata Tjuta

It's unavoidable. We've been to see the fabulous Kata Tjuta so I have to post the cliche photos. It's a beautiful place, visually stunning.

But I did manage to take some photos of little things I found interesting. Firstly I have to confess that I had no idea that the rock here is conglomerate. Conglomerate! The whole thing is made up of boulders, rocks and stones cemented together. Imagine the time involved in that process. The original boulders have to be created in the first place and that takes eons, then they have to be covered in mud or some such and compressed over some more huge lengths of time to create rock, then the surrounding countryside has to be eroded away and then the faults in the conglomerate itself has to be eroded to create the form we see today. That all takes an unimaginable number of years.

Large rocks and stones cemented to form the conglomerate rock of Kuta Tjuta.

Stones wash or blow around in small holes left when a rock dislodges.
Eventually they smooth to rounded gravel.

Upside-down Plant Leptosema chambersii. It's in the pea family.

Corkwood

Locusts

Meadow Argus

Tourists posing