A River in (a Short) Time

I never thought to take a photo of the Todd River that goes through town because it's not there. People talk about "the river," but it's just a broad, flatter, sandier place than the rest of the flat, sandy place. It is a dry river bed and an area known for muggings, fights and a place you don't go near at night.

Then, it started raining. Really raining. Like, wake-you-up-at-night kind of raining. Seems there was a cyclone (hurricane) at the top end near Darwin and it came down on us as rain. The river came in too. The front of it came like someone draining their pool next door. You could see the water coming into town, down the river bed. Kids were there, running in front of it.
The newspaper took pictures. Everyone went to see. That was Wednesday.

As the rain continued into the third day, the river grew and people had fun in it. Knowing the trash and waste washing around in it, most locals stayed out. That was Friday morning.
After four days of rain feeding the flow from the top end, it was a torrent. It was a huge, raging, coffee with lots of cream-colored massive thing. It buried roads by a metre. It drowned two men. That was Saturday.

The rain petered out late Saturday and gave up on Sunday. Monday, I went to take a picture of the sight and it was gone.

They say this was the highest it's been since the 80's. Some outlying roads were still closed a week later. Backhoes pushed the silty sand back off the causeways - roads that go across the riverbed.

The trees and shrubs are having a burst of new growth; some grew several inches in just a couple weeks. We may see some annual flowers blooming in another couple weeks.
Now, where does the river flow to? The answer is - away. From here, it flows south (Why south? Don't know.) toward the Simpson Desert where what's left of it soaks into the sand.

Images from N'Dhala

The rock below is depicted in the sign above. Again, the strong sun washes out a lot of detail. Sorry.

Day after Christmas - trying to read the rocks.

Outback Tom
This shallow cave/overhang would have housed a large family year-round.

a menorah.

Tom's "parachute man," - middle left. About 10 feet above the ground.

Harry said this is the largest one he's found. It was about 5 feet across. If you look closely, it is caterpillars radiating out - the Alice Springs/Mbarntwe story.

Christmas 2009

Obviously, I've been procrastinating posting our Christmas story. Like Christmas, the pressure was horribly daunting - too much to get into one package and one shot to get it right.
So, I decided to just lay it on the line. Christmastime was sad. Sorry. With my mom dying in March and no one here to do "regular" Christmas with, it had many really sad moments of loneliness and blech. Just for the record, "Regular Christmastime" has: Holy Supper with disgusting dishes like herring and fish and egg, lots of decorations, carols on every radio station and in every public place for a month, snow or at least weather within 80 degrees of the possibility, too much visiting, cookies, boil-o, Lithuanian songs and the state of Pennsylvania.
Fortunately, I'm a grown-up most of the time and I can fake it. Thomas had a really good Christmas and faking it can make a person feel better.
Christmas morning, we finally had to wake Thomas up at 10 a.m. What child is this? We had a nice video call with some of our family on their Christmas Eve.
We took our time opening prezzies which translates to: hours. We had a great brunch of eggs, ham and pancakes with berries and whipped cream. Thomas saw an angel with a trumpet in his dippy egg. Can you?
About 3 p.m., we packed for Ross River Resort; about an hour out of town. People had told me it was "rustic." That's the sunny Aussie attitude for you - it was yuuuu-cky! We had a $125 a night cabin. The floor was stone which could be neato except it hadn't seen a cleaning in a few decades. The walls were wood slats which had been upgraded in the last generation by stapling burlap along the inside. There were too many spiders even for me. The pictures actually look way better than the real thing. I'm done complaining now. Back to making it an exciting adventure.
The area was beautiful. The pool was fine except for the cleaner constantly crawling along the bottom like a horseshoe crab with its vacuum hose trailing across preventing a good swim. The people running it and taking us on our tour the next day (Ossie's Outback Adventures) were exceedingly nice.
The STARS at 3 a.m. when I couldn't sleep because it was 90 degrees with the a/c full blast and the scratching, chewing noise next to my bed was disconcerting, were indescribable. I'll try to make them describable. It was like looking deep into a bouquet of asters - the tiny, white ones. There were layers of stars. Once you saw them, caught your breath then started breathing again, you saw more, then more, then more, then more. They made me feel incredibly small and incredibly omnipotent at the same time. That was worth it.
Saturday (Boxing Day), we had a 4-wheel drive tour of N'Dhala (rhymes with koala) Gorge, known for its petroglyphs. Most of the carvings at N'Dhala are from the last 2,000 years, but some are up to 10,000 years old. The sun was high and clear so the photos aren't great.
There are around 6,000 carvings in the rocks of the gorge. We found some our guide had never seen. They were quite fascinating. Harry, our guide, said the reason for the amount of carved rock art in the N'Dhala area is its abundance of resources - plants, animals, easy water and caves for shelter. The ancient Aboriginals didn't have to spend their days hunting and digging for food and water here, so they had the luxury of free time. The sacredness of the place is reflected in the symbols - again, the creator caterpillar-beings and many others. Tom found one he called the parachute man.
Our walk was about 2 hours and we were all parched back at the jeep. We were then treated to an extra driving tour of a cattle station on the way. Some wild horses, called "brumbies" live here but were invisible that day. The bores or wells for cattle attract a lot of birds. We saw flocks of zebra finches in the hundreds with the "Droughtmaster" cattle. The cattle live on just the scrub they find in the outback desert - no hay or grain. These are some tough cattle.
Back at the ranch, we gorged on Aussie burgers at the main house - beef, cheese, lettuce, tomato, bacon, pineapple, beetroot and a fried egg. Hit the spot.
The rest of our trip was spent in the pool. A pink-eared duck was there the next morning and I know it was a pink-eared duck because I got a bird book for Christmas. Thanks Santa!

PS Images from N'Dhala get their own blog entry.
PPS The little white fluffy guy is Happy - a pup were were sitting for a friend.