Rock Wallabies

This past weekend, I had been invited to go yard-saling with a couple American Girls on Saturday and had a great time. My best score was a pair of Bushnell binoculars, a stunning ceramic bowl from, I since found out, an award-winning ceramicist, a dirty trowel, some tall glasses and a reel-type lawn mower - all for 40 bucks.
We have little lawn here. I wish we had none. We're in a desert and it's an embarrassing waste of water. It has its own sprinkler system and we Americans have the greenest lawns in town. Well, go us.
The second Thomas saw that reel mower, he was smitten. It's mechanical. It's mildly destructive. He gets to "drive" it himself. It spins, it chops, it slices, it dices...

And so, he mowed and mowed.
He mowed from noon till suppertime. It got dark and he hollered, fought and screamed at the injustice of having to stop. If I EVER blow this one like I did his fascination with doing laundry, I'll never forgive myself.
Sunday afternoon, he started using "the M word" again and Tom and I had to change the subject. We went off to Heavitree Gap Lodge. We'd heard you could feed the wild wallabies there. Boy, can you.
Of course, "wild" is relative. The lodge is a campground, motel, restaurant and grocery store. The camp store sells a bag ofwallaby feed for a dollar. Looks like rabbit pellets. We got there around sunset as that's when the wallabies come down from the McDonnell range for supper. About 2 dozen people and an equal number of rock wallabies were already paired up.
Briefly, wallabies are a small version of a kangaroo. This type is endangered as they used to be all over Australia and are now only in the rocks of the McDonnell range that runs alongside
Alice Springs.
I don't know how long people have been feeding the wallabies at Heavitree. Some were very tame and came right over to eat and could even be petted. Some hung back, took longer to approach or hopped away and hid.
Thomas joined right in. I watched him being so gentle with these soft, mysterious creatures, thinking what a great experience this is for him. Then, my brain said, "Excuse me? Get down there!" I made him scootch over and soon had myself a handful of feed and tiny black claws holding my finger. I beamed at Tom and said, "I'm in Australia feeding a wallaby."
We enjoyed it all, took photos and videos for about a half-hour until it was really dark. Tom and I started wrapping it up and he took the cameras to the car. I kept thinking I should keep one, but we'd gotten more than enough of photos.
Thomas kept at it and was trying to lure one adult away from a boy next to him when a tiny head, no bigger than a squirrel's, popped out of her pouch. Two big papery ears followed. A tiny nose sniffed at his hand and he held one bit of feed out to the little joey who took it.
My mouth hung open. Tom went back for the camera. There, in the dark, while Momma munched away, we each got to touch the tiny baby's wee head.

Less than 10 minutes from our house, every day at sunset, this magic happens.

Rock Walls

I'll start with last weekend and go forward. Blogs want you to go backward, but who's the boss, here?
We went to an a'capella concert at Trephina Gorge last Sunday. It was my mom's birthday and I was too sad in the morning to go to church, so a choir concert in a gorge seemed a good substitute. God was there, too. The high rock walls make a natural sound shell and 50 voices rolled across the sand.
The group was "Asante Sana." If you've ever seen Lion King, you've heard similar music. We video taped it for Tom's mom. It's the kind of thing that would leave her speachless. No comments about speachless mothers-in-law.
Trephina Gorge is about an hour from town and the drive is mostly one-lane. I don't mean one lane going each way, I mean ONE lane. If someone happens to be coming the other way, you both make room. There were cattle along the road and signs telling you to watch for them as there is no fence.
On the drive back, I saw a sign for Corroboree Rock. Not having seen enough rocks yet, (and this one had its own sign!), I turned off.
Like most geological formations around here, it is a sacred site. Like most geological formations around here, you can understand why.
The huge rock bears no similarity to the smaller rocks around it. It simply jutts out of the ground, tall and broad and very thin. The top photo is the "face"and the bottom, the side. You can walk around it in about 10 minutes while swatting flies off your face. We're told "Fly season" hasn't started yet.
It was getting dark, so we made for home. Decided to pick up dinner at the Red Rooster in Alice which is across from the McDonald's. It is the Boston Market of Australia. The roasted chicken comes with roasted potatoes, pumpkin, peas and garlic bread. It was pretty good and when I thought we had it all eaten, I found the chicken was stuffed - grey but tasty.

Buckle up and Hold That Lizard

What has the steering wheel on the right, the stick shift on the left and scares the *&^@! out of me? Our new car! What fun.
We got a Mitsubishi WhoCaresItMoves. It's silver. All cars here are white or silver to reflect the sun. So it's only 500 degrees when you get in instead of 505. Yes, it is just a "car." No 4-wheel drive, extra gas tank, 4 feet off the ground thing with a roo-bar in front. Sorry to all you folks who think we're roughing it on the desert frontier - that's a good 10 miles from here.
The couple we bought it from lives a block away. They just got married. The husband works with Tom and the wife is from Elysburg, PA. Yes, and she worked at Knoebel's campground and Geisinger.
I must say, when I first took it out for a solo drive (why endanger more lives than necessary?) I started grinning, then smiling this big, unstoppable smile! The cab drivers have been nice and we've gotten everywhere we needed to go, but the freedom of driving, alone, in Australia, is such a thrill.
The round-abouts in town are much easier than they looked from the backseat of a cab. Remembering to stay on the left is fine if there are other cars and I even parallel parked today with only one re-do. I keep an overly-firm grip on the wheel and will not dare put music on yet, but it's coming. I still turn on the windshield wipers when I mean the turn signal, but I was told that's called "The American Wave."

THE REPTILE CENTRE

This new-found freedom made me drag Thomas out of the house yesterday to find somewhere he could play without involving me. I added the library, a haircut and the promise of ice cream if the haircut went well.
We found the library but went past it to find lunch. Since that involved parking(!), walking around and getting turned-around, we lost the library but found the Reptile Center! I had been wanting to go since we got here, but we just hadn't.


It's really a made-over house with a crocodile in the backyard. Seriously, I think the man just turned his brick rabler into a snake and lizard zoo. It's neat! Lots of glass enclosures of really deadly snakes, many lizards both behind glass and outside in short-walled pens and then a salt-water crocodile.
"Terry" floats in his concrete swimmin' hole. Terry mostly spends his days below water, so you can go down steps and see him from underneath. He surfaces every 15 minutes or so to breathe and look longingly at unsuspecting, delicious tourists, mutters to himself about the thick glass and rebar fence, then dejectedly sinks again.
The staff puts on a show and tell in the air-conditioned "fossil cave" 3 times a day. It was very good. The young woman told us how to act around local snakes - run if they're at least 10 feet away, stand perfectly still if they're less. She brought in a friendly cadre of a python, bearded dragon, blue-tongue skink and a 2-headed or sleepy skink which was my favorite.
If a predator grabs them by the tail, they poo copiously in its mouth, and if that isn't enough, swing their actual head around, latch on and cannot let go until they feel safe again. Otherwise, they hardly move.
Thomas held all the animals he deemed appropriate but could hardly wait to get back to his true friend - a sweet little monitor lizard who simply walks around the floor where he pleases. I forget his name as he was named after someone I never heard of, but I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of him.
Of course, the questions at bedtime were, "Do you think we could have a lizard that walks around our house?"
"No."
"Do you think it will want to snuggle with me in my bed?"

The haircut went well. He picked honeycomb-caramel ice cream.

Desert Festival

Alice Springs is having Desert Festival the next 10 days or so. It all started with a parade, and what a fun parade it was! Starting with young drummers who were SO tight and just cracker-jack on their beautiful instruments, followed by giant desert insects and arachnids, all made by the local school kids with volunteer artists.

The whole troupe moved on to the ANZAC oval - a park near the top of downtown. There was a stage set up and most of the parade groups performed into the evening.

The Maoris' performance was chilling. We've since learned Maoris are the native Polynesians of New Zealand. The boys wore black or bead loin cloths and held long sticks. Their faces and bodies were painted. An adult led them in a stomping, threatening, shouting chant which made me think, "A hundred years ago, coming on this group in the jungle...we'd all be dead. I'm glad we're all friends now...W-W-We are, right?"
I couldn't get a good photo of it, but here's a similar video from You Tube.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-lrE2JcO44&feature=related
and here it is done by gingerbread men http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cTJla0i_Kw
I now know it's called a Haka and is understandably very useful at rugby games.

The girls and young women were in purple batik sarongs and did an equally fascinating, graceful hand-gesture dance. A little blonde girl next to us started miming along with them as easily as if she were doing Itsy-bitsy Spider. Think they learn it in pre-school?

There was a Kids' Day at the same park Sunday. Too hot and too little shade for these Yanks.
Thomas was whiney and I was intolerant. We cut it short and walked over to Target - a small, messy version of a US one. I think I figured it out - with the seasons opposite here, they send all the last season's stuff over and charge full price again. Ok, double full price. Did I mention I was hot?
Enjoying a couple cold drinks in the foodcourt, an Aboriginal woman came up to me with a traditional dot painting. It had happened a couple times before when we were in a cafe or walking Todd Mall and I always shook my head, more out of apprehension than anything. This time, I looked and I actually liked the one painting. She named her price which got lower when I said I wanted to think about it, then climbed higher by 15 bucks as we talked, but knowing I just dropped 10 bucks on 2 slushies, I let it happen.
They're each about 14" square, or whatever that is in metric. I really like the one with the honey ants and witchety grubs going to the billabong under the 2 women, their digging sticks and coolamon. She said she'd sign it, but I guess that meant I needed to give her a pencil. To be perfectly ignorant, I doubt I'd recognize her again.

What a short, strange trip it's been.

Camera Cache Cleaning Clammor

I have heard your call for more pictures. Be careful what you ask for...
The big Yeperenye sculpture at the Araluen Centre. Yeperenye was the most important caterpillar in the Aboriginal Dreaming story of creation. The caterpillar people made the McDonnell range and other land features. Geologist say "there was a sudden upheaval." Sounds like 2 versions of the same story to me.
Mt. Gillen of the McDonnell range. The view out our front window I just love - and photograph often! With little vegetation, it changes color all day as the sun hits the rocks and soil different ways. I loved the morning it woke up orange.

Our friends took us to Simpson's Gap First trip "out bush" and we forgot hats and sunscreen. Doh! That's Thomas in the borrowed red hat. We're spotting rock wallabies.

More of Simpson's Gorge/Gap. Given time, a little bit of water can do a lot. The actual spring was so tiny that made this gap in the rock.

Playing Catch-up (here, it's "tomato sauce")

It took a while to get the blog up and I apologize. There was a cookie issue which needed to be resolved.
We arrived in Alice Springs, fresh and healthy, on Thursday, August 27. Ok, we were dazed and confused, but were picked up at the airport and taken home. We were also treated to a delicious dinner that evening (about 40 hrs after we left Gainesville) by a couple who would prove very gracious, generous and invaluable with information, orientation and transportation.
The flights were fun, believe it or not. The staff was so nice and flying business class was a new and pleasant experience.
We got to go to the lounges in LA and Sydney supplied with food and drinks and a new pal for Thomas.
A woman about my age with a little girl about Thomas's caught my eye at Dulles and we crossed paths again at LA. Turns out, they were on their way to Alice Springs as well! The two sleep-deprived, hyper 5-year-olds nearly caused an international incident, but we made it onto the plane for Sydney. We haven't gotten together with them again yet, but hope to soon.

We have been entertained by several American families, all really nice, welcoming and happy to share how to "get on" here.
The couple who met our planehere took us to Simpson's Gorge, about 9Km west of town, the next Sunday. I think it's where the word "gorgeous"comes from. The colors of the rocks here are beautiful - oranges, reds, yellow ochre. The rocks there added purple, rose and black for stunning contrast. There were birds skimming the waterhole (billabong) and our first sighting of wild marsupials. Rock Wallabies live among the rocks along the way.
I'll defend my usually-weak photography skills now. They say, you have to take photos here at dawn or dusk. The light is so strong during the day, colors wash out. They're right. There were three wallabies (a smaller version of a kangaroo) in this photo. Good luck. (hint: they're the only soft things.)