The Red Centre
7/5/2008
Uluru
Leaving the outback, heading towards the city, lots of red sand below us. We just finished with our trip to the Red Center – a few hours in Alice Springs, sight seeing in Uluru (aboriginal name for Ayers Rock).
Tuesday was Territory Day in the Northern Territory, the equivalent of our July 4th (that was soon to follow). We ended our afternoon class by following our professor around the hotel as he pointed out different architectural designs that were efficiency suicide as far as energy conservation is concerned. In a climate that never gets below 80 degrees (as they have a wet and a dry season in the tropics, as opposed to our four seasons), it’s not smart to have windows facing constant sun, necessitating constant use of the AC. We actually calculated roughly how much heat the sun was pumping into our conference room… It only became evident how absurd the design was after he finished the calculation, showing how placing 20 space heaters in along the windows in the room and needing the AC to counter that.
In the evening, everyone headed to Mindil Beach, where Darwin was having its official celebration of Territory Day. Apparently, people in the Northern Territory (NT) like to be different than the rest of the country and are typically seen as the rebellious southerners of the American south would be seen – slow talking, carry guns, drive 4WDs, that kind of thing. I got to the show a just in time for the grand finale, as I was finishing dinner with a friend who’s a chef a little later than planned. I was very surprised to find our friends so quickly, as there were thousands of people packed onto the beach. The tide was out and there were four large palettes on the edge of the water, a hundred yards or so from the crowd. Beyond the palettes, you could see the lights of a hundred boats just offshore. There were four large green lasers slicing through the smoky air throughout the show, it was pretty awesome. I think the only show that rivals it was the one I saw in Pamplona before the Running of the Bulls. After the official show was over, the civilian show was just beginning. For the next couple hours, people lit thousands of fireworks on the beach in fairly close proximity to the crowds…but I think only a couple people got hurt this year, unlike years passed. It was fun to see the community out and see how many people there actually are in Darwin.
Following Wednesday’s classes, we went to the other side of town as a group to see what they called the ‘deckchair cinema.’ We watched Lucky Miles in some lawn chairs in the open air. We saw some huge bats and had a friendly little possum searching for crumbs beneath us. Possums here are much different than in the US, and those of NZ were much different as well. They are much furrier and cute, but pests nonetheless. The movie was about some illegal immigrants to Australia and their attempt to survive in the bush after getting dropped off on a beach from Indonesia. It sounded like a great plotline, but the movie was a disappointment. Afterwards, I went home to get packed and sleep for our 4 am departure time the next morning for Alice Springs.
In Alice Springs, we went to the Center for Appropriate Technology, an organization run by aboriginals to provide technology and support for lifestyle improvements for aboriginal communities. Mostly, this organization designs and provides solar powered electricity systems for rural communities. It was very interesting to hear their managing engineer talk about the challenges of providing a system that could withstand fairly harsh weather conditions and require little to no maintenance. It’s almost funny to hear them talk about finding old photovoltaic (PV) systems (solar power system) that have stopped working and have since been put to use for other means – like using the panels for a table, or using the batteries as anchors, etc. It’s also very interesting to me how one goes about teaching someone how to use and maintain a system that just supplies power for an outlet…without knowing what is actually going on to make that power. I realize that a lot of people don’t really know how electricity works, but teaching someone using representative pictoral symbols and communicating in broken English would be an extreme challenge. We saw their display of other appropriate technology like water heaters, water pumps for wells, low maintenance latrines, and other equipment designed for these rural bush communities.
Supposedly Alice Springs’ water supply is predicted to run dry in 65 years. That was the only other interesting thing that we informed about in Alice. We took a 6 hour bus ride to Ayers Rock, stopping along the way to give people a chance to ride camels and see a wallaby or two. The camels were very interesting, especially the way their reigns are connected. Instead of a harness, they pierce the camels’ nostril and tie a rope to the piercing, making the camel follow whoever’s controlling the reign connected to the inside of their nose. They appeared very ornery but I couldn’t tell if it was because of the way they were being treated or they’re just like that in general. Also, it was crazy to see their hind legs that have a hip, a knee that bends like a bird’s (forward), a lower knee that bends like a human’s (backwards), and an ankle. I didn’t ride one but was jealous of my cousin John Joe’s all day ride in Morocco wearing a turbine, whereas this ride was for only for 100 yards.
The stars on the first night at the Ayers Rock Resort were pretty amazing, there was a dune nearby that perched us above most of the lights in the little town. After everybody went to bed, me and a buddy just sat up there talking about how so many people miss out on the relieving freshness that living in nature brings. Camping and hiking become rejuvenating to those who appreciate it. The Milky Way is oh so present from that viewpoint, a huge cloud of stars almost like a rainbow across the sky. It was weird not to see Orion’s Belt and the North Star, but instead the Southern Cross and Scorpio. Quite a few shooting stars with far fewer satellites than I’m used to seeing. Last ones to go to bed and first ones to get up for the sunrise, I’d heard that sunrise and sunset are the main attractions at Uluru. I guess as it is with any desert, there’s literally no chance of rain and very little clouds to obstruct the view. They said that the rain is very erratic in those parts, some years raining 20 inches in two storms and zero rain for a couple years thereafter. We went to the Cultural Center on Thursday morning to hear a talk from one of the rangers. It was surprising to find out that, after the area became a National Park, the landscape became dangerous from the European way of land management, as they didn’t practice the regular fire control like the aborigines were accustomed to. Because they put out every fire that started in the park, the undergrowth became a dangerous amount of fuel and proceeded to wipe most of the park out in a 1978 fire started by lightning. Because they hadn’t continued to burn sections regularly, they in essence shot themselves in the foot by providing enough fuel for the fire to be uncontrollable. In the aboriginal fire practices, burning occurs at a slow enough level that most trees and fire activated seeds live through the flame. But with increased fuel, nothing could withstand the heat and the park was nearly wiped clean. From then on, the park management realized that putting the traditional owners of the land back in charge would be the best option for managing the habitat. Also, the huge rock formation, formerly known as Ayers Rock but now being called by its original name Uluru, is a sacred place that no aborigine climbs. Conversely, most of the people who come to Uluru come to climb the rock, a 248 m monolith, the largest in the world. The rock is a unique, red sandstone looking giant, continuing another 4-6 km into the ground. The rock is almost smooth, with ribs and ridges that appear to sanded by a glacier or something. The crazy thing is that, while there are markings from water flows, most of the water flows haven’t cut into the rock like we normally see because there is so little rain throughout the year. From afar, it appears like a uniform rock rising out of the outback. Up close, it’s much more textured and has ridges, holes, caves, and valleys. The crazy thing is that where the sides of the rock plunge into the ground, there is little evidence that it is eroding. The flat red sand runs up to the rock just like water would to an iceberg, no piles of sand or rock at the sides. It’s also interesting to find out the history of tourism in the area. Before 1960, few people came to see the natural formations in the area. Following that, people came to climb the rock and that was about it. They told us that many Japanese tourists still fly in for the day just to climb. But now, as the Australian culture is coming to respect and appreciate the aboriginal culture, people are buying shirts that say “I did NOT climb the rock” instead of those from days of old that said the opposite. I could definitely have spent more time there, but for some reason we had to rush back to the hotel to eat lunch and have free time. In the evening, we went back out to the sunset viewing area with a bunch of other tourists who were having cheese and wine as the sun set. We were between the rock and the setting sun, watching to rock to see the changes in color as the sun’s rays change the way they hit the face. There were clouds on the horizon, so we were able to see the changes in color until the clouds blocked the sun out for the most colorful part. Looking back over my pictures, though, you can definitely see the different moods of Uluru in the span of 45 minutes.
This morning we woke up early to go out to Kata Tjuta, or The Olgas, for sunrise. These huge domes of rock are the only other real geographical feature of the area, 34 round rocks that are about 500 m tall. The previous day, the ranger said the hikes around there were the best in Central Australia and recommended we do them. So I prepared for our outing to be hiking, only to find out we were going to a viewing spot for sunrise and then driving back. I was frustrated that we were so close to being able to hike but didn’t have time to due to some poor planning by our director. It was awesome to see the sunrise from that perspective though, I certainly can’t complain.
We arrived in Sydney yesterday afternoon and unpacked into our one person dorm rooms. We’re on a main road south of Sydney by about 20 minute drive, 30 minute walk to the nearest beach in Coogee. I ran there today in about 15 minutes, but I’m not sure where the best surfing will be yet. I got lucky and have access to free (albeit spotty and slow) wireless internet in my room, so I did some research on the bus system and used surfing equipment (board and wetsuit). It’s weird not to be rushed by a timer cutting you off like I’ve been living with for the last month. It’s definitely a welcome break from constant use of computers, but when you need to do research for a new place or for school, it makes things so much easier to flip open your laptop. We were playing pool in the game room tonight and talking about how the kid who’s always recording on his video camera is probably not going to look at his videos until he gets bored when he’s 42, at which point he’ll pull out his 20 year old laptop and see if it works. For me, the aged piece of technology that we always pulled out was the silver VHS video recorder box – it must’ve looked like the news crew was doing a special every time mom taped one of my baseball games.
I’m looking forward to spending some time in Sydney, I foresee a really busy three weeks ahead. We’ve got two field trips this week, and I’m probably going to take weekend trips for both of the upcoming weekends. The pope will be in town next week for World Youth Day/Week, supposedly the largest event that Sydney has ever hosted (according to a catholic girl on our trip). This morning, I went with some friends to a church called Hillsong, a very contemporary worship based church down the road from the university. It was much like the mega church Buckhead that I’ve been to in Atlanta, and it was ironic that the guest pastor was from Baton Rouge and told jokes for most of the sermon, even showing funny pictures of what life is like in the “Dirty South,” as he referred to it. He showed a guy lying in a swimming pool in the back of his pickup, a guy at a nascar race with the #3 shaved into his back hair (I’ve seen that!), a Cajun’s first kiss which was a little girl kissing a pig, a doorbell that was the hind of a deer where the button beneath his tail, those kinds of things. It was good standup comedy but certainly more than I’m used to. He did make good points though about being generous, of which I need to learn to be more of. I feel like what I’m learning in school here, though, is pulling me in the opposite direction. Let me explain – I asked our professor (who’s household grid power usage is 70% lower than the average Sydney household) how one differentiates between being frugal with energy and just being plain stingy or cheap. He made a good point that he’s not living a different lifestyle because of his new energy sources, he just had to make some conscious decisions about where that energy is coming from and how its used. Now that statement should come with a note because he has certainly helped mold his family’s habits so they use less energy. That difference is something that I think takes stealth and some understanding on the people participating in the energy savings because it is indeed realistically possible to pay less, use less energy, and live the same with a little coercing, it just needs to be done in the right way. I guess by stealth I mean solving problems in early steps, so people don’t have to think about them. For example, when my mom came to visit my apartment in Atlanta during Spring 2007, I asked them not to use the heat because Nate and I were trying to keep from using the heat or air for the whole semester (for costs reasons , but I suppose you could say we were energy conscious, even if it for stingy reasons). Now if we could have somehow found a way to add insulation to the walls instead of asking my mom to use a pile of blankets, we would have stealthily found a way to be energy conscious. But instead, we needed to use the heat because the pile of blankets would have been unreasonable for mom’s cold toes. I realize that my mom is worth much more money than I could ever pay, so I should spend whatever necessary to pamper the woman who gave so much of her life for me. But I’m going to try to be able to pamper her in cost effective ways now ;) One of those ways, as it’s recently dawned on me, is massaging her shoulders whenever I get the chance. It takes so little effort and reaps such great benefits, I think I’ve found a great way to say thank you.
Uluru
Leaving the outback, heading towards the city, lots of red sand below us. We just finished with our trip to the Red Center – a few hours in Alice Springs, sight seeing in Uluru (aboriginal name for Ayers Rock).
Tuesday was Territory Day in the Northern Territory, the equivalent of our July 4th (that was soon to follow). We ended our afternoon class by following our professor around the hotel as he pointed out different architectural designs that were efficiency suicide as far as energy conservation is concerned. In a climate that never gets below 80 degrees (as they have a wet and a dry season in the tropics, as opposed to our four seasons), it’s not smart to have windows facing constant sun, necessitating constant use of the AC. We actually calculated roughly how much heat the sun was pumping into our conference room… It only became evident how absurd the design was after he finished the calculation, showing how placing 20 space heaters in along the windows in the room and needing the AC to counter that.
In the evening, everyone headed to Mindil Beach, where Darwin was having its official celebration of Territory Day. Apparently, people in the Northern Territory (NT) like to be different than the rest of the country and are typically seen as the rebellious southerners of the American south would be seen – slow talking, carry guns, drive 4WDs, that kind of thing. I got to the show a just in time for the grand finale, as I was finishing dinner with a friend who’s a chef a little later than planned. I was very surprised to find our friends so quickly, as there were thousands of people packed onto the beach. The tide was out and there were four large palettes on the edge of the water, a hundred yards or so from the crowd. Beyond the palettes, you could see the lights of a hundred boats just offshore. There were four large green lasers slicing through the smoky air throughout the show, it was pretty awesome. I think the only show that rivals it was the one I saw in Pamplona before the Running of the Bulls. After the official show was over, the civilian show was just beginning. For the next couple hours, people lit thousands of fireworks on the beach in fairly close proximity to the crowds…but I think only a couple people got hurt this year, unlike years passed. It was fun to see the community out and see how many people there actually are in Darwin.
Following Wednesday’s classes, we went to the other side of town as a group to see what they called the ‘deckchair cinema.’ We watched Lucky Miles in some lawn chairs in the open air. We saw some huge bats and had a friendly little possum searching for crumbs beneath us. Possums here are much different than in the US, and those of NZ were much different as well. They are much furrier and cute, but pests nonetheless. The movie was about some illegal immigrants to Australia and their attempt to survive in the bush after getting dropped off on a beach from Indonesia. It sounded like a great plotline, but the movie was a disappointment. Afterwards, I went home to get packed and sleep for our 4 am departure time the next morning for Alice Springs.
In Alice Springs, we went to the Center for Appropriate Technology, an organization run by aboriginals to provide technology and support for lifestyle improvements for aboriginal communities. Mostly, this organization designs and provides solar powered electricity systems for rural communities. It was very interesting to hear their managing engineer talk about the challenges of providing a system that could withstand fairly harsh weather conditions and require little to no maintenance. It’s almost funny to hear them talk about finding old photovoltaic (PV) systems (solar power system) that have stopped working and have since been put to use for other means – like using the panels for a table, or using the batteries as anchors, etc. It’s also very interesting to me how one goes about teaching someone how to use and maintain a system that just supplies power for an outlet…without knowing what is actually going on to make that power. I realize that a lot of people don’t really know how electricity works, but teaching someone using representative pictoral symbols and communicating in broken English would be an extreme challenge. We saw their display of other appropriate technology like water heaters, water pumps for wells, low maintenance latrines, and other equipment designed for these rural bush communities.
Supposedly Alice Springs’ water supply is predicted to run dry in 65 years. That was the only other interesting thing that we informed about in Alice. We took a 6 hour bus ride to Ayers Rock, stopping along the way to give people a chance to ride camels and see a wallaby or two. The camels were very interesting, especially the way their reigns are connected. Instead of a harness, they pierce the camels’ nostril and tie a rope to the piercing, making the camel follow whoever’s controlling the reign connected to the inside of their nose. They appeared very ornery but I couldn’t tell if it was because of the way they were being treated or they’re just like that in general. Also, it was crazy to see their hind legs that have a hip, a knee that bends like a bird’s (forward), a lower knee that bends like a human’s (backwards), and an ankle. I didn’t ride one but was jealous of my cousin John Joe’s all day ride in Morocco wearing a turbine, whereas this ride was for only for 100 yards.
The stars on the first night at the Ayers Rock Resort were pretty amazing, there was a dune nearby that perched us above most of the lights in the little town. After everybody went to bed, me and a buddy just sat up there talking about how so many people miss out on the relieving freshness that living in nature brings. Camping and hiking become rejuvenating to those who appreciate it. The Milky Way is oh so present from that viewpoint, a huge cloud of stars almost like a rainbow across the sky. It was weird not to see Orion’s Belt and the North Star, but instead the Southern Cross and Scorpio. Quite a few shooting stars with far fewer satellites than I’m used to seeing. Last ones to go to bed and first ones to get up for the sunrise, I’d heard that sunrise and sunset are the main attractions at Uluru. I guess as it is with any desert, there’s literally no chance of rain and very little clouds to obstruct the view. They said that the rain is very erratic in those parts, some years raining 20 inches in two storms and zero rain for a couple years thereafter. We went to the Cultural Center on Thursday morning to hear a talk from one of the rangers. It was surprising to find out that, after the area became a National Park, the landscape became dangerous from the European way of land management, as they didn’t practice the regular fire control like the aborigines were accustomed to. Because they put out every fire that started in the park, the undergrowth became a dangerous amount of fuel and proceeded to wipe most of the park out in a 1978 fire started by lightning. Because they hadn’t continued to burn sections regularly, they in essence shot themselves in the foot by providing enough fuel for the fire to be uncontrollable. In the aboriginal fire practices, burning occurs at a slow enough level that most trees and fire activated seeds live through the flame. But with increased fuel, nothing could withstand the heat and the park was nearly wiped clean. From then on, the park management realized that putting the traditional owners of the land back in charge would be the best option for managing the habitat. Also, the huge rock formation, formerly known as Ayers Rock but now being called by its original name Uluru, is a sacred place that no aborigine climbs. Conversely, most of the people who come to Uluru come to climb the rock, a 248 m monolith, the largest in the world. The rock is a unique, red sandstone looking giant, continuing another 4-6 km into the ground. The rock is almost smooth, with ribs and ridges that appear to sanded by a glacier or something. The crazy thing is that, while there are markings from water flows, most of the water flows haven’t cut into the rock like we normally see because there is so little rain throughout the year. From afar, it appears like a uniform rock rising out of the outback. Up close, it’s much more textured and has ridges, holes, caves, and valleys. The crazy thing is that where the sides of the rock plunge into the ground, there is little evidence that it is eroding. The flat red sand runs up to the rock just like water would to an iceberg, no piles of sand or rock at the sides. It’s also interesting to find out the history of tourism in the area. Before 1960, few people came to see the natural formations in the area. Following that, people came to climb the rock and that was about it. They told us that many Japanese tourists still fly in for the day just to climb. But now, as the Australian culture is coming to respect and appreciate the aboriginal culture, people are buying shirts that say “I did NOT climb the rock” instead of those from days of old that said the opposite. I could definitely have spent more time there, but for some reason we had to rush back to the hotel to eat lunch and have free time. In the evening, we went back out to the sunset viewing area with a bunch of other tourists who were having cheese and wine as the sun set. We were between the rock and the setting sun, watching to rock to see the changes in color as the sun’s rays change the way they hit the face. There were clouds on the horizon, so we were able to see the changes in color until the clouds blocked the sun out for the most colorful part. Looking back over my pictures, though, you can definitely see the different moods of Uluru in the span of 45 minutes.
This morning we woke up early to go out to Kata Tjuta, or The Olgas, for sunrise. These huge domes of rock are the only other real geographical feature of the area, 34 round rocks that are about 500 m tall. The previous day, the ranger said the hikes around there were the best in Central Australia and recommended we do them. So I prepared for our outing to be hiking, only to find out we were going to a viewing spot for sunrise and then driving back. I was frustrated that we were so close to being able to hike but didn’t have time to due to some poor planning by our director. It was awesome to see the sunrise from that perspective though, I certainly can’t complain.
We arrived in Sydney yesterday afternoon and unpacked into our one person dorm rooms. We’re on a main road south of Sydney by about 20 minute drive, 30 minute walk to the nearest beach in Coogee. I ran there today in about 15 minutes, but I’m not sure where the best surfing will be yet. I got lucky and have access to free (albeit spotty and slow) wireless internet in my room, so I did some research on the bus system and used surfing equipment (board and wetsuit). It’s weird not to be rushed by a timer cutting you off like I’ve been living with for the last month. It’s definitely a welcome break from constant use of computers, but when you need to do research for a new place or for school, it makes things so much easier to flip open your laptop. We were playing pool in the game room tonight and talking about how the kid who’s always recording on his video camera is probably not going to look at his videos until he gets bored when he’s 42, at which point he’ll pull out his 20 year old laptop and see if it works. For me, the aged piece of technology that we always pulled out was the silver VHS video recorder box – it must’ve looked like the news crew was doing a special every time mom taped one of my baseball games.
I’m looking forward to spending some time in Sydney, I foresee a really busy three weeks ahead. We’ve got two field trips this week, and I’m probably going to take weekend trips for both of the upcoming weekends. The pope will be in town next week for World Youth Day/Week, supposedly the largest event that Sydney has ever hosted (according to a catholic girl on our trip). This morning, I went with some friends to a church called Hillsong, a very contemporary worship based church down the road from the university. It was much like the mega church Buckhead that I’ve been to in Atlanta, and it was ironic that the guest pastor was from Baton Rouge and told jokes for most of the sermon, even showing funny pictures of what life is like in the “Dirty South,” as he referred to it. He showed a guy lying in a swimming pool in the back of his pickup, a guy at a nascar race with the #3 shaved into his back hair (I’ve seen that!), a Cajun’s first kiss which was a little girl kissing a pig, a doorbell that was the hind of a deer where the button beneath his tail, those kinds of things. It was good standup comedy but certainly more than I’m used to. He did make good points though about being generous, of which I need to learn to be more of. I feel like what I’m learning in school here, though, is pulling me in the opposite direction. Let me explain – I asked our professor (who’s household grid power usage is 70% lower than the average Sydney household) how one differentiates between being frugal with energy and just being plain stingy or cheap. He made a good point that he’s not living a different lifestyle because of his new energy sources, he just had to make some conscious decisions about where that energy is coming from and how its used. Now that statement should come with a note because he has certainly helped mold his family’s habits so they use less energy. That difference is something that I think takes stealth and some understanding on the people participating in the energy savings because it is indeed realistically possible to pay less, use less energy, and live the same with a little coercing, it just needs to be done in the right way. I guess by stealth I mean solving problems in early steps, so people don’t have to think about them. For example, when my mom came to visit my apartment in Atlanta during Spring 2007, I asked them not to use the heat because Nate and I were trying to keep from using the heat or air for the whole semester (for costs reasons , but I suppose you could say we were energy conscious, even if it for stingy reasons). Now if we could have somehow found a way to add insulation to the walls instead of asking my mom to use a pile of blankets, we would have stealthily found a way to be energy conscious. But instead, we needed to use the heat because the pile of blankets would have been unreasonable for mom’s cold toes. I realize that my mom is worth much more money than I could ever pay, so I should spend whatever necessary to pamper the woman who gave so much of her life for me. But I’m going to try to be able to pamper her in cost effective ways now ;) One of those ways, as it’s recently dawned on me, is massaging her shoulders whenever I get the chance. It takes so little effort and reaps such great benefits, I think I’ve found a great way to say thank you.
posted by Drew at 8:49 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home