Breathe, breathe in the air
Set your intentions
Dream with care
Tomorrow is a new day for everyone . . .
It was day 2 of our 6-day Larapinta trek. A light frost dusted the tents and the desert air was very fresh. After our delightful wake-up call, followed by hot coffee and a hearty cooked breakfast everyone was in fine spirits for our 9km walk.
We continued west in brilliant sunshine on trails where the rocks glowed like great chunks of gold. Bloodwoods and ironwoods are the dominant trees here. We were starting to see signs of the huge wildfire that spread through the national park in January this year, coming perilously close to one of the camps. Fortunately no-one was injured (it was the off-season for trekkers) and there was no property damage, but many trees were reduced to ash. In the ensuing days we were to see the full extent of the devastation.
We came to the dry riverbed of Roe Creek, with magnificent red river gums, many of which have endured for centuries.
Ahead was Simpson’s Gap, carved out of the West MacDonnell ranges by ancient watercourses, and the home of goanna ancestors in Aboriginal mythology. There’s a permanent waterhole here dwarfed by towering red quartzite cliffs.
Rick, ever the eagle-eyed hunter, spotted one of the elusive rock wallabies as we gazed up in awe at nature’s cathedral.
From Simpson’s Gap we were transferred by bus to the Standley Chasm reserve, which is owned by descendants of the Aboriginal people who have lived in this region for thousands of years. At the entrance to the reserve there’s a café and souvenir shop which narrowly escaped the fire.
Standley Chasm is an important cultural site for Aboriginal women of the Arrernte tribe. It is named in honour of Mrs Ida Standley who was the first school teacher in Alice Springs in 1914. She was apparently the first non-Aboriginal woman to visit this sacred site. These days visitors can listen to cross-cultural presentations, and take part in bush tucker tours, art workshops and language classes. It was wonderful to see the respect shown by our young guides for the Aboriginal culture.
We were guided by a man called Kevin, who has the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. He took us along the 1.2km trail which follows the creek-bed to the chasm. We hadn’t gone far before the fire damage was evident. Whole hillsides had been ravaged, and the trail blocked with fallen gum trees, but there were also little pockets completely unaffected. I was startled to learn that the track had later been partly cleared by teams of prisoners wielding chainsaws.
Kevin showed us how to place an ear next to a gum tree trunk to hear the bubbling of underground water through the tree’s xylem. He pointed out the cycads, ancient plants that very closely resemble those found in Cretaceous and Jurassic times, when there were large inland seas and lakes and the climate was cooler and wetter. The cycads, some belonging to a species only found in Australia, were severely affected by the fire, and it was heartening to already see signs of regeneration.
Earlier at Simpson’s Gap we had quickly run out of superlatives to describe what we’d seen and so at Standley Chasm where the sun and shadows played on the sheer cliffs rising 80 metres above us, I was content to simply absorb this astonishing natural wonder.
Guide one of the ‘stolen generation’After strolling back along the trail to the visitor centre, Kevin gave us a presentation about the history of the area and an overview of indigenous culture. He spoke of his early childhood experiences which are utterly horrifying to contemplate now.
For decades, it had been government policy to remove children of mixed descent from their Aboriginal mothers so they could be “civilised”. The fathers of these children were itinerant European, Afghan and Chinese men, who were cameleers, rail workers, pastoral labourers, telegraph station workers and casual tourists. They abandoned their families and left them destitute.
Kevin was taken at about age 8 years (many children were only aged 3 or 4), along with some of his siblings, and sent to a European missionary school to be taught Christianity, although ‘brain-washed’ was the word he used. There are many sad stories now coming to light of the “stolen generation”.
That evening in camp we were a little subdued after our thought-provoking afternoon. Wandering past the kitchen area, I asked what was for dinner. Did they need any help? I was shooed away and told “all will be revealed”.
The “big reveal” became a fun nightly ritual at dinner-time. The heavy iron pots were carefully lifted from the fire and the lids came off to drum rolls and cheers. The general consensus was, especially among the foodies in the group, that no-one would be game to attempt such culinary feats in our own homes for a group of 17 — let alone while camping.
Delectable barramundi was on the menu that night, individually wrapped in foil with butter and herbs. Most of the other meals are a blur now — all I can remember is the food on our whole trip was phenomenally good.
