Kata Tjuta Encounter

Thursday, November 10


Our afternoon tour of Kata Tjuta didn’t start until 2:30, so we thought we’d sleep in, then get in a visit to the cultural center located in the national park. My eyes flew open at about 9:00 so I spent some time organizing my pictures. I can’t believe how many I have. It’s going to be so hard to decide which ones to print.

At about 11:00, I woke Doug up and took a walk around the resort grounds while he got ready. I had a long phone call with Jo (I haven’t dared calculate the cost of that one) while I enjoyed the breezy weather. We lucked out with the weather on this leg of the trip because it’s unseasonably cool. That means it’s only 90 when it’s usually 105.

We headed off to the cultural center (sorry, no photos allowed) and read a little more about the Anangu people. They have a very interesting relationship with the “whitefellas” that has evolved from combative to collaborative over the years. There are many sacred ceremonies that are gender-specific and are passed down from grandmothers to granddaughters and grandfathers to grandsons. They can’t reveal what these are, of course, because they are secret. I found it all fascinating.

Our Kata Tjuta (the “T” is silent) Encounter tour was led by Jodi, a twentysomething with multiple piercings. There were 10 of us on the tour, which is important because later, when pierced Jodi left 7 of us behind and we were left to tour the area on our own, you can calculate that she didn’t realize she was missing 70% of her group.

Kata Tjuta is the second mountain range in the park, not as famous as Uluru, but just as beautiful. The range used to be called The Olgas after the queen of a German province, but was changed back to its traditional name after the Handback. Our hike was only about 2km, but it was a little more challenging then our base walk because it was all uphill. Kata Tjuta apparently either gets more rain, or does a better job getting the water to the right places because there is a lot of lush greenery, much more so than Uluru. Of course, this is all speculation, because pierced Jodi somehow managed to lose 7/10ths of her group before the climb even began, so there was no color commentary from her.

After the climb, 7 out of 10 tour members who boarded the bus were disgruntled and filling out feedback forms. Jodi was oddly silent during the drive back to the resort. That is, until she abruptly veered the bus off to the side of the road, threw it in reverse, and started barreling backwards down the highway. Calmly she said, “I’ve seen a small animal in the road. I’m going to rescue it.” Then she got out of the bus and ran farther down the road. We all looked at each other and I said, “You know she’s leaving us here.” One of the other guys said, “Yeah. Can anybody drive a stick?”

But, not to fear, pierced Jodi came back and partially redeemed herself by producing one of the Outback’s most interesting specimens: the Thorny Devil.

Dinner was at one of the resort restaurants called the Outback BBQ. It’s a rough and tumble type of place where you cook your own meat. There was a musician there who played acoustic guitar and augmented classics by James Taylor and the Beatles with the gurgling sounds of the didgeridoo.