Journeying South in the viral age .2

Part 2 Days 7 – 9

The Journey so far…

Kings Canyon Watarrka is Luritja and Aarrente land. The places we have visited to the south around Uluru and Katatjuta were on Anangu Land Yankunytjatjara and Pitjantjatjara people are custodians of that place their territories in South Australia been collectively known as APY Lands. In the desert tribal lands cover a large area, resources are scarce, distances vast and populations were traditionally geographically distanced. I find it impossible to walk on this land without imagining the enormous skill it would have taken to survive out here! This is a land that whispers and is full of surprises. I cannot travel through this land without being affected by something very deep within the heart of the land itself, in every rock and tree… Wisdom and power lie within the cool water pools that are hidden between rocks. Eyes watch always.

Leaving the Kings Canyon Resort I pulled off the main road and turned the engine off at Lilla. I did not enter the community, it had been 25 years, nobody there would know me. I stood for a few minutes in the silence and remembered my experience in that place, the people, the land, the stories… The sacred water. I breathed deeply, smiled, felt the cool air on my skin, climbed back in the cab of the van and set off back down the road headed for Trephina Gorge in the East MacDonnell ranges.

Trephina Gorge bluff camp ground! A1 number best spot to camp. Caravans not allowed! This was the final camp for our little gang. Two nights in a beautiful quiet spot surrounded by high cliffs of red sandstone on the bank of a dry river bed. We spent two good days just hanging out, resting, singing, walking. Sitting on the trunk of enormous river Redgums sharing our space with budgerigars. This was the perfect place to end our journey together.

On our final morning we packed up then made our way down to the river bed to a quiet spot to practice a bit of ephemeral art therapy and meditation/visualisation… at the conclusion of the session we all walked together back to the cars, had a brief huddle to discuss our plans after Alice Springs and set out for the final leg as a group.

In Alice our group separated. Four heading back to Darwin, one to Newcastle NSW (Now in lockdown) and myself two days in Alice before setting off on an Greyhound for Adelaide S.A. a little sad and a little glad to be in my own space with no particular plan.

Rarely have I traveled with a group like this. 6 of us, all with different life experience coming from fairly different backgrounds, of a broad range of ages two men four women. No fights, no arguments, very little friction. God Bless!

This leg… excluding Trephina to Alice… Out here you cannot trust google maps. I did not option the bitumen road we took as an option to get from Kings Canyon. Unfortunately the most direct rout has 100 km of unsealed road in some of the most corrugated and sandy roads in the country… If we’d taken the recommended rout we would likely have been bogged… or our vehicles would have been shaken to pieces… thus we traveled…. the long way round.