Postcards Travel Album
Uluru-Kata Tjuta
Australian Druid Assembly

Episode 11, Friday 22 June, 2001

After lunch, we separate - Heather to research at the community library, me to wander. I've seen people watching sunrise from a lookout north of the campground one, and I'd like to find it. I wander the campground, exploring the back tent sections (now open for use), and find a track leading out to the power station. A trail leads from the track over the nearest dune. I follow it, and find myself near the staff residential area, with another track leading off into the distance. I follow it. There are foot- and vehicle-prints in the red sand, but not heaps. I follow one set for a while, gauging speed, age, stride, weight, intent. It is quiet, peaceful, and the birds are active. The ants build all kinds of nests. Eventually I stop and sit for a while, listening, feeling sun. At some point I begin walking again, still tracking this one person, noticing when someone else detours to drink from a honey grevillea, where a wheeled vehicle has covered the prints, stopping every few paces to look all directions. I am very happy.

The track comes out at the Lasseter Hwy/Airport Rd junction. I go back, watching birds, tracking lizards. Back at the campground I find the lookout - it's not official - and sit a bit, then go to my tent and sit a little in the sun. I decide to put off looking at the other tracks that way, and instead go to catch the resort shuttle to the two lookouts I haven't yet seen. The driver asks me where I'm going, and I say "the camel depot". He tells me it is closed, but I explain about the lookouts. He drives along, pointing out shortcut tracks, entry point to the closer one, and drops me at the base of the farther. They are both nice, with no resort to mar the view. There is also a war memorial there. I take the shortcut track back, very happy, and then off on another reserve track I haven't been on, and then up to the central lookout for sunset.

It occurs to me, walking on one of the far roads, how happy I feel, and that I haven't been under a roof for more than three hours a day, and that this may not be a coincidence.