Okies in the Outback

G’Day from Down under! It’s fun to think that in writing this from the road, that I’ll be sending my article back into yesterday via email. There is a 19-hour time difference between Oklahoma and Australia, so this is a writer with a deadline’s dream, because my work was due yesterday!

The Good to Go Gang is on the other side of the world on our “Outback to the Glaciers” tour. We flew from Tulsa to Dallas to Los Angeles before making the long haul to Brisbane, Australia and connecting to Cairns. This is the part of the trip that prevents those that want to go “Down under” from going, the travel time. I can’t suggest any way to get here faster, but I do suggest that you see all you can and stay a while once you get there.

Australia is a BIG continent. I saw a map that helped me put it in perspective. On the outline of Australia was the state of Texas and the nations of Germany, Japan, Thailand and South Africa, to name a few. The simplest way to compare, it is roughly the size of the United States. You wouldn’t expect to see the whole USA in two weeks, but we are going to do our best to see as much of “Aussie land” as we can. We started in Cairns to see the Great Barrier Reef. The weather didn’t cooperate with us and we experienced the meaning of “rain” forest. But a few inside activities like hiking in the Mossman Gorge helped us understand the ancient ways of the original Aboriginal people of the area. It seems the conflict of people and powerful governments that want them gone can be found on all sides of the globe.

We continued our adventure with a flight to the heart of the Outback to Uluru, which is the aboriginal name for Ayers Rock. It was dubbed Ayers Rock for Chief Secretary of South Australia, Sir Henry Ayers by explorer Gosse in 1872. I’m not sure what I was expecting, pictures and movies always showed miles of nothing with a big rock sitting there. Since this is Australia’s summer, it was much more green than I expected. Low, scrubby bushes and trees but, still green. The sandy soil reminded me of the red dirt in the western part of Oklahoma and stained our tennis shoes the same. Uluru looks smooth in photos, but actually has bowl-like indentions of various sizes all over the surface. The huge monolith catches rain, the water spills and swirls the face of the sandstone giant looking like an artistic water feature in a terra cotta garden piece. We sipped champagne sitting on camp stools and watched the colors vary as the sun slipped below the horizon. Some of us were there to watch it come up as we plodded across the outback on camels the way visitors have traversed this country for centuries.

While it was snowing in NE Oklahoma, our temperature was about 100 degrees higher at 115. It’s hard to believe people can and still live there. The population is scarce but there has to be at least one thousand flies per person including visitors. We pulled fly nets over our heads and faces and mastered the “Aussie wave” of fanning the pesky insects from in front of our eyes. I didn’t expect that.

We learned how the telegraph changed their world, and a visit to the Royal Flying Doctors museum was evidence of how they try to keep it from changing. With towns and facilities so far apart it certainly takes a network of healthcare and provisions to survive.

It’s a place of extremes. Extremely wet. Extremely dry. Extremely developed. Extremely primitive. But the people are extremely friendly. Their colorful English is so jangled with slang, pet phrases, and shortened words, we can only wonder what they are really saying, but it is said with a smile.

We had dinner in the bush, and the entertainer for the night was working through his set list and discovered we were from Oklahoma. It’s amazing how often the mere mention of our state sets off a rousing chorus of “OOOOOOklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains!”

Maybe this isn’t such a big place after all, they know us here.