Paradise on Mars

In my most recent job interview, my future boss asked me my proudest accomplishment of my entire life. I replied with the following: since I left home on a whim, I’ve been able to maintain a current resume and support myself wherever my journey has taken me. For two and a half years I’ve kept myself stable enough that when when shit hits the fan and life drops the hammer like there’s no tomorrow, I can grit my teeth, power through it, and know that despite everything, it’s going to be all right.

Never has that been so true for me as in the current moment: in the space of two weeks my trust has been broken more times than I can count. A dodgy mechanic did a dodgy job, my car broke down, my computer crashed, I lost my driver’s license, and my travel partner forfeited the (rather large) bond I put on our rental car.

And yet, somehow, I’ve found myself now in the middle of an alien paradise.

I left Melbourne behind, along with the freezing-ass cold Victorian winter, a week after finishing work. My current road trip’s partner in crime, Edu, hails from the Canary Islands and

gives a whole new meaning to the idea of “laid back.” It’s probably a demeanor I would benefit learning from, although it completely throws off the game of systematic efficiency I’ve developed for myself over a year of working with kids in the bush. That being said, when you find someone who orders the exact same coffee, grabs the exact same chocolate from the shelf and shares your opinion that Dominos is poison, it’s bound to be a good trip.

The drive north is fast. We cut out of Melbourne and across Victoria, turning north when we reach Adelaide and leaving the southern winter behind us. Gumtree forests give way to deep shrubbery as we head north. The Flinders Ranges parallel our righthand side, treeless peaks and drainages rising from the plains as a living vertical relief map.

The sea’s salty tang washes through the air as we pass through Port Agusta, continuing onto the Stuart Highway and into the outback. Ubiquitous low sage-green bushes scatter across rust-red earth as far as I can see in every direction. Single trees- those that have somehow managed to survive- stand silhouetted on the horizon miles in the distance.

I’m pretty sure it’s flatter than Iowa.

We drive past flocks of emus.

We stop to let cows cross the road.

We pass car after rusty abandoned car, windshields blown out, hoods crumpled by kangaroos.

And we walk out onto Lake Hart’s endless salty expanses, layer upon layer of white crystals encrusting an occasional errant branch or lonely engine part, in an endless natural graveyard gleaming under a setting sun.

 The full moon rises behind us as we finish our evenings’ drives, casting silver light across the bush, illuminating it to the point where we barely need headlamps. A massive planet hangs high and bright above the horizon.

Road trains blast through the night, dull rumble touching utter silence from miles away and crescendoing to an ear-shattering scream as the monster trucks flood their paths with lights. The trucks– towing up to five monster trailers– are the kings of long-haul in the outback. Entire frame lined with red and amber lights, armed with monster bull bars, they continue north after dark as smaller vehicles cease activity… because when a car gets into a fight at 130 with a kangaroo (or a camel, or a cow), the roo will ALWAYS win.

Further north, toward the outback mining town of Coober Pedy, the earth gleams a deep, dark metallic silver in the sun’s glare. Everything except low, sparse grass and scrub has disappeared.

Next to the road, kangaroo skins lie desiccated over bones rather than rotting, and monster eagles feast without fear on those carcasses not yet claimed by the heat. The air is so dry that flies seek moisture in the corners of our eyes. Conical piles of white earth dot the landscape in every direction as we near Coober Pedy, passing through what might otherwise be Mars on Earth.

The town itself, covered in dust of various shades of red and white, is the center of opal mining in Australia. Nothing here appears to be new, not even the bikes the locals race down the streets, popping wheelies down the main tourist drag. Dark, rusted machinery rises halfhazardly through town. Shops keep doors shut tight against the sun, even in winter. Half the buildings have even been built underground, for the sole purpose of escaping the 45 degree summer sun.

North of Coober Pedy, the landscape changes. Red earth dotted with golden grass stretches before us, brightened by the occasional gold burst of a wattle plant. Closer to the Northern Territory mesas rise from the land, flat tops and sheer red walls swooping to meet the plains.

We cross broad, bare drainages washed with chalky white as we approach Alice Springs, and river beds cut deep beneath shallow bridges. Mountains begin to rise in black silhouettes on the horizon, and the vegetation returns to the land once more, creating a red and gold and green expanse.

In Alice Springs we swap our rentals, taking a campervan four hours’ drive southeast into an area best known as the “Red Center.”

We drive into magic.

The land here bursts with color: last year’s exorbitant amount of rain has turned this winter green and vibrant. Golden grass rises in clusters from intense rust-red earth. Slender, whispy trees rise like clouds from the red land in Australia’s incarnation of truffula trees. Flowers have begun to bloom as winter approaches: tiny purple-blue peas accent low shrubs and soft hairs shield pale pink blossoms. Crimson berries, pale violet and bright, airy white blossoms all add color to the land. Bright yellow (poisonous) paddymelons scatter the side of the road.

 

We glimpse Uluru just after the sun dips below the horizon, and as we approach our campsite the rock begins to glow deep maroon and purple against the sky’s pale lavender wash.

The next day we watch the sun rise from the rust-red dunes which nestle our little bush camp, bathing Uluru in deep rosy light, before heading into the park.

Uluru is a little over six miles in circumference. The rock is so huge that, up close, it’s impossible for my brain to comprehend just how freaking tall it is. Deep orange walls swoop upward from the ground in undulating tracks and troughs, forming a living history in stone. Black algae marks thousands of years of waters’ path, plunging from bowl to bowl before plummeting to meet the red earth. Gorges sweep together to form deep, striated valleys. Crusted flakes blanket the rock, giving infinitely more depth to a formation that appeared so smooth on approach. In places, the rock curls in onto itself in long, slender, shallow caves- sometimes filled to brimming in art, sometimes with just a corner or column painted. In one place, a tall, slender column rises rom the ground, entirely separated from the main formation itself.

 

For the traditional owners, every crack– every crevice– every pile of boulders– tells a history and has significance. That they elect to share some of their stories with us is an honor, and the brisk wind curling around the rock somehow adds to the depth of meaning held here in the land.

In the evening, the sun emerges from clouds above the horizon to turn the entire rock into a deep, blazing orange.

__________

The Olgas, in the same park as Uluru, are so entirely different in character and physicality: a compacted conglomerate of stones of mixed orange and red and black, baked together and worn by wind since they’ve been uplifted. The rock glows from the shadows with such an intensity you could easily believe it holds a molten core. The labyrinth of rock curls into gorges and canyons where deep pocketed walls rise out of sight above me. The rocks lining my path shine with smooth, gleaming surfaces, as though they’ve been through an oven, for thousands of years, baked on the earth’s surface day after day, summer and winter and summer and winter and over again.

Where rock meets land, deep green waves of vegetation rise to drink moisture as it pours down from the domes, waters’ path betrayed by black algae streaking the firey rock. In one specific canyon between formations, intense green vegetation crowds the canyon floor in a telltale sign of exactly where water runs. Either vegetation exists or it doesn’t…. in this case, there’s no such thing as a spectrum.

I feel like I’ve stepped into some mashup between Mars and Star wars.

On our last day, we drive north to King’s Canyon, where sandstone rises in a sheer geological oracle of millions of years past, layer upon layer of changing wind cemented into thousands upon thousands of angled lines.

Morning light catches the sandstone and turns it the deep color of rusted blood as we hike to the canyon’s rim. On the plains atop the canyon, honeycomb domes of layered rock rise in an ordered labyrinth, the product of titanic cracks worn down by wind and water. “The Lost City,” they’re called. Inside side gorges and valleys vegetation rises in waves, giving telltale sign to shaded south-facing and sunny north-facing walls. In places the sea’s ripples have been preserved in the sandstone, telling stories of a time of bountiful water and little life. From the top, we look south over the Northern Territory’s expanse of blazing plains.

The canyon itself opens into a sheer, yawning V. Steep walls drop deep into gorges, shadow stark next to sun, bottoms crowded with effervescent green and piled with monster boulders. Shining white eucalypts rise from dry rocky stream beds, marking the water’s path in time of flood.

A water hole nestled in a deep, orange striated bowl, sacred to the traditional owners, waits for us in a place referred to as the “Garden of Eden.” A cool breeze ruffles the water. Olive green songbirds flit amongst white eucalypts and clustered palms. Branches clack against the rock overhead, but somehow they don’t break the place’s deep, penetrating peace.

Water is Life, they say here.

I hold that feeling of peace as we walk back to the car, and on the drive home the next day… And as I move forward, I know that everything is going to be ok.