Ironwood

An ironwood tree at dusk with a crescent moon behind it.  The Europeans used the hard, termite-resistant wood for building.  The aborigines used the wood for weapons.

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Sanctuary

In Alice Springs, went to a kangaroo sanctuary run by a guy name Brolga (a 6’7″ Aussie who got his nickname from a type of tall, slender bird.)There are 50 million kangaroos in Australia, compared to only 25 million humans.Most of the kangaroos at the sanctuary were rescued from the pouches of female kangaroos killed by cars.  The muscles around the marsupial pouch often protect the joey from the impact and they can live for several days after the mother is killed.The collective noun for a kangaroos is a “mob”.(The sun started setting at this point, which is why all the following pictures continue my trend of the worst wildlife photography you have ever seen.)Kangaroos are often found clustered around water sources.  They lick their arms to cool themselves.Male kangaroos can emasculate(!) or eviscerate a grown man with their toe nail.  Like a velociraptor.The collective noun for kangaroos is a “mob”.Although only migrating to the continent relatively recently (in the last 4,0o0 years), the dingo is the natural predator of the kangaroo.Mothers consume all the excreta of their joeys so that dingos don’t pick up their scent.Kangaroos sleep during the say, curled under trees, and become active at night.  The best thing you can do to not hit a kangaroo with a car is to not drive at night.Water vapor from car exhaust often means the only strip of green grass in the Outback lies along either sides of the highway, compounding the problem.A pillowcase can be used to simulate the cosiness of a mother’s pouch.  Kangaroo welfare groups encourage people to keep a pillow case in their car and check for joeys in the pouches of kangaroo killed on the road.I hate selfies, but…

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Priscilla

About 4000 kilometers (2500 miles-ish) and five states & territories later, I’ve made it from Sydney to Alice Springs, thus completing my The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert route.

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Excess

INXS was playing in the lobby as I checked out of the Ayers Rock Resort, of course.  Still peak Australia.

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Idiot

Years of study and what was the most useful thing I learned in film school?  The dolley counter zoom?  No.  The Kuleshov Effect?  No.  How to overexpose film stock to create pseudo-solarization?  No.

Before leaving a location you’ve filmed at, you look around one last time.  Just to check that you’re not leaving anything behind.  Just to be sure.  It’s called the “idiot check”.

Every time I leave a hotel room, I make one last “idiot check”.  It has always served me well.

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Nausica

This pass in Kata Tjuta is known as the Valley of the Winds.And, yes, the wind blows through the pass & the trees mellifluously.

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Bornhardt

The local Pitjantjatjara people  call this rock formation Kata Tjuta, but it is also known as “The Olgas” because in 1873 the tallest peak was christened  Mt. Olga after  Queen Olga of Württemberg (daughter of Tsar Nicholas I.)Unlike Uluru, which is an inselberg, Kata Tjuta are bornhardts.

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Cladodes

One of the shifts in environment that I noticed driving to Uluru from the South Australia was the how tangled shrubbery gave way to these trees, which looked to me to be some sort of pine.  However, I learned that they are in fact desert oaks and what I had mistaken for pine needles were actually something called a “cladode” which means a “flattened leaf-like stem” from the Greek word kladōdēs meaning “with many shoots”.

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Dawn

Looking out at the southeastern face of Uluru with the sun just starting to rise behind me.Just off to the left, in the far distance, you can see Kata Tjuta which is the other major rock formation in this otherwise flat national park.I have judiciously cropped the teaming masses of tourists out of the above pictures, but this sign rubbed me the wrong way.  #VisitUluru.  Yuck.  What have I done?

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Silhouette

The silhouette of Uluru from the northwest with the sun just about to rise behind it.

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Buddy

My sister once told me, “I know Orion!  He’s my buddy!  He comes out for my birthday!”  Nice to see something familiar in a usually unfamiliar sky.

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Going

Looking out at the northwest face of Uluru with the sun setting behind me.Going…Going…Gone.

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Beelzebub

I always have two thoughts when I’m watching movies set in The Outback:

  • Man, they sure do like cutting to shots of lizards
  • Why does everyone have flies on their faces all the time?

I now have answers:

  • The lizards are crazy-lookin’
  • The flies are fucking obnoxious and relentless and inescapable

Plus, I finally understand the absurd cork hats that swagmen and jackaroos wear.  The Bruces have got it right.

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Sacred

Uluru is sacred to the local Aṉangu tribe, the Pitjantjatjara people, and the site’s creation & texture are accounted for in their myths.A chain was hammered into the rock in 1964 to aid Westerners in climbing to the top, even though climbing Uluru is forbidden by Aṉangu tradition.  (Actor Sam Neill can even be seen climbing the rock here toward the beginning of Meryl Streep’s 1988 “dingo ate my baby” movie A Cry in the Dark.)As irreligious as I’ve become, it still galls me that people would come onto someone else’s land and intentionally violate the native’s sacred prohibitions.

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Rules

You can’t tag me because I’m touching Uluru and Uluru is safe.

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