Silence

I haven't written in what seems to be a long time. There is not a particular reason for this period of silence, other than my trip itself. Since my last post, I spent a morning hiking The Olgas, left for Cairns, spent time in the Daintree and scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, made my war south to the Gold Coast, where I am at the moment. I only have 2 more nights in Australia before I start travelling the South Pacific.

The Olgas, Kata Tjuta ("many heads"), are as amazing as Uluru, Ayers Rock, but in a different way. They are not majestic and powerfully isolated, they are inviting and protective. The many heads, made of the same almost Martian sandstone as Uluru, the depressions between them are lush and fresh -at east at this time of the years, after some rains- and open up into beautiful flatlands.

I went there very early to watch the sun rising besides Uluru and, then, spent a couple hours hiking The Olgas by myself. I was the first one and didn't cross anyone else until I got to the end of my walk.

I really liked Cairns. It's a shame I didn't spent longer there, but there are so many things to see and do. I spent 3 days in the Daintree and Cape Tribulation National Parks -a tropical rainforest by the sea. And to the sea I went afterwards. 5 days on a diving boat. It was intense and tiring, but most of all it was fantastic and I enjoyed it a lot. I met some very nice, interesting people on the boat, which made the whole thing even better. Maybe the only negative element was that the sea got rougher after the first two days andirons got a little bit sick at night. The ground was still rocking for a couple of days after disembarking.

From Cairns, I made my way to Surfers Paradise. The weather isn't great. It's raining on and off and the temperature hasn't gone beyond 23°. I feel I'm not in the Australian Gold Coast but somewhere in Europe, suffering the current wintery spring (I don't think anyone is going to complain this year about the weather being to hot in the summer).

Surfers Paradise has been a surprised. I haven't done too much surfing. Not very good waves at the moment. On top of that, after the first morning surfing I felt rather tired and sort of decided to use my last days in Australia to relax and prepare for the rest of my trip -I had to do some laundry.

Surfers is a bit like Miami and like Benirdorm and we are in the low season, so it's half awake and the rythm is melow, if not melancholic. In some respects, it's the perfect setting for a couple of relaxing days.

Also in the plus side, I have met some interesting people here.

On my trip from Cairns to Surfers, I realised that contrary to what I was expecting when I started this trip, I won't miraculously find a reason, an idea, a feeling that would allow me to understand the last few months. There is not such thing, nothing is going to click, there is no a whole picture, a clearer view. There is nothing more than what happened and the way it happened.

I'm midway my trip. This is the 8th week out of 15. I'm still excited -I'm very excited about going to the South Seas-, but in a relaxed way. I now truly feel I have time and come to realise that I can do and organise what I'm doing along the way. As a matter of fact, I make the way as I travel.

It'll be sad to leave Australia. I wish I had more time. I will come back, in some form or other. There are places I want to see again and so many I haven't seen. I leave full of good memories, happy I had the chance to see my friends in Melbourne and Sydney and the new friends I've made along the way. And I have discovered the Australian aboriginal contemporary art, which I still find mesmerising and amazing, intriguing and much more vital than most of the contemporary art I know.

How frequently I will update from Saturday will depend on how easily I can access the Internet. How knows, maybe I won't be able at all in Vanuatu or will find a free wifi network in every town. I'll let you know as I go along.

Uluru

Uluru is stunning, majestic, serene and somewhat alien -as a rock fallen to Earth from Mars.

No wonder the aboriginal Australians consider Uluru sacred and there are so many mythological stories around it.

Today, as I walked around its base, it felt like a cathedral at times.

I have taken more than 100 pictures of it. Lots last evening, at sunset, partly trying to capture it, partly playing with my camera's settings. I have taken just a few today -I have sort of given up trying to capture it with my camera, so I could capture it with my senses.

Tomorrow, I'll get up at 5.45 am again, to go and see the sunrise on The Olgas/Kata Tjuta, and walk around the area. 

Sunday, I fly out to Cairns. 

Ayers Rock Resort, the town close to the National Park that serves as camp base for the tourists -as a matter of fact, that is its only reason of existence- is a strange place. It's so clearly artificial and not far from an amusement park's resort.

The only negative aspect is the billions and billions of flies -I wonder if they are some kind of aboriginal retribution for all those people climbing Uluru. 

Darwin

I stayed two nights in Darwin: one night at each end of my 4-day tour camping around the 3 National Parks close to the city (Kakadu, Katherine Gorge, Litchfield).

Darwin is new and modern. It still has the feel of a frontier outpost, somewhat provisional and earnest. I was almost surprised to find myself in the humid and hot weather of the tropics (25 degrees at 7 am) but not finding the sensuality and music I always associate with it -I am far from  Latin America and Africa.

It's an English tropic, as Australia is, in many aspects, a version of England and the UK. At times, it is striking how culturally close the Australians are to the English, in spite of the distance -but thanks to the immigration history of the country.

I enjoyed a stroll around the centre. Liked the "neo-art-deco" building of the Northern Territory Parliament. Visited the local Museum and Art Gallery -I already know that one of the things in taking with me from this trip is this new fascination with Australian Aboriginal art. 

I went out that night. It was Friday. The pubs were full and everyone was in a party mood. Leisure around alcohol with all what's good and bad about it. The centre looked like an English town on a Friday night, with streets fights and all the rest. 

There's a gay club in Darwin. It was more interesting than fun. Some drag queens still hooked to Priscilla and taking themselves too seriously. I'm fascinated by all forms of trans and gender-bending, but these girls were hardly camp -the were missing the point. A more than fair amount of  women of all orientation. Not many more men: some probably gay, others with women very close to their side. How did that work, I didn't stay to find out, although my queer post-structuralist self was more than curious. However, I had to be up and ready by 7 am the following day.

The camping tour was good, but I wouldn't say it was my favourite part of the trip. I truly enjoyed some things, like the falls and ponds of Lichfield NP (and the only decent eye-candy of the whole tour), the rock art in Kakadu, the Karherine Gorge, the wide horizons of the dry forest and the creeks and billabongs extending as far as the eye could see. However, not an empty landscape: it's full of aboriginal mythological stories, the failures of the white pioneers, and animals: crocodiles, wallabies, wild boars, wild horses and donkeys, dingos, birds, snakes and lizards, insects.

The camping was a notch above basic: we slept on beds in permanent tents. It many aspects it wasn't much different from the surf camp, if it wasn't for the absence of a beach and my fellow campers.

We were only three, plus the guide. The other two were an middle-age English couple from Kent. Nice and polite, and very middle-class. The guide was a more interesting character: a woman in her late 40s, three-time married, tough as a bloke. A real frontier woman, with pink and purple hair, and marching nail polish. She wouldn't stop talking about herself and using superlatives, but she wasn't annoying. She clearly enjoys her job and loves the area. 

I have made similar trips to this, and couldn't help comparing all the time. Maybe I have travelled too much.

I am now on the Ghan, going from Darwin to Alice Springs, on my way to Uluru. It's a nice trip. I love travelling by train -It's about the journey, not the destination. 

We have made a somewhat useless for me stop in Kathrine, for people to visit the Gorge. Hadn't we stopped, the trip would be about 4 hours shorter than its almost 24 hours. I used the stop wisely: wrote some postcards, found out why my eldest sister wasn't getting hers, took a nap, wrote some more.

I had an unexpectedly enjoyable lunch with two ladies. We talked about travelling, immigrating to Australia, love in times of war (one of them married during the Vietnam War, when her husband was at Chine Beach). 

Dinner and breakfast weren't as enjoyable, but still entertaining. It's a very social and friendly train ride, and Australians are open and naturally interested on the outside world.

We are about to arrive to Alice Springs. I'm spending just a few hours there, probably at the local art galleries. 

The landscape has changed, but not dramatically. After 1500 kilometres, I'm still not in the Red Centre. 

Time

I have completely lost track of time. I truly don't know what day of the week I'm living. To be more precise, I should say I can't feel it, because if I make the effort (of checking my phone) I easily find out what day it is today. However, it feels so good. After these days at the surf camp, I have come to relax in a way I hadn't in many, many years. I follow a simpler routine of early rises at dawn and bedtimes by 9.30pm, three meals a day, one or two daily surf sessions and little more, which combined with the bliss and tiredness I feel after each surf session, have taken me to something that feels like inner peace. I'm chilled, I hang loose.
Will I stay in this calm place once I live the surf camp? Can't say. Hope not. I'll do some more surfing later this months and maybe later in the trip -want to try surfing on a reef break.
Still two days to go. Going back to Sydney on Wednesday for two days. Afterwards, I travel north to Darwin and the Kakadu National Park (trekking and camping for 4 days). I'll see the outback -lots of it.
Disregard the lyrics, it's the music, its cadence and rhythm (no, I haven't smoked anything, and hardly drunk a beer or two in the evenings): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAshOzRGrBw

Lucky

Looking out to the horizon, on a calm sea, waiting for the next sets of good waves -not few, but a tad too far between, I remembered "Break Point". That movie from when Keanu Reeves was the hottest man alive. I think I must have seen it a dozen times. Basically because of him and his grey T-shirt. However, I guess that what really remained in my head was the surfing and that's probably the main reason I took it up "this late in my career" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32uhQhJeP7o).
I am so happy I did. Today was my best surfing day so far and I felt so happy in the water and still do now. I will be at the surf camp for another 5 days and I'm sure I'll have one more day like today -and a few others almost as good.
Not only that, surfing is taking me to do things I wouldn't have do otherwise, as staying at a surf camp, where I double the age of most of my fellow campers. The good thing is that the only way forward, after the shock on arrival, was to relax and make the most of it. I'm almost starting to like it, in spite the loo is 50 metres from my shared dorm and food is far from organic, sugar-free, low-carbs, etc. It's refreshing at the end. I even played a drinking game the other night with a bunch of Northern Europeans in their late teens and early twenties. Didn't stay 'till the end, though, and went to bed early and mostly sober -I'm sleeping about 10 hours each night.
I don't feel like a melancholic fool, despite my earlier quote and song. I feel lucky.
Danced this three times on ANZAC Day eve in Sydney, so, of the few songs currently in my head, it's the right one to post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NV6Rdv1a3I