Sep 2006

If there's one thing that CAN'T be said about living in Australia despite its being an island, (okay, a continent too)—it’s that no man is an island.

Pardon the political incorrectness for a moment. But this is really what's nice about Australia. Australia is probably one of the sweetest melting pots in the world, a point of convergence for cultures and peoples who wish to live harmoniously. Just go out on any busy market street or any of the teeming, warm beaches, and you'll see what we mean. People from all over the world being friends with everyone else, all differences banished. It's as if everyone just recently got washed ashore with a mission to spread goodwill. Australian immigration is plainly the loveliest there is. Aussies welcome their visitors as if they’ve been waiting for each other the whole time.

Australia is indeed a free country where everyone gets equal opportunity. Lebanese mingling with Brits, Chinese mingling with Italians, Aborigines hanging out with Germans, New Zealanders laugh with Filipinos: it’s a welcome clash of culture. Interestingly, Australia has one of the lowest population density of any country in the world. We’re talking 2 people per square kilometer here.

But so what? Petty statistics isn’t going to stop Aussies and immigrants alike from going over their fences just to holler “G’day, mate!” And oh yeah, have we mentioned Australia, with almost no murder rate, is one of the safest places in the world?

The air is fierce and enjoyably biting, the dust is alive under the wheels of your 4WD, and the vista of beautiful, untamed nature shrieks on your face. Welcome to Australia's outback. Here, at the Back of Beyond. The limitless frontier. The other extreme of Australia, untouched by skycrapers and city lights. This is the amazing outback, where the sky is wild, the grasses breakdance in a fever, kangaroos hop in wild abandon, and the ground fizzles like a magic carpet.

Pardon the poetic license. But to explore the Australian outback is to involve yourself in poetry. And there is no other way to take it all in but with awe. It's a communion with nature, it's a plunge into freedom.

Pay homage to the Australian bustard, the emus, and camels, and other beasts in their own mecca. At sunset, watch mountain rocks glow like coal, and then smell the secrets of the eucalyptus trees. At nighttime, plop on the grass with your safari-mates, listen to the crackling of the campfire, and sleep under the ballad of the stars. Dust storms, desert winds, mudtraps, and all kinds of danger lurk, but they're all worth it. The Australian outback is vast but it is never lonely.

So what are you waiting for? We dare you to charge your way into the outback. Let the planet tell you its tale firsthand. And carve your own tracks in this unknown territory like a true, fearless aborigine.

Simply humbling. There is no other way to put it.

Despite skyscrapers, theme parks, and other monuments of technological progress, Australia is still deeply rooted in its aboriginal culture and myths. In fact, Australia owes much of its charm and mystique to the daring aborigines who first settled in the land more than 40,000 years ago.

And thus Dreamtime began. As they explored the new land, the aborigines wove a set of beliefs about the origin of things around them. For them, humans, plants, animals, everything on earth is part of a complex network of relationship, all pointing to a bigger existence. We are all interconnected, and the littlest of our actions have an effect on everything. Sounds like heavy stuff, but it gets better.

An interesting aspect of Dreamtime is its “all-at-onceness”; to Dream is to simultaneously exist in the past, present, and future. Linear time disappears, and what replaces it is a freer version of existence. If all these talk starts to become baffling, try thinking of Dreamtime as a guideline for living that the aborigines follow to maintain the web of life.

What’s amazing about all these is that Dreamtime is still here, kept alive and ticking by the aboriginal citizens. It is one of the oldest continuous myth in our planet.

It’s time to think of Australia as something deeper than just plain beaches and surf.

The 12 Apostles are a collection of rock formations on the coast and towering out of the sea. It can be found near the town of Port Campbell, Victoria, just a few hours drive west of Melbourne.

On the Great Ocean Road, aside from these awe-inspiring limestones, you'd also find the Gibson Steps, the Loc Ard Gorge, The Arch, the London Bridge and the Grotto (all of which will be posted here soon).

The Twelve Apostles are great limestone rock outcrops separated from the cliff shore by wind and waves. You won't be able to see all 12 of these at once, as they say some are hidden from view from any vantage points. Some say that they no longer are 12 outcrops because one or two (or more) may have been eroded away.

These group of rocks were once called the Sow and Piglets but who would travel so far just to see a pig and her brood?

Anyway, to find the Twelve Apostles if you're from Melbourne, get on the Princes Highway, which then becomes the Princes Freeway, head southwest to Geelong. (At Geelong you might want to stop and visit the National Wool Museum and other town attractions). From Geelong, get on the Surf Highway (100) until you reach Torquay. Follow route 100 which becomes the Great Ocean Road after Torquay. Eighty-nine kilometres to the southwest, stop for a break if desired at Apollo Bay. Within the next 90 kilometres you should find a number of viewing points on your left (south). At any of the viewing points for the Twelve Apostles, you'd be able to see several of the Apostles.

Time required for travel: 2 hours 30 minutes

Tips:
- Have a detailed map of the area. If you take any of the side streets at Geelong, you could get lose your way.
- Time your trip to avoid heavy traffic particularly during school holidays and long weekends.
- you can choose to return to Melbourne via the Princes Highway by turning on C163 after PortCambell or at Allansford.

The Devil's Marbles (or its Aborigine name Karwekarlwe) can be located near Wauchope which is 114km south of Tennant Creek in Australia's Northern Territory. These are spectacular mass of boulders that rise up to 4 metres high and 7 metres wide piled up on each other. The Marbles are located in a traditional Aboriginal sacred site and are important to the local tribe. The Arrente people believe that the Karwekarlwe are eggs of the Rainbow Serpent.

The remarkable geological formations have been formed by spheroidal weathering. Signs along the pathways describe how the boulders were formed by a combination of mechanical weathering (which cracked the rocks) and chemical weathering (which flaked the surface off). The boulders were originally part of a solid mass of coarse grained granite which formed deep within the earth's surface about 1640 million years ago. Erosion has since stripped away the overlying material, and weathering processes have shaped them into the "marbles" as they appear now. As the molten magma cooled and hardened to form granite the mass shrank and cracked and these cracks known as joints effectively split the granite body into a series of tight fitting blocks.

The temperature ranges in the Northern Territory outback range from sub-zero temperatures at night to over 40 °C during the day - meaning that the erosive processes are still very much at work and the boulders continue to evolve into new shapes.
One of the Marbles were removed from the site and was placed on the top of the grave to John Flynn who was the founder of the Flying Doctor Service in Central Australia. At the time, this was seen as a way of remembering his link to the outback, but in later decades it was a source of great controversy because the rock was removed from a sacred site without the direct permission of the tribal elders. In the late 1990s, a boulder swap was arranged, and the missing marble was removed from the grave, cleaned, and returned to its original place. The grave is now marked with a similar boulder donated by the local Arrernte people.