Tag Archives: Landscapes

Ayers and Graces

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Sunday August 25 2024 – Before we could get to today’s keenly-awaited excursion, we had to deal with the non-trivial matters of getting up, showered and dressed within the confines of our small cabin. Although it required some fairly precise choreography between the two of us in order not to be bumping into each other all the time, it was (for me, at least) much less awkward than I had been fearing.  The bathroom area in our little cabin is small, but very well-organised, and doing the morning’s ablutions was remarkably trouble-free. I was also quite surprised to have slept reasonably well; my last experience on a sleeper was from London to Edinburgh and it was ghastly – noisy, uneven and uncomfortable. The Ghan was rather noisy at times – there was what felt like shunting done during the night, leading to lots of creaking and groaning, some of it on my part; and it was accompanied by a certain amount of lurching (the carriage, not me), but throughout all that we both managed to grab a reasonable amount of sleep.

We got a good breakfast, swiftly and competently served by the crew, who really work hard and do a good job; our section manager was a lass called Esther, who, as well as helping dish out the meals, was excellent at ensuring that we knew where we had to be and when, and that we had the right bits of identification card on our “Look At Me, I’m A Tourist!” lanyards.

I have had a great and abiding love of aerial photography, having had the excitement of my first views from an aeroplane at the age of nine. (Hence, on this trip I’ve been lugging around with me a drone which I haven’t really had a chance to use yet.) This love of aerial photography means that today’s excursion is one which I’ve been looking forward to with considerable excitement. First, we had to get to Alice Springs (or Mparntwe, as it’s known to its indigenous owners), through countryside of a type which was really rather familiar by now – scrubby and burnt in places.

At about 11.30am we pulled in,

and, as is standard in large-scale tourist activities everywhere, were sorted into buses to take passengers onward to their various activities for the day. Our bus was driven by the usual bluff Australian chap, in this case called Gerry, who was good enough to take us up to a viewpoint so we could take in A Town Called Alice (see what I did there?).

The viewpoint has a complicated aboriginal name

but we know it as Anzac Hill, which leads to the War Memorial.

On the way up, signs remind visitors of the many contributions to the war efforts of the 20th and 21st centuries made by solders from Australia and New Zealand, from WWI through to Iraq.

The lookout offers a great set of views over Alice Springs.

The gap above is where the road south leads out of town. This is the Stuart Highway, the longest road in Australia, which has been with us since Darwin and will still be with us after some 2,700km as we reach Port Augusta, just 300km short of Adelaide, the ultimate destination of this train ride.

Apparently, property prices in Alice are very high despite its rather remote location. This is because it can’t expand any further without infringing on indigenous land or cattle stations.

On the way down from the lookout, the backs of the commemorative signs are also decorated with reminders of the various conflicts.

Gerry also drove us around Alice to get a view of the place. It’s unremarkable  – just this town, you know? – and it’s kind of difficult to capture the feel of a place from a moving coach, but it does have (at least) a couple of striking murals.

Slightly frustratingly (because I wanted to get on with the day’s main activity), we had to have lunch first; this was served to the Ghan’s passengers at a place called Madigans.

It’s worth mentioning that the stewards from the train were part of the service, so their responsibilities carry on even off the train; they really do earn their corn.

And then – at last! – we were off on our excursion proper.  Here is a clue as to what we were about to do.

It’s a Cessna 208 Super Caravan, an aeroplane with which we first became familiar in Madagascar as we flew north to Anjajavy. Two of these aircraft awaited the group of 12 undertaking today’s flights, and there was a ripple of amusement as one lady, who was maybe one egg short of a clutch, couldn’t get to grips with the idea of a caravan being anything other than something you go camping in.

It was interesting to see the GABA (Great Australian Bugger All) from above,

though the landscape was actually very varied and interesting.

It included Pine Gap, the local US spy base near Alice,

and a not-inconsiderable bush fire

whose smoke affected the view across some salt flats.

After about an hour in the air, though, we caught the first sight of the reason we’d undertaken this 90-minute flight.

Yes, there it is, top right.

Uluru, or Ayers Rock in the old language. The pilot made sure that each side of the plane had a good view of this remarkable lump of masonry, which has a variety of aspects, depending on the angle of view.

It is, of course, an iconic part of the Australian landscape, and a considerable tourist magnet, as shown by the size of the local airstrip

and the number and variety of accommodation opportunities in the vicinity, such as this – another one which looks suspiciously like camping.

What we hadn’t known about beforehand was another remarkable rock formation quite close by Uluru, which we also flew by for a look –

The Olgas, or Kata Tjuṯa in the local indigenous language. There are 36 domes in this extraordinary formation.

The day’s aerial excitement wasn’t over, either. We landed at Ayers Rock airport to refuel and took off once again

to fly back to Alice, but we took a slightly different route back, over another fantastic formation called King’s Canyon – another local landmark which we hadn’t known about before today.

Apparently, one can go walking around the canyon, which sounds like a very interesting way of passing a morning.

By this time, the sun was going down, and the angle of the light really highlighted the considerable amount of geology that goes on in the area.

Among all of this huge landscape, one could spot the occasional outpost of civilisation

and looking at it in its greater context, one could only wonder

Why? Why there? What’s going on?

The ride back was actually more interesting than the ride out, but eventually it was time to land back at Alice

and be taken to our evening meal, which was at the Alice Springs Telegraph Station, the original site of the first European settlement in central Australia, one of twelve stations along the Overland Telegraph Line.

It was billed as “dinner under the stars”

which was fine in theory, but somewhat overshadowed by the clouds which cropped up and made seeing the stars a bit tricky.  A chap called Tom tried to show us some of the local astral geography, but it required a certain feat of imagination to get much out of his undoubtedly enthusiastic efforts. There was also the possibility of a camel ride

and a band entertained us just loudly enough to make conversation difficult,

so we took the opportunity of the first bus back to the train in order take a rest after a memorable day. I know that seeing Uluru is something that practically every tourist visiting Australia will do, but our view of it today was a great pleasure; and to see the other formations in the area was, if anything, even more exciting.

We have one more day on the train, or, more accurately, largely off the train; tomorrow we spend much of the day visiting a place called Coober Pedy where life is largely underground for a variety of reasons. This is an intriguing prospect and one I hope you’ll return to these pages to find out more about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A scramble in Isalo National Park

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Saturday 15 June 2024 – Le Jardin du Roy is very nicely put together. The rooms are spacious and comfortable; my main gripe is that there’s not enough light to see what you’re doing.  I suppose that this is a consequence of running from solar power and/or a generator, but it makes finding things (e.g. a black laptop on a dark surface in an underlit room) very frustrating. The internet availability was pretty poor, too, but the food was good and the service very agreeable.

Its buildings were in very lovely stonework,

and whoever designed or crafted it put several “hidden” things among the stones. At a basic level, you could find things like this star among the stones.

but there were more complicated creations as well.

Two lemurs and a palm tree

A nativity scene in our room

The day dawned, as I imagine is a regular pattern at this time of year (beginning of the Malagasy winter), cool and misty.

Our mission for the day was to explore Isalo National Park, so we headed to town (Ranohira) and Kenny (a) introduced us to our guide, José and (b) got tickets for the National Park , which, at 815 square kilometres, is pretty substantial. It was created in 1962, and is mainly dry, deciduous forest, based on sandstone landscapes, which means there has been plenty of erosion from wind and rain, creating rocky outcrops, plateaux and canyons up to 200m deep.

Our main objective for the day was to walk along one of these canyons.

After a short drive, we started our hike, for it definitely wasn’t a walk in the park, as you’ll see as you read further.

The scenery was quite spectacular with the sandstone cliffs we’d seen elsewhere.

 

We were headed alongside a river, as one could tell from the aquatic bamboo plants we could see.

The path started off easy enough

and, as happens so often, we started off with José explaining all sorts of non-wildlife stuff, such as: the difference between young Pandanus palms (single stem, thicker leaves, in the foreground) and older Pandanus (branched, leaves thinner, in middle and background);

and the iron pipe leading water to the town, some 6km away.

We did see some of the local fauna:

A butterfly – sorry, don’t know which sort
A red dragonfly, nothing to do with Hannibal Lecter
Sleepy Scops Owl
Sleepy Scops Owl

Darwin’s Bark Spider and its web

Madagascan White-Eye

I was dead chuffed to have nailed the image above, as the birds that we occasionally saw around us were exceedingly skillful at detecting the instant before a camera shutter is pressed and buggering off.

We soon reached a picnic area

where some lads were starting the preparation of a cooked lunch (what is it with men and outdoor cooking?) for those who had booked it (we’d chickened out, or rather cheesed out, and ordered a packed lunch to protect our, but particularly my, digestive systems). Here, we saw a Red-fronted Brown Lemur

who was very cute, but actually had a very sad back story.  She had got separated from her family group during a bush fire, and had failed to find them again; so she was lost and solitary. She hung around the picnic area trying to steal food – of course everyone was told not to feed her – and she must have been very lonely.

José also found us a White-browed Owl

but the real excitement was seeing a Ground Boa crossing the trail just in front of us.

We stayed very still, hardly daring to breathe, so that it carried on its way into the forest. It was about a metre and a half long.

The walk continued alongside the river into the canyon, which was the main objective of the day’s hike.

and we were treated to a succession of great views as we scrambled over the rocks (it was a real scramble in places,

and we were both grateful for the sticks we’d brought with us from Ranomafana).

Some of the trail had been prepared to make it easier for the punters

and José told us about what happens during the rainy season, when the water level rises several metres.  Some evidence of this could be seen in the trees that had been deposited among the boulders in the canyon.

We eventually reached a couple of pools: the Blue Pool

and the Black Pool (which had no illuminations)

where the trail basically ended.  So we took a rest while Jose and Kenny shot the breeze

and then headed back the way we came. There were a couple of encounters with the local fauna:

Dragonfly

Water beetles

And the colours of the stone were fascinating.

When we got back to the picnic area, we were lucky enough to see a group of Verreaux’s Sifakas.

They were very athletic, as ever, leaping from bough to bough, rather better than the Monty Python sheep, who, of course, tended not so much to fly as to plummet.

After our packed lunch, eaten amid the haunting scent of delicious food being cooked for the other picnickers,

we headed back to the car.  On the way, we passed a rock on which was perched what I heard Jose describe as a “snot bug”.  Eventually, we understood it was a Snout Bug, for fairly obvious reasons

though I suppose that if it caught a cold, then maybe Jose’s original description might have been the better one. We also saw (among the other, more orangey coloured ones) a butterfly with a beautiful blue hue.

That was it for the hike; the canyon was a lovely, if slightly tense, experience, and I was glad to have caught some video of the sifakas.

On the way back to the hotel, we passed a couple of very colourful local scenes.

We had an evening entertainment laid on – a short walk to watch the sunset. On the way, we were lucky enough to see a Hoopoe,

though I had the wrong lens on the camera for a truly good shot. It was still nice to see it. The hotel had laid on a resting place for us (which we laid on)

and a cocktail service

(with nibbles).  The scenery was striking in the setting sun

and the sunset itself was not bad,

(middle photo from a mobile phone; outer two from my Big Camera; shows that mobile phone cameras these days are pretty damn’good).

Actually, we got more striking colours looking behind us

but it was a nice way to finish off the day. The nibbles had been enough food for us, so we simply retired to our room and took no dinner. Since we were (we were told) the only residents at the hotel for that night, it must have meant an entire kitchen staff on duty for no purpose; but we’re at the start of the tourist season, so I guess the hotel must expect quiet times.

We leave the hotel tomorrow, rather early, as we continue our south-westerly journey to Toliara, on the coast.  We have a Thing To Do en route, which we hope will be interesting.  I’ll of course report, so please stick with these pages to find out what we got up to.

On the road (yet) again – Ambalavao to Ranohira

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Friday 14 June 2024 – We had a comfortable enough night at the Betsileo Country Lodge, disturbed only by the occasional ghastly-sounding and very loud gurgling from the water system, and, when we went to take a morning shower, the water pressure was so low as to make the ablutions merely case of cleaning the Important Bits.  We heard later that someone, one of a party of German tourists, had left their shower running, and completely emptied the tank!  Another problem was very intermittent electric power from the hotel’s generator. This didn’t stop us from having our breakfast, but it did mean there was no internet access, meaning I couldn’t publish my latest update. The manager explained that they were still waiting for some new batteries, which strikes me as probably being a common problem in Madagascar.

Anyway, the morning dawned cool and misty,

but the sun soon burned the mist off as we started our journey south, now with a significant westward component also.  Our target for the day was Ranohira, which is near the Isalo National Park, a place we would be visiting the next day. All we had to do was to get there, a distance of some 230km. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll remember that a previous journey of 210km took all day because of the vagaries of RN7; but today was different – the road surface was, by and large, very good and so we made good progress.

It was clear at first that we were above a valley where the fog had not yet dissipated

but we eventually had to drop down into the mist.

That burned off pretty quickly, too and so we could appreciate, once again, some good views of a changing landscape.

As we left Ambalavao, we had gone through the “gateway to the south”, an area which marked a significant change in the surrounding countryside. We ended up on a high plain, which was huge.  This was the view from my side of the car

and this was from Jane’s side.

See what I mean? Horizon to horizon flat – and with comparatively much less agriculture going on, although rice paddies were still to be seen – largely in places where the rainy season would allow the one crop per year they expect in this part of the country (cf the three a year in the wetter, cooler north). The houses in the villages we passed were generally much smaller.

Here are a few of the sights we saw as we went along:

Herding Zebu near a village

People flocking to market in the village ahead of us

People flocking to market in the village we had just passed

Seeing people on the road in any number quite often meant that we were approaching a village or town, and people were walking to the market there.

A roadside shrine – the first we’d seen, actually

Kids in their school uniforms leaving after the morning

Taking tomatoes to market

Taking goats (or maybe sheep, we couldn’t separate them) to market, on the top of a bus

The collapsed ruin of a house built with unbaked mud bricks and washed away by the rains

Drying rice before packaging and carting it, presumably to market

Zebu grazing

View of distant sandstone cliffs – this particular formation is known as the Pope’s Hat

More sandstone hills in the distance

The sandstone hills mark the edge of the plain and the start of the Isola National Park

The sandstone in the landscape is a distinct shift from the granite we’d seen so widely before this point.  Eventually, we caught sight of Ranohira,

the town from which we would access the Isalo park tomorrow. You can begin to pick out the detail in the sandstone in the photo above. Our hotel, the Jardin du Roy, was 20 minutes’ drive past the town, and was through a wondrous landscape of sandstone eroded by wind, rain and time.

It included a “statue” which is locally nicknamed “The Queen”; one can see why.

The Jardin du Roy is a very swish hotel and we were staying for two nights, so we were able to relax for the rest of the day and gird our loins for a hike the following day. A walk through a canyon is the main item on the agenda, but there may be some wildlife to be seen as well. Who knows?  Only time will tell.