Howdy, everyone!
Hope you have been enjoying the final days in Australia. I know I do not want to ever leave. On May 14, 2014 we visited Kata Tjuta in the Australian outback. Kata Tjuta in the Anangu language literally means "many heads," and just by taking one look at the geological formations, you can understand why it is called this. Unfortunately, I have yet to upload the photos that I took with my camera, as we only just returned from our three day camping trip in the Outback. However, I will try to add some photos to this post once I have had the chance to download the photos as you really need to see these formations in order to understand what I am talking about. Kata Tjuta is a sacred ceremonial place to the Anangu people. However, not much information about these ceremonies is know by those who are not part of the Anangu people, because they are considered to be part of the male tjukapa. You are probably wondering what tjukapa is. Tjukapa is the way of life that the Aboriginals live by. It is their law, religion, and way of life. To compare it, what our faith in religion is, this is what their belief in Tjukapa is. Anyway, the reason that people who are not part of the Anangu tribe cannot know the male ceremonies is because it is consider to be man business. Those who are not part of the tribe and are not male are considered to be children because they have not gone through the tradition of becoming a man.
What is interesting, however, is that Kata Tjuta is geologically related to Uluru. They are related by a great geological event called the Alice Springs Orogeny. What happened was that two tectonic plates collided beneath the Australian outback millions of years ago. This collision caused the formation of a giant mountain range called the Peterman Range. This range was 14 kilometers high and spanned across the majority of central Australia. However, this event occurred too quickly in terms of geological events. It only took a couple millions of years for the range to form as opposed to hundreds of millions of years. The result of this was soft rock making up the range. This combined with a lack of foliage forming on the mountain to hold the rock together meant that the entire mountain would erode eventually. The land surrounding the range contained a number of depressions in the land that were formed from inland oceans and uneven land as a result of plate movement. As the range eroded, these depressions would collect the rock and eventually when the depressions were filled with rock, only things like sand and silt could fill the openings in the depressions. Australia also faced a series of rising and falling ocean waters, which then turned the weak rock and sand in the depression into sand stone. Once the oceans had completely receded, the lands of Australia faced erosion from heavy winds, rain, etc. This led to the uncovering of the geological sites of Uluru, Kata Tjuta, and the Macdonnell Range. I will discuss the Macdonnell Range more in my next blog entry.
Aside from visiting Kata Tjuta today, we also camped out at the Yulara Campground. This campground is located just outside the national park. While there, we slept in swags. Swags are basically a tent in sleeping bag form. They are thermal, so they can hold heat. Therefore, when sleeping in this, it is smart to wear as little clothing as possible, as clothing can act as an insulator of heat and prevent heat from entering the swag. Therefore, it will be colder the more clothes that you wear. While camping we camped with a number of people from around the world (mostly from Europe). It was interesting to learn about the different cultures that they came from, as well as learn a couple of foreign words in the process. One of the most memorable parts of this camping trip was waking up at 4 in the morning because of a pack of dingos that were howling at the moon. It was certainly a memorable event as well as just great to listen to.
Thanks guys, it has been a fun month.
Palya!
Justin
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