Into the Red Centre

Four wheels
Four cylinders
Four windows
All rolled down

At eighty
Kilometers per hour
4-80 air conditioning

For Seven thousand kilometers
From Airlie
To Adelaide
Via Alice

On asphalt
On bitumen
On gravel
On corrugated

Through bull dust
Into The Red Centre
And beyond

Dust and heat
Red and blue
Four liters each
Every day thirst

Centre lines and spinifex
Mulga and ghost gums
Kangaroos and emu
Wallabies and cattle
Roadkill and crows

In The Red Center

For hundreds
Then thousands
Kilometers
Reel by

Enthralled

By the expanse
By the beauty
By the tenacity
By the rock
By the road

By the red earth

Heat
Dust
Red
Gold

Death

Life
 
 
Existence

I met Stan, the ’79 Holden Gemini, along with his owner, Katrin, in Airlie Beach. The three of us took a 7,000 kilometer road trip through The Red Centre of Australia, a name earned by the colour of the area’s iron rich earth and its geographical location in the middle of Australia. The town of Alice Springs is typically referred to as Australia’s geographical centre.

This vast meteor crater is Tnorala, or as the continent’s European conquerors refer to it, Gosse Bluff, named after a bloke on the expedition which ‘discovered’ it… My post, Tnorala Dreaming, describes the Australian Aboriginal story of this crater’s creation.

On the map, it is a bit past Watarka on The Mereenie Loop, heading toward Alice.