Cold Wild Ozzy

I've immersed myself for three very cold days (temperature range: 2-12 deg C) in the uluru, Central Australia's outback wilderness. It was bushland as far as the eyes could see except for one major landmark in the area: Ayer's Rock. :D

There were 9 of us in our group: 6 Sydney University students (Kurt, Kyle, George, LJ, Rigg, Key), 1 tourist (me), 1 guide (Arthur) and 1 dog (Merlin --- that Arthur guy has some sense of humor), and all of us were blokes. No girls, drat.

Anyway, the objective of the trip is to experience "soul cleansing", uluru being sacred ground for aborigines and what-have-you mysticism with it. The way I look at it though is trying to survive uluru at its harshest condition.

It was a great experience for me. My only regret though is that all we were allowed to bring were clothes, toiletries and a thermos. No iPods, no junk food, no cameras, no cellphones. But after enjoying my experience there, I then understood why Arthur wouldn't want those things on the trip. Read below.

Here's the run-through of the last 3 days:

1. Walk 14 miles from the airstrip to our campsite (in 6 hours) with about 30 pounds of food and gear on my back.
2. Cold weather at night: 2 degrees! And what's the easily available fuel in the bushland? Dung. Dingo and kangaroo dung. Because it's winter, they're freeze-dried (hahaha) so they don't smell that bad when we were collecting them. But when we started burning them as fuel... *whoo boy*.
3. I was the only one who didn't have mitts for my hands. So, I tore a pair of my socks and cut-out fingerholes in them.
4. In the absence of an iPod, group singing is the next best option. And the group's favorite artists: Britney Spears and 3 Doors Down. Weird combination.
5. Learned how to make a stone knife. :D
6. Ooo-ba: some sort of spiny bush whose leaves can be used for smoking using a pipe.
7. Ma'mata: another spiny bush whose branches, when boiled in water and drank as tea, has the same effect as sake.
8. Built some stone markers along the way. Route marking in the outback is very different from what I know for forest trekking.
9. Learned animal trailing: snakes, dingos (dogs), kangaroos and foxes.
10. Pratical exam: trap either a snake or a fox. And our group (me, LJ, Rigg) trapped a snake! Wahooo!
11. Gutting, Cooking and Eating Snake 101: Snake lechon.
12. Coal picking. That's much better than dung fuel.
13. Tribal marking.
14. Rain + cold weather = 9 shivering blokes.
15. Woke up on the third day (after the rain) with a whole herd (?) of kangaroos surrounding us! There's easily 30 of them. That was cute! And scary... hahaha.

The adventure was really challenging on my body. I was dead-tired at the end of the third day. But I'm glad I took that trip --- it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience. :D

Thanks to the Sydney guys for the swell company! And for the record, I'm already 27; I'm not a student on vacation as you guys first thought. Hahaha. :D