So I woke up about 12 and went for a swim. When I returned to my room, there was a couple in there. We said our hellos and started talking about the Rock (obviously!!!!!), and as they’d just got there they were wondering what to do. I said it was all a rip off with the transport and that the resort had a monopoly here. I said that when I first arrived I expected there to have been some kind of public bus service at a reasonable price, and they concurred with having the same expectation. I told them I had a car and was going out to the Olgas for the sunset and I could leave a bit earlier if they wanted to do the walks around there before hand. Paul and Yvonne both said that I didn’t have to do that and they’d give me some money… I was like… dont be silly, I dont expect anything for it, I’m going out there anywhere and I’d rather read a book waiting at a nice spot there then by the side of the swimming pool. I told them it was mid summers day and they were a mixture of surprised enthusiasm while kicking themselves for not noting it themselves!!!! They said ok…. we’ll just check some stuff out and see you later. Cool as…. I was glad to be able to help someone out and didn’t expect anything for it.
So I went off to have a shower and had a thought. You remember the last time I was there someone I didn’t know gave me their bike…….. well….. I thought – “You know what, after this evening I wont need the car anymore and yet I’ve got it until late morning tomorrow…. I could go one better then giving a complete stranger my bike….. I’ll offer them my CAR!!!!”. Fuck…. what a thought…. if they accept that offer then that would be fantastic and yet another parallel to my last visit!!!! And what a parallel…. that’s what life’s about – having faith in people and passing it on!!!!!
I thought, however, that they may not go for it…… even some travellers dont always go with the flow and take an opportunity they’ve created and that the universe has presented to them, worrying more about rules and regulations. So I formulated a strategic persuasive battleplan for that eventuality…… if they at first turned it down I was gonna say….”Look…. No.1….. the roads are dead straight and there’s hardly any traffic…. what the fuck can happen, No.2…. even if it does happen all you’ve got to say is you’re me and No.3….. it’s a well known fact that in Australia most Aborigines and out back farmers dont even bother with car insurance anyway….. they give a massive middle finger to the government and the regulations, and so the authorities see that they’re up for a fight……. and so dont bother with them!!!! Too much hassle you see……. governments dont like that…. they prefer to push around the people that they’ve made easy to control!!!
So…. armed with my battleplan I waited for Paul and Yvonne to return. Eventually they turned up and I asked them what they were talking about the moment before I walked through the door and met them. Yvonne said that actually they were getting stressed about what they were gonna do about seeing the Rock and about the price of everything!!!!
Aha!!!!!….. I thought…. there you go…… and I put my proposition to them…. and guess what…. being the cool people they were……. they took the opportunity with open hands without me even putting my plan into action!!!! It turned out that Yvonne and Paul had just sold off their care home for people with learning disabilities because the system was fucking them over with needless rules and regulations and bureaucracies. They’d run it for 6 years and not one client who became a resident ever wanted to leave!!! They also said the down side of that was that they’d had the same clients for 6 years and weren’t meeting any new residents with different challenges!!! I explained I had a similar background and confirmed their experiences with that of my own…. which were also very disheartening when dealing with councils and community facilitators.
They told me a few years ago they’d been running a social club for adults with disabilities, running 3 nights a week, with a membership of over 150 people. They run it on a grant from the council of just 8000 pounds a year…. and for many members it was their only form of social interaction…… yet a couple of years in the council cut their grant to 4000 pounds and the club had to shut down!!!! I said it winds me up that every March you see councils spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of their budgets on needless road improvements…. putting in curb stones where perfectly good ones already existed!!!… and putting in traffic lights where they were blatantly not needed……..so creating more traffic!!!!! And yet valuable community facilities get a pittance and then have that pittance halved!!! Paul said he’d used exactly the same example a couple of days earlier….. we were totally on the same wave length!!!!
*You see….. the government isn’t there for you….. it’s there to control you. It hasn’t got your best interests at heart…. it has its own interests at heart…. it isn’t there to protect you…. it’s there to keep you living in fear to protect itself….. it’s not there to help you achieve your potential…. it’s there to keep you just above the bread line working your arse off just to get by so that you’ve no time to contemplate the true meaning of life and ask the question of why you are in fact here!!!! It’s there to brainwash you into believing that life’s a struggle and you need it there for your security….. cos otherwise what you gonna do when you get ill or you get old or, god forbid, a terrorist knocks on your door!!!!! And you pay all your taxes funding the very same system that enslaves you….. well done! Life was never meant to be a struggle.*
So we left for the Olgas and it was nice to have company…. even if it meant not being able to bang out the tunes on the cd player!!! I drove straight to the gorge walk and was glad I did it earlier cos it was so busy at that time. I explained to the guys where to go and said I’ll find a spot and do a bit of reading. We arranged to meet in about an hour…. so I found a seat under some shade, next to this German woman…… and for about half an hour I witnessed this woman being totally taken out by the flies……. waving her arms about, shaking her head and blowing every time one landed near her lips!!! It was a bit unsettling, but also quite funny!!! I thought…. girl… either get used to the flies or go and sit in your car!!!!! 🙂 As it happens the flies weren’t really going near me….. perhaps they prefered Germans!!!!…. but I think it had more to do with the fact that she was giving out an energy/fear that the flies disturbed her…… and I was giving out an energy that I really didn’t give a shit about the little bastards….. and so they were attracted to her energy and not mine……… ok then………. maybe it was the Frankfurters!!!!!;-)
After one particular outburst of blowing, waving and shaking I turned away from my book and looked at her….. we got eye contact and both immediately burst out laughing…..what do you need language for?!!!!!!! 🙂
After that I felt I wanted to take in the views and take the place in. I was on the designated track, but it didnt feel right there with so many people walking back and forth. I wanted to be in the nature and so wandered a hundred or so yards into the bush….. I know…. what a liberty!!! But what I was pleased in myself about is that I didnt have to deal with all the pre-conditioned bullshit this time round. I found a spot and took in the sheer magnificance of the rock domes that stood before me…. the energy here was really powerful and I felt it following through me as I stood there…. it made me feel balanced and at peace…… I didn’t want to move…. I was simply happy in the silence.
After a bit I started looking out for the Bristollers, as I could see the path from where I was, and within a few minutes I saw them and went out to meet them. It was still an hour and a half until sunset so I offered to take them to the other path where they could walk to a viewpoint within 30 minutes. They said yes so off we went. We arrived at the Valley of the Winds and it was completely deserted… it felt fantastic and myself and the Bristollers acknowledged the fact. So off they went, arranging to meet back in about 50 minutes… dead on this time so we could make the sunset viewing spot, and I sat down to read my book….. then after a couple of minutes I looked up ahead of me……. one of the domes below the highest summit was about 500 yards directly infront of me and I just knew I wanted to be up there. So I made my way through the bush… which was quite dense in places…. eventually arriving at its base…. and then I began to climb. It was beautiful, there was no one about and it felt right for me to be there.
I reached the summit of the dome and looked out over the landscape…. it was beautiful. To my left, in the distance, I could see the Bristollers who had just reached the viewpoint, and then I looked behind me, taking in the magnificence of what I think is the highest dome summit in the Olgas. I felt at peace and I turned back out to face the landscape and opened out my arms to just above waist height…….
*If a couple of born again Christians had walked past they would have said to themselves…”Whats he doing with his arms?”.…..”I dunno…. imitating Jesus?”……. “Well he better be….cos he’ll never catch fish like that!!!”;-) *
………I felt the energy……… and I felt connected……. and as I stood there in my West Ham shirt, I felt like I’d just completed something….. I knew that in that moment I had achieved something very special and I had full appreciation for what I had done…. This year I had marked the Spring Equinoxes at Stonehenge and Ayers Rock, and the Summer Solstices at Angkor Wat and the Olgas……. I remembered some of the experiences I’d had during that journey…….. I felt like a higher power acknowledged the effort I had made in making that journey……… And I felt thankful.
I made my way down and negotiated my way back onto the path and met up with the couple from Bristol. They thanked me for doing this for them and I explained that I was equally thankful because I probably wouldn’t have come back here if it wasn’t for them….. and I was very glad for it. We drove out to the sunset viewing area…. and thankfully it was….. ON THE GROUND!!!! So I had no need to venture anywhere else!!!! The sunset looked beautiful on the Olgas, but along the horizon was cloud cover so the colours “switched off” before the sun was completely gone, so I turned and watch the clouds and colours which were created in the sky…… it was so beautiful (I’m gonna have to get a thesaurus….. surely there’s more words in the English language which do a scene as much justice as the word beautiful!!!!).… it was covered with oranges, reds, blues and whites…….. much like the scene on a Northern Irish Orange Order march…… except without all the trouble!!!! 😉
As it happened we were the first there and the last to leave, being thrown out by the park ranger and it was almost dark as we drove away. No one said much in the car…. we were just listening to Ash, and me for one contemplating the events of the day. I had a peculiarly familiar feeling as I drove back through the bush…. I had the same sensation I always have when I’m driving anywhere in the west country after being out for the day and returning home at dusk…… it was pleasantly reminiscent of one of the most secure feelings I’ve ever had the pleasure to feel…. the English West Country is where my heart is and where, if I ever settle down, I hope to find myself….. Australia may well have the most positive energy I’ve ever encountered…. but England possesses an energy which is simply magical in its mystery.
Love and Light,
Miller
The Adventures of Miller 