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TIME Traveler
Get away with TIME's special travel issue
[10/17/2002] |
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australia
How Green Was My Valet — page 2
Longitude 131°'s sensitivity didn't stop with the site work. To preserve the desert silence, the resort is powered by noiseless solar energy. For fun, the hotel offers a range of eco-adventure activities such as sunrise rock tours, stargazing, and the Sounds of Silence dinner package—a three-course meal that includes farmed crocodile, emu and kangaroo, held under the stars. Other trips are available. On the daylong Cave Hill Safari run by Aboriginal-owned Desert Tracks, guests visit members of a small Aboriginal settlement near Cave Hill, the location of some of the region's best rock paintings. Local residents have been painting in the caves for the past 20,000 years. Concentric circles and abstract animal forms in white, red and ocher paint cover the walls. This is the only place on earth, in fact, where you can view the tableaux of a prehistoric culture and later ask the artist what he meant when he drew the sun directly above the third emu from the left. The Cave Hill residents, all 15 of them, serve as tour guides and explain how the surrounding landscape relates to Tjukurpa (pronounced Chook-orr-pa)—their system of values, beliefs and lore. Over a picnic lunch, guests learn about bush foods, water holes and the age-old ways of Aboriginal life.
On my guided trip to Uluru, I expected to find an endless expanse of dunes and red desert, and was surprised to discover instead a diversity of vegetation such as gray and green clumps of spinifex grass, honey grevillea (so called for its sugar-like sap) and desert oaks. Rising 348 m above the desert floor, and with a circumference of 9.4 km, Uluru is the world's largest rock monolith. It is also a sacred site for the land's traditional custodians, the Anangu (pronounced Arn-ang-oo). As we drove past the red massif, my guide pointed out a line of small black dots that appeared to be climbing the rock face. Minga, local Aborigines call them. The term means "black ants," but it is applied to tourists too not only because that is how they appear when they climb Uluru but also because they always scurry around in one another's footprints. Though climbing it is not yet forbidden, the Anangu ask visitors not to scale their sacred rock mountain and have posted several signs at the base where the trail begins—to little avail.
Reaching the Daintree rainforest on Queensland's north coast is akin to stepping into a David Attenborough nature documentary. The forest hums with the chatter of thousands of birds, insects and animals. Towering trees, strangler figs, fan palms and vines form canopies that filter the harsh southern sun, enabling delicate plant species to thrive on the forest floor. This intricate ecosystem supports species found nowhere else in the world. "And here," Attenborough must surely be whispering in the background, "we have the oldest continuously surviving rain forest in the world. It is 115 million years old, and dates to the time of the southern supercontinent that geologists have called Gondwanaland." This is the only place on earth where two World Heritage-listed sites meet. Just 140 kilometers north of Cairns, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park laps the shores of the Daintree National Park in the Cape Tribulation area north of the Daintree River.
This environmentally and aesthetically diverse region produces stunning vistas of pale sand beaches and azure water juxtaposed against the deep green lushness of the primeval rain forest. And on the south side of the Daintree River, nestled in 12-hectare valley surrounded by rain forest, is another hangout for soft ecotourists: the Daintree Eco Lodge and Spa. Built 10 years ago, the 15 rustic cabins and their linked walkways are suspended on stilts to reduce disturbances to residents of the forest floor. Some rain-forest denizens, however, seem to enjoy their human company; during my stay, a wild bush turkey leapt upon my lunch table and dunked its head into a pint of ice-cold beer.
In addition to a well-stocked library and several eco-excursions, the Lodge spa offers Aboriginal beauty products made from indigenous plants, fruits, earth and salts. The therapist has received permission from the local tribes to use the sacred women's waterfall on the site for special healing treatments. The use of Aboriginal ways extends to the management's philosophy as well. "The owner has an indigenous view toward the property," says manager Dave Gibson. "He's the steward for it at this particular time."
Ecotourists, even those of the soft variety, are adopting the same spirit. A recent letter to the Uluru national park from a Japanese sightseer was representative of the newly enlightened traveler. "I was a visitor to your beautiful Ayers Rock," the letter stated. "I am very sorry but I took a little piece of your spirit. I didn't know your culture and the meaning. Again I am sorry. Please put back. Thank you." Enclosed was a rock chip taken from the face of Uluru. In Australia, visitors are discovering that a spiritual understanding of a place is far more valuable than a simple souvenir.
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