After my strenuous exploration of Uluru, I checked to see if Mighty Mouse had already eaten. Mighty Mouse was the rodent that had taken up residence in my car.

For weeks I had been frustrated by the shredded paper and half-eaten food it gnawed through every night. In addition to having to throw out boxes of food, I was very worried he would chew the wiring in the car. I didn't need to be stranded hundreds of miles from the nearest road house or small town.

Then I started leaving food out for him. It was the perfect solution...easier for him, and much less worry for me. While I'd been hiking, he had helped himself to a crust of bread and a carrot end I'd left on the floor for his dinner. How he survived the heat in the car, I'll never know. But he made something of a companion for me even if I never did spot him.

The return trip down Uluru's steep side seemed more difficult than the climb. Fatigue and blisters took their toll. Despite the terrible heat, I was one of few hikers carrying water.

Many people had died climbing Uluru over the years, most from heat stroke or heart failure. Some had simply slipped and tumbled off the side. The chain at the center of the hiking trail helped but accidents continued. The Aborigines claimed that the spirits occasionally grew tired of people rattling over their home and pushed them off.

That day had its share of near-misses. My lens cap twirled off into space and I almost followed by lunging unthinkingly after it. A madman jogged down the steepest section without ever touching the chain. A group of teenagers complained about how weak their legs had become and hung on the metal posts as they moved down.

Then one sat down and began scooting along on his butt. They all followed suit, giggling at how silly they looked. Then one passed wind.

"Did you fart?" one shrieked in delight. "Who farted?"

"I did," another giggled.

"You can't fart here! This is Uluru!  It's...it's not allowed!"

"Yea," agreed a third, "you can't shit on Uluru." 

"But I did and I'm proud," proclaimed the first. "I shitted upon Uluru!"

"No," I called out, "that's not right."

The sound of an adult's voice created sudden and complete silence.

"You shat upon Uluru," I said. "Shat, past tense of to shit; I shit, I will shit, I shat, I have shat." 

Storms of laughter rose from the girls. A fellow behind me muttered about how poorly children were educated these days and grinned.

Many of the tourists who'd climbed Uluru that day seemed ignorant of the spiritual energy pulsing in the rock. At the exact peak, an elevation of almost 3,000 feet, a cairn held a visitor's log. People crowded around, frustrated when anyone took too long to write a comment or when someone else stepped forward before they did.

They just wanted to leave their mark, to prove they had climbed to the top. The second they were done, most of them started the trip back down. I had seen this dis-ease before, the need to mark off another triumph on their life list without truly living in the moment.

I wandered further out across the rock. In a puddle left by a recent rain, jelly-like balls displayed dark nuclei. I wondered if they were the eggs of some amphibian which stayed in stasis until the rains. When I shared this with the father and son, the father swore he had seen a tiny fish dart through one of the larger pools. A few people, at least, honored nature that day.

The Aborigines had known the power of Uluru. They said the Rainbow Serpent, the Dreamtime creator of the world, lived under the giant stone.

One day the serpent wound itself around Uluru to warm itself in the sun. A warrior planned to slaughter the giant snake. Such a daring feat would surely be admired by his entire tribe. He crept up on the sleeping creature and threw his spear.

The snake was wounded. As man and animal fought, the serpent's colorful blood spattered down the sides of the rock. The birds, disturbed by the battle, fled their nests.

As they passed through the mist of blood, their drab feathers were painted with the beauty of the rainbow. To this day birds wear the colors they donned during that battle to honor the Creator Serpent.

Reaching the top of Uluru was rewarding. A well-deserved pause allowed me to take a long look out over the endless plains. The land was surprisingly green interspersed with pockets of red and brown. The bitumen, or paved road, was the only touch of man evident from this windy perch.

I noticed fellow hikers mounting what I had assumed to be a bump at the top. Then someone said we had only completed a third of the total climb. My victory break had been premature.

I hoisted myself over the false crown and soon confronted the real peak. It was quite wide, and all the hikers spread out to spend a little time exploring. I found a quiet spot far from the others and again took in the view.

The sides of the rock were rumpled like a sheet bunched on a line. Birds had made their nests in the recesses between the folds and flew out from under my feet. The sun was hot but a wind blew at this height; the magic of Uluru was in my eyes and moved through my heart like electricity.

After more than a month in a relentlessly flat and open environment, confronting the mass of stone called Ayer's Rock or Uluru was magical. I instantly knew why the Aborigines had deemed it sacred.

As I drove closer, the shifting view changed the light. The sight was so powerful emotion seemed to radiate from the surface. All thought washed cleanly away; my brain wasn't big enough to accommodate anything other than wonder.

From the parking lot, the climb to the top looked neither high nor difficult. But about a third of the way up the visible path was an area called Chicken Rock. At this point the route suddenly became steep. Many hikers turned back.

Past the easy section, strong, short posts threaded with a heavy chain garnished the path. Already the erosion caused by hikers had worn a thin pink ribbon onto the surface.

I started up the path. The surrounding surface was scaly and pocked like a red moon. Large flakes of rock clinging to the slopes hid deep shadows. Hundreds of wooly brown caterpillars humped frantically up the gritty sides with the hikers.

Soon I was puffing and aching from the steep climb. I crawled away from the traffic to rest near a father and his son. The young teen's face was flushed with exertion and he seemed distraught.

"Don't worry," his father murmured, "we'll go slow. You'll be fine." 

"See those little buggers?"  I pointed to the miniature hikers. "If they can climb Uluru, I bloody well can!" 

Images of the wild desert were driven from my memory that evening. It was the last night I would voluntarily pass in a caravan park.

Things were already pretty miserable. The wool blankets were soggy because the trunk had leaked during days of rain. The propane lantern was nearly out of gas and put off no heat. I had just snuggled into my swag when a little girl paused outside.

"Mummy, whose tent is that?" she shouted across the compound. "Why is that tent in our space? Who would sleep in there?  It's so small!"

The girl belonged to a caravan of four SUVs that had arrived earlier. Two of the vehicles were hauling trailers that had unfolded into enormous bivouac tents. Tables, chairs, two-burner stoves, five-gallon cook pots, a gas-powered mini refrigerator, an entire box of spices, wash buckets and folding cots had come out of the cabs in a mind-boggling train. Darkness fell but only in other parts of Australia; their section of the caravan park was lit up like Times Square.

They had also brought along a cassette player. After a few beers they whipped out a recording of their favorite camp tunes.

"Put anothah log on the fi-ya," they howled for an interminable time. "Put a la la na, la-da la da," they fizzled out for the next line.

Then relative quiet while one or two people who actually knew the words sang tentatively. Followed by a roaring, "PUT ANOTHAH LOG ON THE FI-YA!"

I distinctly remember thinking, I'm in hell. Americans may be "ugly" but Aussies are loud.

Things seemed to be dying down when more footsteps approached. Two voices conversed about the wooden fuse box. The fellow on the powered site was having trouble. The park owner showed him which fuse to flip if it blew again.

"I don't understand why I should be having a problem," the camper complained. "The fuse shouldn't be blowing, right?"

"The lines aren't set up for a high load. If you draw too much power it'll trip off."

With complete sincerity the man said, "But I only have a light, a heater and a black-and-white TV."

 David offered to accompany me to Max's place, a cave just outside town where an older fellow had set up house. When I offered to drive myself over, he shook his head.

"Oh, you don't wanna go alone," he said.

I looked to his wife Marie for an explanation.

"Max is an old lecher,"  she said as she winked.

"And I know how you Yankee women are!" David said. "You'll probably pop him one if he pats your bum!" 

Outside the cave, other travelers stuffed their SUV with packs and swags. I thought that with so many people around, the old guy wouldn't try anything.

I was wrong. 

Max shuffled around the car at top speed, reaching out with his splayed hands held exactly at the level of my breasts. When David called out from behind me, the hands dropped to his sides where they twitched disconsolately.

A mere dollar bought the privilege of touring his cave. Road Warrior had been filmed nearby, and old props salvaged from the set were displayed in the cave.

A clothesline strung across the hallway dangled knickers of every conceivable size and color, presumably gifts from grateful young women. In the bedroom, names and dates painted on the ceiling were outlined in black.

"All these names," David whispered, "are people who lost their virginity here."  I rolled my eyes and snorted.   

It turns out that PBS had also visited Max's cave. The film crew had neglected to memorialize the knickers. They also explained the ceiling collage as a record of travelers who had passed through.

PBS always has had impeccable taste.

 

As we drove to brunch, teenagers slouched along the dirt sidewalk and glared at our approach. Sullen, defensive, glancing from side to side in defiance of everything and nothing, they cruised through the haze kicked up by passing cars.

I tried to determine what was so different about the group, why they stood out. I said something to Marie who glanced over and proclaimed, "Tourists." 

"How can you tell?"

"They aren't dusty." 

Of course.

 

"OK, what do I do now?" I asked as the vendor and I stood over the plate of witchetty grubs.

"Just pick it up by the head and have a go," she said pleasantly. 

Ahhhh!  Raw?  Alive? 

"Do I have to eat the head?" I asked.

What was this thing about eating heads? Why was it OK to eat everything else, including the icky bowels and genitalia, come to think of it, but not the brains? 

Maybe it's a universal thing. A policeman had once assured me that if someone found an arm or leg lying around, it was no big deal. Most of the time the victim was still alive and quite happy without that pesky extra limb.

Finding a disembodied head was entirely different. The face was the place where humans recognized most identifying features. Removing the head from a corpse normally was the work of an extremely disturbed mind. Thus my distaste at eating the head?

But we're talking about a witchetty grub here.

With a nervous grin, I lifted the limp worm high. I was vaguely aware that the crowd was leaning forward in anticipation.

Then the grub was in my mouth. It grabbed my tongue with its many feet, a nippy experience I hadn't anticipated.

I snipped off the head and bit down on the body.

A warm custard squirted around my mouth, faintly salty. A bit of grit squeaked between my teeth. The grub that was the perfect mouthful was soon on its way down.

The professor who had borrowed another grub to show his wife returned. He startled when I placed the beady head on the plate.

Much better than Vegemite.