Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight...
There is something incredibly humbling about seeing the sky at night without light pollution. Tonight we had dinner under the stars. We drove about 10 minutes away from the camp and there was a silver service 3 course meal set up for us with a few candles and a camp fire. In the end we blew out all the candles as they were attracting the grasshoppers and so had an unobstructed view of the stars. We saw the Southern Cross as it fell below the horizon, we saw the Corona Australis, Alpha and Beta Centauri, the Seven Sisters, the Magellanic clouds and many more besides.
There were the usual fleeting shooting stars that you can see anywhere in the world, even in London, but we were treated to an especially long one about halfway through dinner which arced across the sky for almost a second and a half, leaving a fiery tail across the sky.
Everyone should see the uninterrupted sky at least once in their life. Living in London you are lucky to see the big dipper or the North star once a month when there's little cloud to amplify the light pollution and obscure the sky. Get out into the country in England and you still have light pollution from the many towns and cities scattered all over the place, but get yourself to a relatively unpopulated country and you will be able to appreciate the incredible celestial world above us.
In a hectic city life it's easy to forget there are billions of billions of stars above us and that we're just a tiny speck in the universe. Our nearest star, Alpha Centauri is 4.5 light years away. That equates to 4.5 trillion kilometres away. Put that in perspective with our moon which is a mere 300,000 kilometres away.
I wish I was able to take a photo of the stars, but with a relatively cheap digital camera it's nigh on impossible to do so. For those of you that live in cities and haven't seen the sky out where there's no civilisation nearby, just imagine the most stars you've ever seen and multiply that by ten thousand. Wherever you look there's a cluster of stars, and you can see cloudy tentacles across the sky where the outer edges of the milky way are visible to the naked eye that wind their way from one side of your field of vision to the other.
Sunset tonight was pretty breathtaking. On one side we had Ayers Rock, and then on the other we had Kata Tjuta which is the other rock formation, the aboriginal name meaning "Many heads". The sun came to rest behind Kata Tjuta and made for a wonderful photo opportunity from up on the dune where we were having Australian sparkling wine and canapes.
This afternoon I opted to stay at the camp rather than go tramping around in the afternoon heat, so I went for a nice swim in the pool, and then dozed on the bed in my tent with the curtains open so I could gaze out on Uluru while I dozed off and woke up.
Aboriginal law and history has traditionally been passed down by way of the Tjukurpa. There was no written history or law in Aboriginal tradition, and so everything has been passed down by word of mouth, and learning of ritual from the elders. Parents teach their children in stages. The first stage of the Tjukurpa is all that non aboriginals are allowed to be told. This is the level of a 4 year old child. It teaches basic right and wrong and simple things such as where to find water etc. It teaches the relationship between people, plants, animals and the environment that they live in. The Tjukurpa is commonly referred to as the Dreaming or the Dreamtime, although the Aboriginals have now avoided this description as it implies that it is merely a myth, rather than an integral part of their history. The Dreamtime is in fact what the Aboriginals regard as the irrefutable path of their ancestry and creation. For a good background to the Tjukurpa, have a look at this website which explains it well: http://www.deh.gov.au/parks/uluru/tjukurpa/
Tomorrow I am up at 4:30 am again to go to Kata Tjuta for a sunrise walk among the rock formation, and then in the afternoon I fly to Cairns. I should be able to upload most if not all of the good photos I have from there, so expect a fairly substantial update around noon UK time.
Until then
K
There were the usual fleeting shooting stars that you can see anywhere in the world, even in London, but we were treated to an especially long one about halfway through dinner which arced across the sky for almost a second and a half, leaving a fiery tail across the sky.
Everyone should see the uninterrupted sky at least once in their life. Living in London you are lucky to see the big dipper or the North star once a month when there's little cloud to amplify the light pollution and obscure the sky. Get out into the country in England and you still have light pollution from the many towns and cities scattered all over the place, but get yourself to a relatively unpopulated country and you will be able to appreciate the incredible celestial world above us.
In a hectic city life it's easy to forget there are billions of billions of stars above us and that we're just a tiny speck in the universe. Our nearest star, Alpha Centauri is 4.5 light years away. That equates to 4.5 trillion kilometres away. Put that in perspective with our moon which is a mere 300,000 kilometres away.
I wish I was able to take a photo of the stars, but with a relatively cheap digital camera it's nigh on impossible to do so. For those of you that live in cities and haven't seen the sky out where there's no civilisation nearby, just imagine the most stars you've ever seen and multiply that by ten thousand. Wherever you look there's a cluster of stars, and you can see cloudy tentacles across the sky where the outer edges of the milky way are visible to the naked eye that wind their way from one side of your field of vision to the other.
Sunset tonight was pretty breathtaking. On one side we had Ayers Rock, and then on the other we had Kata Tjuta which is the other rock formation, the aboriginal name meaning "Many heads". The sun came to rest behind Kata Tjuta and made for a wonderful photo opportunity from up on the dune where we were having Australian sparkling wine and canapes.
This afternoon I opted to stay at the camp rather than go tramping around in the afternoon heat, so I went for a nice swim in the pool, and then dozed on the bed in my tent with the curtains open so I could gaze out on Uluru while I dozed off and woke up.
Aboriginal law and history has traditionally been passed down by way of the Tjukurpa. There was no written history or law in Aboriginal tradition, and so everything has been passed down by word of mouth, and learning of ritual from the elders. Parents teach their children in stages. The first stage of the Tjukurpa is all that non aboriginals are allowed to be told. This is the level of a 4 year old child. It teaches basic right and wrong and simple things such as where to find water etc. It teaches the relationship between people, plants, animals and the environment that they live in. The Tjukurpa is commonly referred to as the Dreaming or the Dreamtime, although the Aboriginals have now avoided this description as it implies that it is merely a myth, rather than an integral part of their history. The Dreamtime is in fact what the Aboriginals regard as the irrefutable path of their ancestry and creation. For a good background to the Tjukurpa, have a look at this website which explains it well: http://www.deh.gov.au/parks/uluru/tjukurpa/
Tomorrow I am up at 4:30 am again to go to Kata Tjuta for a sunrise walk among the rock formation, and then in the afternoon I fly to Cairns. I should be able to upload most if not all of the good photos I have from there, so expect a fairly substantial update around noon UK time.
Until then
K
posted by Ken at 1:21 pm
1 Comments:
Next trip perhaps? Gotta save up the holiday time...
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