Oz is big. Gazing out the windows on the way to the centre, you'd be amazed at nature's consistency here, a former inland sea that has left a flat dry desert without comparison in the world. It's reddish soil. It's kangaroos. It's probably what you see when you close your eyes and think, "Australia". This place is Australia's geographical and metaphorical heart, despite the fact that only 1% of the country's population live here - not even enough to qualify as a state, hence, the Northern Territory.

Sitting there in the bus, you'll grab whatever reading material you can find. Such was how I stumbled across the Australian Almanac 2001. After dutifully enlightening myself on cricket tests from the 1950's, I flipped a few more pages and stumbled across a survey of scientific accomplishments for the year 2000. This is where I learned that the Australian Museum had determined, through research on skeletal remains, that the distinctive fauna of Australia are actually descendents from a collectively much larger and more carnivorous lot.

A little later in the day, the driver of the bus informed us that upon reaching Alice Springs, the white farmers were so vigilant to produce cattle in a climate so unhospitable to it, that anywhere from 35 to 40 native mammals were elbowed out of the ecosystem before they could even be scientifically classified.

Even with groggy head, stiff neck, and half closed eyes, I turned to the window then to look out at the desert expanse again - perhaps as a mausoleum to what had once crawled, hopped, and flown across these lands. I supposed that the Bunyip is an especially unique lake monster legend - because I wager that it was, at one point, most certainly a veritable denizen of doom to the people who lived here for at least 60,000 years. Now of course, the word Bunyip has become synonymous with humbug, and most think it was just a figurative storytale - but we really may never know. The billabongs are complacent now. We take as much water as we wish.

It seemed a strange paradox that of all places, a hostel in Alice Springs has the most ridiculously powerful showers you'll experience in Australia. A town of 30,000 people, in the middle of the desert, nestled around a riverbed that's usually dry. The Bunyip is gone, annulled from this land, and I'm treated to lashing buckets of water when I take a shower here.

Of course, it's hard to run out of things that are strange about Alice Springs. From its humble beginnings as a telegraph station, where it was named after a lady in Adelaide who refused to move to her new namesake town, it is now the principal airport hub for those who wish to see Australia's ubiquitous big rock, where it pulls in 150 million dollars of tourist income every year.

Big rock? You say it must have a name, right? Well, certainly it does. It is often known by Ayers Rock, but also recently popular is the name Uluru, the name given it by the Anangu who've lived here for millenia. But which one is more appropriate? I can state quite certainly that it is, at one in the same moment, both.

The big rock is known as Ayers Rock, named after an administrator in the South Australian government who helped fund exploration in the centre. And hey, that's fair dinkum, because when you see the line of dozens of people all making "the climb" up the rock, there is no better name for this place where visitors come from across the world to assail the heights of the continent's most recognizable natural icon.. It is an important metaphor, of course. You can imagine the feeling, the rush of reaching the top, a feat that not only reminds us of how we've risen to meet the challenges of life, but also allows us to trace the footsteps of history, when discoverers first found it.

Of course, if you've seen these kind of things before, pulling yourself up a chain alongside grandparents and 8-year old children, only to reach the top amongst a global mash of mobile-phones making "guess where I am?" phone calls, then you might consider the whole concept of Ayers Rock to be yet another obselete and transparent chance for tourists to masturbate their colonial mentality.

Yes, that was a bit heavy. But the magic of this landmark is its simple justice, because from the top, you can't see the what the rock looks like at its base. The same rock that some climb as Ayers Rock is also Uluru, the most brilliant museum of human culture on the planet. A 9km walk circumnavigates the rock, and this is what most tour companies offer as an alternative to the climb (but rarely allow time for both). As a result, you'll have to wake up that morning and decide, "Will I climb or not?" I must admit, right up until we were at the trailhead, I had no idea what my choice would be. But when I finally arrived, something unconscious made the decision easy.

The local Anangu people, who maintained the country around the rock before European contact, lived in Uluru the way many people live in suburbs. The northeastern face, with its many caves and outcroppings was essentially their residential district. The northern face, receiving less sun than most of the rock, was their school, their hospital, and their kitchen. The southern face, with its colorful geological markings, is a 350-meter tall storyboard of history, relating to the ancient battle between Kuniya, a woma python, and Liru, an eastern brown snake. This became their university, church, and museum. All along the circumference of Uluru, every physical distinction had some significance to their creation beliefs and tales of the Dreaming.

I suppose much of the above is gross generalization, but this is the best I can explain in a short amount of time. I regard it all as an amazing testament to how humans could live in harmony not only with the natural wildlife around them, but also make a fully functional home and community from the simple architecture of nature. A patient walk around Uluru, to experience its rich redness next to the deep blue sky and pale yellow grasses, and to see faintly the conquerors with their video cameras atop the rock, it really is an incomparable symbol of the times - past, present, and future.

The top is for the conquistador, and the bottom is for the respectful visitor. The park brochure doesn't say so explicitly, but it does advise against climbing the rock in milder terms. And I think you can already guess my bias on the matter.

I don't mean to sound pompous about this, since we all still have remnants of colonialism within us. For me, a great weakness is photography, and knowing when to take in with the lens and when to take in with the eyes. Many of Uluru's features are sacred sites and forbid photography. I felt comfortable with this and respected them. But in places where it was allowed, I enjoyed the opportunity of photographing the monolith and its surroundings. This is a common thought of mine, as you might recall from my earlier entry that quoted DeLillo about the most-photographed barn in America.

Along the way, I tried also to keep in mind the advice of the traditional owner, Kunmanara, "The tourist comes here with the camera taking pictures all over. What has he got? Another photo to take home, keep part of Uluru. He should get another lens - see straight inside. Wouldn't see big rock then. He would see that Kuniya living right inside there as from te beginning. He might throw his camera away then." He seaks truly, for there are moments nearby Uluru that transcend the camera lens.

Surprisingly, alongside Uluru is a permanent pool of water named Mutitjulu, which is home to an ancestral watersnake named Wanampi. While not of the same potency of the Bunyip, I found this to be another interesting example of how aboriginal culture includes creatures of the water to represent the importance of water holes in a desertlike environment. I'm going to ask around Alice Springs in the next few days to see what I can glean about Wanampi.

Wishing toodaloo to Uluru, we visited Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and King's Canyon, also potent venues in their own right. One thing I must thank Australia for is that I've become a biology-appreciator again. How can you not when you see tadpoles that will burrow underground and wait 2 years or more for a heavy rain, just to come aground to mate and complete the cycle. Or grasses that predate dinosaurs, yet take 70 years to grow to knee height, and about 400 years just to reach maturity. The Australian desert, even having lost so many species, is nonetheless a radically creative ecosystem.

On the last leg of our hike in King's Canyon, I started to sing O Tannenbaum (O Christmas Tree) to a German, just for humor's sake. When you're out in the desert, quaint old holidays like Christmas seem from another planet. And when you see all that Aboriginal culture has created, sometimes you think that Christianity must have come from another planet as well. Of course, they are both from one, the same globe that gives snow to New England and meanwhile forces me to skirt with dehydration in the desert. What a wide world it is.