For four days, I have been based at Yulara in the red centre of Australia. It’s about 20 km directly to Uluṟu, “The Rock”, the biggest monolith on earth, but it still dominates the skyline. About double the distance to Kata Tjuṯa, over 30 similar “heads” formed in the desert from a similar alluvial process hundreds of millions of years ago. Three hours drive to Kings Canyon and six to the nearest town, Alice Springs. I flew here with my son, his partner and the partner’s mother, but they flew out yesterday. So now I sit alone among strangers in the airport lounge. The tour is over and I’m waiting to fly home.

              Half a billion years past, a river’s
              water washed its debris down,
              separating sand and silt
              from stone and scree.

Directly facing me, a man and his wife sit together, part of a larger group sitting in the row behind them. They appear to be about my age. Retired. The lady catches my eye and asks a question. Clearly German, but her English is excellent and her accent only minor. We exchange a few words and then she comes to take the vacant seat next to me. She’s solved the problem of talking over all the noise that swamps the terminal lounge.

She breaks the ice by telling me her name. Her mother was Catholic, so she was christened with a very Catholic name - Monica. “Easy for me to remember,” I reply. “I have a niece named Monica.” My mother was also Catholic, so I too have a good Catholic name, Peter.

Her second name is less common. They didn’t have horned larks in the area where she was born, but her mother gave their name as her second name - Alouette. The bird made famous around the world by a Quebecois children’s song. Far more famous than mine - I know no songs about Robert.

              Alouette, gentille alouette
              Alouette, je te plumerai

Monica tells me about visiting Australia as a young backpacker in the 1970s. She compresses the time for me - renting a Kombi van and travelling the dust unsealed road all the way from Alice Springs- a lonely trip with just a single station to stop and refuels at. Now the road is no longer rutted - bitumen over graded and compressed gravel is rarely bother by rain, and the debris on the road is more likely to be a dead animal than alluvial scree. Then, the tourist would be few, and arrive at their destination in unairconditioned cars, looking like “Red Indians” from the dust.

Now, in the 40 degree heat and the flies of summer, she has done the same trip comfortably. She has seen Australia from the air, this ancient, ground down continent. She knows that all of Europe would drop in here with room to spare, and yet it is so empty. The tourists that arrive these days don’t see the distance that she sees, haven driven through it. A three hour flight, and they are on the beaches of Sydney or Perth, or the rainforests of the Daintree. “Everything has changed,” she says, and she is unsure the change is for the better.

My thoughts are similar - this week I flew, but I do a road trip every year of at least 2000 kilometres. Years ago, while she was backpacking, I drove with my family from Sydney to Perth, with no freeways, where an overtaking lane was a luxury outside the cities. I’d driven across the red dust too, 525 kilometres of it across the Nullarbor Plain. It’s not that far south of Uluṟu in a direct line from Uluṟu, not in this country, although I don’t think the crow will fly 650 kilometres.

              Covered, compressed,
              converted into conglomerates,
              tilted turned, uplifted
              Uluru and Kata Tjuta.

She asks what I did, and I told her that I was a retired scientist but I had written poetry for fifty years. I did not mention that I had written a couple of limericks on the flight up, four days ago. One of them was called “Hairless in Berlin”, which was probably inappropriate given the company.

Across the aisle, someone in the touring group says “Nein” and her husband turns to join in the conversation. “Not a number, I presume”, I joke to her as we look in that direction. Her husband had removed his hat while we talked, and here I am, looking at his bald head. My mythical “Man from Berlin” sits just across the aisle.

I’m very glad I had not brought up my limerick.

              There once was a man from Berlin
              Whose hair was exceedingly thin
              Though he combs to one side,
              There’s a gap he can’t hide
              And so, he’s now turning to gin.
 

                                   8 June 2024