We break our fast with French press coffee and Adelaide’s banana bread, which is better the second day. As I’m dumping out the coffee grounds, the glass insert slips into the sink and shatters. Shit. I leave $30AUD under a pile of the remains. We’re ready to go in jiffy. Alice, though, is profoundly grumpy, no – fixated. Her sleep was disrupted by the discovery of a ‘fist-sized’ spider on the wall on her way to the bathroom. Australia’s poisonous spiders may be small, but the big ones will give you a coronary. Perhaps to distract her, I remind her of our commitment to the Naracoorte Caves. I hear they have serious bats. Bats = mammals that fly. We subsequently enroll our bunny-asses on the 11:30 Bat Cave tour. The bats are not actually visitable, for repeated human intrusion would bring a quick end to the bat habitat. However, there’s a constant video feed from their cave, so our tour can view the critters remotely in black-and-white while the ranger talks animatedly. Confirmed – bats are really strange and Batman jokes are lame.

From here, a rickety staircase leads down into the bats’ winter palace. It’s only perhaps thirty feet underground; so sunlight penetrates. Nevertheless the bats love it. On the ‘off season’ you can even get married in this cave. Most of the cave’s formations have been knocked off and purloined. The most intriguing theft, however, was that of the partly calcified body of an aboriginal stolen by a sideshow impresario in the 19^th century, returned, then re-stolen and never recovered. Periodically, paleontologists dig through the deep strata in the various caves here, uncovering hundreds of thousands of years of the fossil record to reveal skeletons of extinct megafauna, like the giant short-faced kangaroo and the marsupial lion, as well as countless smaller species.

Eastward Ho. Outside the town of Mount Gambier, is Blue Lake, a crater lake that turns an unearthly blue for five months of the year before reverting to steel gray. Yup, sure is weirdly blue, especially since we’ve got leaden overcast above us. We roll into Port Fairy in the late afternoon, acclimate to tonight’s digs, then stroll up the main street of this seasonal tourist town. For tonight’s meal, I hear Coffin Sally’s has good pizza.

Back at the hotel, I try to bring this thing up to date, but weariness prevails. Outside, however, some gents, not dudes, gents are having an animated and prolonged late-night chinwag. Fuck ‘em. Let the rain begin! Weather to sleep by.

So, I returned to the bakery to pick up breakfast and for the road, a picnic, and for future breakfasts, a half-loaf (better than none) of banana bread. The drive from Adelaide east to Coonawarra will take about four hours and we must get there before 5pm to retrieve the house keys being held at a general store. The plan is for me to rent Hertz’s latest car after breakfast and retrieve Ali and our belongings at the Fire Station.

Hertz politely downgrades my upgrade as I explain my reluctance to drive an SUV (or ‘Ute’ in Australian). They then decline to approve Ali as an alternate driver unless she’s present. Duh. My drive back to the Fire Station is a fucking cauchemar. Construction along the median of North Terrace has eliminated one’s ability to make a left turn anywhere. I make my way slowly and carefully as I futz with Google Maps on my lap and when I arrive I’m pretty fucking wound up. Ali’s ability to soothe fury has limits, which ironically helps me walk back this anger. Back to Hertz. Up a one-way street the wrong way. Fuck you all. Paperwork accomplished.

On the road, at last. The Hertz agent suggested turning off for a rest stop at a town called Hahndorf. It had been settled by Germans in the 19^thcentury and was now an old agricultural town reimagined theme park-style to provoke spending on bullshit. We’re here before noon on a Friday and there’s not a parking space to be had. We end up gnawing on our sandwiches in a grocery store parking lot on the outskirts of town. Food brings a modicum of relief and we’re sailing down the highway again with the crew of the Rocinante (see: Leviathan Wakes, the audiobook).

The landscape of long, pale yellow slopes dotted with substantial trees gives way to the green geometries of vineyards. Because of the perfect climate and soil across southern Australia, its wines have garnered a world-class reputation. We pass the entrance to the Naracoorte Caves, vowing to return tomorrow. For many kilometers, this road cuts through endless rows of grape vines, hemmed at each shoulder by luscious hedges of red floribunda roses.

It’s about a quarter to five when I pull the car in front of the Coonawarra Store after slowly passing by once, as if casing the joint. “I thought that was you,” says the brown-haired lady behind the counter. “We got here as fast as we could,” I reply. When we locate the house, we can’t seem to find the door to which the key applies. The front door is a total bust, but finally the door by the carport responds favorably to my fumbling. The house is a one-story sprawl, with four bedrooms, a ‘great’ room, a kitchen, dining room and a number of useless chambers furnished in useless eclecticism. And a single bath with corresponding commode booth, Aussie-style.

Ali suggests we cook ourselves supper, so we hop in the Hyundai and head for the IGA in Penola, the next town over. Spaghetti Fiesta! I fix dinner and run a load of wash while Ali sits transfixed by an incomprehensible game show called Think Tank, which may be the mutant offspring of Hollywood Squares, Jeopardy, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. I poke my head in periodically, only to be mystified. Dinner is carbo-yummy. Somehow, it has become nighttime. I arrange the damp laundry on a drying rack and retire with my copy of 100 Australian Poems You Need to Know.

Because we bought ground coffee last night, I could French-press something semi-decent to start my day. A good bakery a couple of blocks up O’Connell Street makes a fine flat white and toasts the banana bread. I want to go to there.

Adelaide is one of the few Australian cities without a convict history. It was laid out by idealists in the early 19^th century in a figure-eight pattern, two urban centers, South and North, surrounded by a serpentine of parkland. The Fire Station Inn is in North Adelaide, while the institutions of commerce and learning are a twenty-five minute walk downhill, in South Adelaide. Like many cities in Australia, Adelaide suffered post-war indignities as gorgeous homes and mercantile buildings were replaced by blocky eyesores. We pass what used to be a hospital with turrets and balconies and elaborate gingerbread filigree. Under one dormer, stone letters declare – Elder Laboratory. It speaks to me.

We’re aiming for the Art Gallery of South Australia, which, I believe, has a show up from Musée d’Orsay. On the way, we step into a used bookshop chockablock full of old Aussie tomes. I find my way to the fiction section and discover a signed first edition of Edmund White’s Nocturnes for the King of Naples. I’ll take you home, I will. The proprietor feels compelled to tell us about a going-out-of-biz sale that their second location is having. He expounds at length concerning the directions to this gold mine of weary titles. We give him our puppy-like attention, then continue on to the Art Gallery, drained of our humanity.

This may be why an eager docent pegs us as two people in need of a hyper-detailed schematic for navigating the Art Gallery’s collection. He marks a route on the map with a dotted line that loops over itself as it wanders from floor to floor. It seems the Parisian treasures won’t show up until the end of the month. We were misinformed. The current show moves through the galleries thematically, one high-toned concept after another – Death, Rapture, Toil, etc. Goddamn, if this doesn’t work in an entertaining and surprising fashion. Most of the work is Australian with a smattering of ‘school of – ’ European pieces. We have a great old time.

Ali turns and asks, “Where’s your book?” “Oh, shit. I left it in the bathroom by the entrance.” Phew. It’s still there in its brown paper wrapping. Some light lunch is enjoyed on the patio and we stroll a little further down North Terrace to Ayers House, home of Sir Henry Ayers, for whom that Rock was named. He was a 19^th century immigrant Irishman made good, becoming a copper baron, politician, and knight. The house has been restored with care and affection. It’s a modest (Think Graceland, but with a ballroom), two-story High Victorian home. I love house tours; this one is self-guided. Throughout the house, they’ve encouraged school children to leave comment cards by the exhibits that intrigue them. “I want to live in this room for a week.” “Where is the refrigerator?” “This dress would fit my mum but my dad wouldn’t like it.”

Time for a little shopping. Walking down the Rundle Street pedestrian mall, the bistros and hip clothing stores gradually succumb to brand retailers. We slip into one store with its own brand of funky clothing. Ali finds a terrific dress with a recurring Godzilla pattern. Very flattering and nerdy: the pirate bunny one, not so much. For me, there’s a jaunty, black watch cap. Finding a restroom in this maelstrom of commerce is not easy, but we do. Also, more coffee. Also, a 1500-piece jigsaw puzzle.

This time of day, finding a cab requires dexterity and perseverance. After a few false starts, we’re on our way back to the Fire Station Inn to put our feet up. A good Indian restaurant a few blocks north on O’Connell beckons. Meanwhile, I’ve done a load of whites for the third time due to my inability to understand how a goddamn washer/dryer combo works. If I could only make it stop.

I wake up at 2am and can’t get back to sleep. This bed is an anti-bed: it’s aggressively unsupportive, on top of which, the Australian hospitality industry seems to have no knowledge of, or use for, fitted sheets. This bottom sheet bunches at my midsection while coiling around my feet. I lie there hating all things as I pull my laptop onto my stomach, poke at my emails, and fume. I guess I’ll start my day with some instant fucking coffee and journal writing. My packing is brisk and resentful. We’re on the road by 6am, gassing up the muddy Kluger in the dark, then heading east into the rising sun. Ali drops off to sleep and I somehow keep the vehicle on the left. We arrive back in Alice with 90 minutes to spare. The Kluger that started out shiny gray now looks like Fred Flintstone’s adobe automobile. At the airport, we grab a free table at the quick sandwich place. While chewing thoughtfully, I turn to face a small commotion. A little boy with a handful of Smarties meets my gaze and wails, which amuses Ali greatly. Our flight is much shorter that I had imagined, which amuses me.

G’day, Adelaide. We cab to the Fire Station Inn. We will spend a couple of days here in Adelaide in a two-bedroom apartment on the top floor of, yes, a restored firehouse. The flat on the first floor will let you sleep with the fire engine. Looking through the window at the fabulous red truck, I am blindsided by a boyish yearning to be a fireman. Everything is here, except the dalmation. An early and hearty dinner, then bed. I’m fucking pooped. Planes fly over our heads every ten minutes for about an hour, then stop. We’re in a flight path of Adelaide’s not-big airport.

We are slow to get moving this morning due to the implacable nature of exhaustion. My left ‘index’ toe is fucked: I have the black toenail that runners can get from bad shoes (but I love my Cons) or just running. Coffee, please. At breakfast, we strike up a conversation with an Australian woman and her mum at the next table. She’s able to confirm the lame, semi-extortionary disappointment of some of the resort’s highly touted special event add-ons. Both tables kvell about the Outback Sky Journey, though.

Today we intend to hike a portion of the trails of Kata Tjuta (formerly known as The Olgas), a collection of massive sandstone domes forty-five kilometers west of Uluru. Visible across the scrub plain as a mass of purple mounds nestling and jostling under the fiery sun, the closer we get the more fantastic and breathtaking they become. But if God successfully made a loaf of bread with Uluru, he really botched his Kata Tjuta dinner roll experiment. The Valley of the Winds trail is closed (heat advisory), but we persevere. It turns out the 7K interior loop is what’s closed, but people nevertheless are hoofing it up to the first overlook. We hydrate along, submitting to the indignities of the flies. At the crest, we are treated to an epic vista of red domes receding one either side of a yellow-green and undulating valley. A German woman takes our picture and we hers. She agrees to remove her fly hat.

We are very satisfied to have tackled (nudged) the Olgas. Lunch we take at the Aboriginal Cultural Center between Uluru and Kata Tjuta. There are some helpful displays, enlightening and sometimes amusing. Aboriginal life has strange rules and customs, all of which relate directly to the harsh environment and the incomprehensible antiquity of the culture, and none of which have any Western analogs. I feel sort of abashed. At the store a small, square, painted panel, signed and everything, appeals to me. The artist also turned twisted sticks into wonderful snakes, but they are too complicated to transport. I buy Ali her very own bilby, a small, big-eared marsupial. It’s an early night because we have a long drive back to Alice tomorrow to catch the flight to Adelaide.

Well, today marks my thirty-third year of sobriety. So it’s fitting, I guess, that Alice and I should attempt to hike the six-mile perimeter of Uluru. This will be one of those ‘because it’s there’ endeavors. Uluru is a stupendous monolith though not the biggest in Australia; that’s Mount Augustus in WA. Photos give you some idea how solitary this colossus is, but in life, its immensity is so abrupt and discombobulating that the only solution is to abandon our adobe-encrusted Kluger in the parking lot, take couple deep breaths, and start walking. It’s a matter of adjusting to the scale of the thing.

In 1985, ‘ownership’ of the Rock was ‘returned’ to the aboriginal people. We look with scorn at the stream of white folks climbing the sandstone face of the Rock after being asked over and over again not to. I wish they’d rip out the cables and forbid those heedless fuckers from tromping over this ancient territory. And this October, they will.

Our pace is brisk as we round the first third, but we quickly realize that we got a late start. The day grows hotter and hotter and the path edges closer to Uluru itself, a sump of incandescence. Ali had filled her backpack with what I thought at the time was an excess of water, but she was so right. We’re rapidly evaporating. There’s only the weediest shade, which we cleave to at every opportunity. Along the way, various spots have been designated by the aboriginal people as sacred, sacred specifically to men or to women, or even to grandmas. Hikers are requested not to trespass and to refrain from photography. I aspirate one – two – three goddamn flies. Ali, not being a mouth-breather, is spared.

We are beginning to assume every distant juncture of rock, desert, and sky to be a major turn; perhaps the HALF-WAY POINT! Scoffing at other hikers is one way to buoy our spirits, and so is drinking water. Look! There’s a shelter with shade and a fucking map. We ARE half-way. Rejoice. It feels breezier on this side, though our path is much closer to the Rock. It’s hot to the touch. By the time we’ve determined that we’re in the final third, our asses are both dragging and sorry. Do we crawl across the parking lot to the car? No, but we’re completely glassy-eyed and wobbly in a jubilant way.

I can’t speak for Ali, but I collapsed on my bed. It took a supreme act of will to bend down and untie my sneakers. Supreme Act of Will #2 – shower. And then a nap. There’s a knock at the door. I rise from my horizontal, semi-comatose state and in bursts the mini-bar guy. He takes one look at me naked and vanishes. Oh, I’m awake: so awake in fact that only doing laundry could modulate this state of high alert. The front desk apologizes for the intrusion when I complain. They send us a plate of cheese.

After dinner, we are privy to the Outback Sky Journey, which is a pat description for two guys with powerful telescopes in a dark corner of the resort property. The Milky Way unfurls across the southern sky. The Centauri, Alpha and Beta, two bright stars in close proximity to one another, point to the Southern Cross, the North Star of the Southern Hemisphere. The constellation Orion’s visible, tilted in a crazy way, but Jupiter, the coy gasbag, remains hidden by a tree. Through the telescope, we are offered glimpses of nebulae (the middle point in Orion’s belt), star clusters, and the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small one, two small, irregular, nearby galaxies. The show is wonderfully entertaining and, like, cosmic.

Sleep.

We’re sad to leave Ooraminna and the Lorimers – omnicapable Nicky and laconic Morgan with his cowboy tan, pale forehead atop ruddy cheeks and a wide smile – and their independent, curious children. The helicopter we noticed on our way in is how Morgan herds the Homestead’s cattle. The potential efficiencies don’t balance with the utter jackass peril. In the kitchen, Nicky fixes us a box lunch as the two of us gab, while Ali and the girls, Mia and Savannah, work on Cinderella’s jigsaw puzzle. I sit down with them and they ask me if I’ve ever flown first class. I find myself ‘splaining, the gist being – “Big seats that fold down all the way,” I say, pointing the La-Z-Boy by the TV.

Ali and I depart shortly after nine with a five-hour journey ahead of us. The road to Uluru (Ayers Rock) doesn’t seem as monotonous as the one up the west coast. Plus, we stop at every roadhouse for bladder realignment and the pleasure of purchasing each establishment’s hokey stickers. Roughly four hours into the journey, I spy a great red butte or mesa or something that I immediately mistake for Uluru. It’s Mount Conner, another monolith.

Onward. And, at last, the red red Rock, majestic, serene, and singular in every aspect. A sprawling resort has been built nearby to accommodate ALL the tourist traffic, from backpackers to the haute bourgeoisie. We crash and then we putter. The resort is a self-contained little town, complete with post office and supermarket. Liter bottles of water are required for tomorrow’s anticipated circumnavigation of Uluru. Dinner is simple and sleep is semi-delicious.

Alice has a renowned Desert Park that showcases the fauna and flora of central Australia. Paths lead us through four environments, but most fascinating are the half-dozen aviaries, home to a gorgeous variety of native birds. These enclosures are small enough that the creatures are readily identifiable. The birds have occasionally been housed with lizard companions, who, because of the overcast and unseasonable cool, remain cautiously en-burrowed. Upon completion of the wildlife circuit, we gnaw on rudimentary sandwiches accompanied by chicken-flavored potato chips.

I want to visit the Royal Flying Doctor Service Museum. God Bless Ali, she’s game. The RFDS was founded in the 1920s by Rev. John Flynn to serve the medical needs of Australia’s remote and scattered populations. A pasty, nervous fellow stands in front of a TV screen that plots each now airborne RFDS flight in real time and delivers a monotonous spiel. Tiny green airplanes whiz slowly across tremendous emptiness. Given that Australia’s mass can fit the continent of Europe from Britain to Turkey within its borders, that’s damn impressive. Before we’re to be ushered into an auditorium to listen to a ‘hologram’ of ‘John Flynn’, we are invited to clamber into a mock-up of the plane currently in use. We sit snugly in a row of single seats on the right side, while two gurneys end-to-end line the left. A German couple who had lived in New Jersey for many years engages us in pleasant small talk. The hologram is truly stupid and the museum more than a little obscure, but we are nevertheless impressed. Impressed with the enormous size of the continent and the ingenuity and spirit of the people. I purchase Ali a small koala in RFDS pilot gear, our co-pilot from now on.

Shopping does not immediately engage Ali, but the Todd Street Mall is reputed to be the place to find talented aboriginal artists. We slip into the first art gallery we see and, after poking around for several minutes, become the audience for a monologue by one of the proprietors. He transcends loquaciousness. Based on vague hints as to our itinerary, he begins drawing us a map of the Great Ocean Road. When he reaches the edge of the page, he just adds another and continues scrawling. Ali manages to sidle away, but I am made to promise that I will text when I have eaten a rock lobster. Not even two scoops of ice cream are capable of wiping the stunned look off my face.

Back to Ooraminna for recuperation before dinner. In the kitchen, I’m put to work frying barramundi for tonight’s large group of guests, a nice young couple and a tedious gasbag. The fish, it turns out, is undercooked but still tasty.

Oh, God, the ungodly hour. Nothing motivates quite as thoroughly as getting up way too fucking early with a job to do. I’m wide awake because I have a purpose! Bleary and grouchy, the two of us, yet wickedly focused. We pile onto the jitney. Qantas finds a minor problem with our tickets which is quickly resolved. Aloft, a snack is served, a ‘croque monsieur’. Ali discovers a piece of wire in hers. Nice. The flight attendant takes the news like they always do – with zero affect and no attempt to resolve the problem. Are they trained to be assholes when it comes to crisis in service, or does Wire In Croque Monsieur = Emergency Water Landing?

Sure enough, it’s raining when we land in Alice. Aussies leave off the ‘Springs’ because everything has a diminutive in this country, usually ending in ‘o’ or ‘ie’. Hertz offers us a big honking Toyota SUV called a Kluger which this time we don’t decline. Ali takes the wheel and navigates the unsealed, i.e. dirt, highway with aplomb. Our vehicle sends up great plumes of terracotta-colored mud as we tear through vast puddles yelling “Whooooa!” The rain/drizzle we met on arrival has been happening for some days. Out here, the landscape’s like the Southwestern deserts in the US, in that there’s plenty of vegetation but no topsoil: just bright red, dusty country tufted in gold and pale green as far as the eye can see. The desert will bloom, but after we’re gone.

We unlatch a cow gate ahead of us and a couple minutes later we roll up to Ooraminna Station Homestead. Rounding a bend, a small helicopter sits by the road. This is the second non sequitur in the moments since we passed through the cow gate. Before the helicopter, we passed by a ‘frontier town’, Twilight Zone empty. Ooraminna Station is one big film set, it seems. The whole 600-acre cattle ranch is available to serve as a setting for film and photo shoots, as well as a destination for weddings and parties.

It’s only eleven in the morning, due to the ninety-minute time change here in the Northern Territory. What we take to be the main building has a long veranda that leaves the interior deep in shade. No one seems to be about. We slide the door open and our hosts, Nicky and Morgan Lorimer, are inside. Their three youngsters, a boy and two girls, dash in and shake our hands. Ali scores the Tin Cabin and I the Timber one. The stone cabin, ‘The Police Station’, has a gaol, i.e. jail, out back capable of sleeping two more. Timber and Tin each consist of a single bedroom separated from the bath by a breezeway. The bedrooms are filled with a mighty four-poster and both cabins have a porch that looks out over scrubby hills, while rising up behind are great granite outcroppings, and off to the left is a billabong largely for show as it must be refilled with a garden hose.

After we settle in, having been warned about the inevitable plague of frogs in the bathrooms, we tiptoe through the mud to the main house where Nicky has promised us lunch – two hearty sandwiches. Then we judiciously retreat to the cabins for a couple hours of chill. The drizzle is intermittent, the sky is gray, and the air is very cool. This weather is utterly anomalous: the Red Center of Australia is usually blazing at this time of year. Ooraminna is rustic, not in a design mag way, but honestly ramshackle. In the main building, kids’ toys are piled in a corner, on a table there’s an unfinished jigsaw puzzle of Cinderella at her pumpkin surprise moment, and at the bar a pink steer’s skull has pride of place. Nicky is animated and helpful, recounting stories I can’t exactly follow. At dinnertime we drive the hundred yards to the main house; walking back in the dark and mud would have been a disaster. The kids are off at a sleepover, so Morgan, Nicky, and Adele, the Scottish nanny, are our company. We feast on a mammoth lamb shank and vegetables.