Chapter 5

Tom was up before the true dawn.

He dressed in his casual clothes and quietly went to head outside. Victoria stirred when he opened the door and asked him to wait for her. She slid down off the bunk, giving Tom a show of her tiny yellow pants when her cotton, singlet-style nightie rode up.

Victoria hurried to the bathroom as she pulled her nightie down. She surprised Tom by only being gone for a couple of minutes. They both pulled on their socks and shoes, and then hurried out to where one of the cooking fires had been started.

They gratefully accepted a cuppa tea from one of the billies that were steeping beside the fire, and a slice of damper that was coated liberally in butter and locally sourced honey.

Moving over to where many of the other tourists were located, they watched the sun peek over the horizon to shine its glory on the ancient rock. They all oohed as it shone blood-red in the morning light. The colour and tone changed as the sun crept higher into the cloudless sky and banished the shadows as best it could.

After an hour and being suitably impressed, the pair headed back to the caravan to wake their friends.

Tom made sure Ally and Barb drank plenty of water with their aspirins, once they had roused the girls from their slumber.

Neither girl was inclined to go for a long hot walk in their current state. It was decided that Victoria and Tom would go and the other two went back to bed. They crashed out on the main bed together because you could shut the room up and turn on the gas-operated air-conditioner.

Victoria wasn’t sure if she was pleased to get Tom to herself for the entire day or not. She had watched the way he had treated her friends and couldn’t really fault him. True he had screwed both of them, but then again, that was their plan all along. He had been solicitous of their throbbing heads and made sure the women were hydrated and medicated before he and she left.

When Victoria realised that Tom didn’t have a hat, with him saying that he had lost his hat; she found one for him. It was a rather old, battered, khaki coloured, cloth fishing hat, but it did have a wide brim and fitted him well enough. Tom didn’t ask why she had such a hat in her possession, and she didn’t volunteer the information.

Barb, being the broadest across the chest of the three women, had some rather large, long-sleeved, light-cotton shirts in her cupboard. Tom found one that had a simple check-pattern that didn’t look girly. He happily put it on.

Once the pair had sunscreen on their faces and legs, three full water bottles in their packs with various nibble foods that Victoria chucked in, they headed off. Since the west side of the monolith was still mostly in the shade, they had an easier time of it as they walked and talked.

They often stopped to just gaze at the interesting features, and they peered into or entered any cave they were allowed to explore, according to the signs. Two other couples had joined them not long after they set off and they also met up with another couple on the way.

The couples and Victoria were surprised by some of the information that Tom gave them, about what he knew of the Anangu people that lived in the area. Back in the nineteen-eighties, a lot of people still had little respect for or knowledge of the indigenous way of life.

Tom explained that the way the locals lived had worked for them for many tens of thousands of years, so they couldn’t see any reason to change it. The little group could soon tell that Tom had a lot of respect for people that could live in harmony with their environment.

Tom talked about how the Aboriginals took great pains to preserve their land and culture, for their children and their children’s children. It gave the visitors something to think about, and they were happy to explore, as much as Tom was.

They all gasped when a wallaby they had frightened out of a thicket, blundered off into the bush. Its long tail stirred up the dust as it made its escape. Next, they were entranced by the blue-tongued lizard that was basking on a rock but left it alone at Tom’s insistence.

Later, they came upon a woman who was using a wana (digging stick) to dig some roots out of the ground near an old soak hole. The young teenage girl with her was collecting seeds from the plants that grew around the damp area.

Tom crouched down and asked the older woman what plant she was harvesting. He was careful to be respectful and to not seek eye-contact. He had remembered that it was not how they talked to one another.

The woman quietly told them the English name and then her name for the plant. She cackled as they all tried to pronounce her word. It then became a learning game as she pointed out other eatable foods in the area and gave them their two names.

She showed them how to harvest several different plants and explained what they were good for. She chuckled when she said that this was women’s work and not for a man unless a plant was needed for medicine and no woman was with the men.