Parallel Time

Dusty corrugated dirt roads through outback cattle stations, travel alongside time on Southern Arrernte lands.

Learn the story of a menacing ancestor, going ‘wrong way’. Lessons of kinship starkly evidenced by a towering sandstone pillar standing solitary on the edge of the Simpson Desert. Walk and discover animal tracks leading to spinifex shelters. Small birds forage and raptors soar. Lizards scuttle away. After good rain, wildflowers burst with colour, pink, yellow, orange, purple, white. Climb the stairs upward to Itirkawara, named Chambers Pillar by the first Explorers. It remained a land mark for Pioneers of the new world. Relics of the Overland Telegraph Line and old Ghan Train rail line can be sighted as we drive parallel to the famous Finke Desert race track. One of the world’s most challenging off-road motor races in one of the most remote parts of the world. By arrangement, visit the local Indigenous Community, situated on Southern Arrernte Country but made up of displaced peoples from surrounding Countries who came to work on the cattle station in return for rations. An arts centre is now situated in this remote and relatively modern community. Be inspired!