Indonesia 2023. Day 7. Lake Singkarak and working our way to Padang

 

We had a relatively quiet day, although the way from the mountain town of Padang Panjang ("the Long Sword"), where the BMKG seismological station is located, to the nearby port city of Padang ("The Sword") took a long time on account of the narrow winding road and heavy traffic.

Noteworthy of mention were a delicious early breakfast of ox-tail soup, and a visit to Lake Singkarak, which occupies another pull-apart basin formed by a step-to-the-right between two segments of the West Sumatra fault. It is a large mountainous lake, where one of the main fishing products are small fish, maybe the size of my pinky, caught in prodigious amounts. They are sold slightly sun dried and salty, or smoked, and reminded me very much of the boquerones we fish in the lakes of Patzcuaro and Chapala, in central Mexico. I felt tempted to buy a 10-kilo bag to bring home with me. I know DJ would very much appreciate them as snacks while watching soccer on the TV.

The big event, for me, was giving a talk at the seismological station about Earthquake Geology, highlighting similarities between the San Andreas and the West Sumatra faults. It went alright, nobody fell asleep, and I even had some interesting questions. Not surprisingly, the language barrier was a significant challenge. I will give this talk two more times, at the BMKG institute in Jakarta on August 7, and at Yogyakarta University on August 9, so I felt it was good practice.

The young staff at the BMKG seismological station are very pleasant and knowledgeable, and we very much enjoyed going out to lunch together at the best Sate restaurant in town. Sate consists of small skewers of grilled meat, and an accompanying yellow cumin sauce to dip them in, together with stewed cassava and fried beef skins (like chicharrones but not from pork). Thanks again to the Chief of Station, Dr. Sauidi, for managing such a well integrated and happy group!

"And how was the trip from Padang Panjang to Padang, Horacio?" Well, I really don't know because I fell asleep. I only know that four hours later we were still on the road. The narrow road and pretty intense traffic of scooters and big trucks made for a slow going. But eventually we made it to Padang, the capital of the state of West Java, and the most populous city within it, where we stopped for a leg stretch at the campus of Andalas University, which has a huge campus and vast stretches of undeveloped Sumatran forest at its rear half, abutting directly on the mountains. The large mountain stream here is a favorite place for students to relax and hang out, and in the late afternoon gives you the rare pleasure of seeing giant bats leaving their roosting places in the mountain to go scavenge for blood in the lowlands (just kidding; these "flying foxes" are strictly fruit eaters).

Tomorrow we will be flying to Siberut Island.

Indonesia 2023. Day 6. Of tunnels, calderas, and stinky durians

 

Cast your mind back to 1943, when the Japanese invaded Sumatra. The Dutch had built prosperous farms (coffee and tobacco) here, but this was still a pretty inaccessible mountainous land, so one might wonder why the Japanese entrenched themselves here against the constant battering of the allies. I don't know much about that stage of the war, but I think the Japanese had already made up their mind that they were not going to attack Australia, but were instead "securing" the southern boundary of their maritime empire. The fact is that after arriving in 1943 they pressed the Indonesians into forced labor to build extensive tunnels and galleries to serve as ammunition depots and troop bunkers. They were aided in their nefarious intentions by the abundance of mildly consolidated ignimbrites that were easily dug through (a lot cheaper and faster than building concrete bunkers given the abundance of forced labor).

The site of one of these tunnel complexes is close to downtown Bukittinggi, and is now converted into a park and overlook of the valley of the Sianok river. The park could well be called Monkey Land because it is overrun by a band of monkeys numbering in the hundreds. The monkeys are the overlords of the land, and guai the innocent tourist who buys a small plastic bag of peanuts "to feed the monkeys". Our innocent tourist, Irvan in this case, will be mobbed by monkeys who display no cuteness whatsoever, and instead snarl and attempt to bite the hand that is feeding them. The stress was too much for Irvan, who in panic threw the bag of peanuts unto the air. A deft old hand at this, an old monkey caught the bag in the air and ran away with his booty leaving behind a frustrated and angry mob. Please, don't feed the wild animals.

Our numbers have once again increased, as some of the young BMKG staff of the geophysics office in Padang came to join us. I need to start writing their names as I meet them. Right now I remember Sultan, Riszki, and Hafizh (and I hope I am spelling their names correctly), but there were a couple more.

We went through the tunnels, barely being able to imagine what the forced laborers went through to dig them. There was a particularly grizzly morgue, where tortured dead enemies were cut into pieces that were then thrown through a funnel to slide out to the river (and I imagine that if the funnel got clogged some poor soul would have to go down the slide to unclog it). Nasty! From the standpoint of an interested volcanologist the tunnels proved a disappointment, because in recent years the walls have been coated with gunite so you can see nothing. Only at one stop we found a place where the gunite had peeled off, and saw the ignimbrite was mildly indurated through vapor-phase alteration. Perfect material for stable tunnel excavation.

The view of the Sianok River from Monkey Land was truly spectacular, because the walls of the valley are formed by immense vertical cliffs of an Ignimbrite, which for all intents and purposes looked like the Toba Ignimbrite, although I knew it could not be it because we were hundreds of kilometers away and ignimbrites rarely travel for more than 50 km. I had to look for another smoking gun.

The bottom of the Great Wall Valley is blanketed by beautifully tended rice paddies and small farmhouses. It is the image of perfect serenity, although the looming bulk of Singalang volcano to the southwest puts it in considerable danger for damage by lahars.

We went down to the valley and confirmed, by looking at the pumice lumps, that this is not the Toba Ignimbrite, with its distinctive mineralogy of biotite, sanidine and a little quartz. No, this ignimbrite, which I will refer to as the Maninjau Ignimbrite, is characterized by apyhric pumice, likely of a high-silica rhyolitic composition. It looked too evolved to come from Singalang or Marapi volcanoes, so the likely culprit was Maninjau, which I had before misinterpreted as co-joined crater lakes and now realized must be an elongated caldera. I have to be careful with what I say, because Sauidi is very happy to follow-up on my crazy ideas, so when I asked if it was possible to visit Maninjau he obligingly changed the travel plan to accommodate my suggestion.

But before heading for the unknown we had to attend to the serious business of lunch. Food is delicious and plentiful here, but I was baffled why we were ordering so much. I grew up with the notion that you ate everything that is brought to the table, so after every meal I feel more than satisfied. I feel full to the brim. Well this time I was determined to eat more modestly and asked for belly, a dish I had seen yesterday eaten at another table (turns out to be sausages of tofu and something else stuffed in cow intestines; pretty good although the stuffing is a little bland). Almost immediately out comes this smorgaasboard of dishes, minus my belly dish, which included fish, chicken, and beef, all served with a colorful mosaic of savory sauces. But this time I held firm, and pretty soon I was eating my sausage and rice, while everyone else was also modestly eating a piece of chicken or a portion of beef. Half of the stuff that had been ordered was left untouched! I was baffled and had to ask. Then I learnt that no, we had not ordered all the dishes, but this was the way the restaurant presents its menu, from which you were free to choose. Only dishes consumed will be charged, and the untouched items will go back to the pot! OMG, what an eating epiphany!

I had a chance to put my newly acquired knowledge to work almost right away, because a foreign couple came in, and in sign language asked for the menu. The poor fools. You should have seen their look of panic as small dishes started pouring onto the table, while they frantically tried to explain that they wanted to see the menu. Almost in tears the gal protested that she was vegetarian. I tried to be helpful by explaining how this menu-in-front-of-your-eyes worked, and one of our guys spoke to the waiter and explained about the vegetarian thing. I am afraid this poor gal is going to have a hard time in Indonesia, because most of their veggie dishes are combined with meat.

Maninjau caldera, with its elongated caldera lake, is big and very beautiful, but not in the league of Toba. I would compare it with Crater Lake in Oregon. The lake is the site of a vigorous aquaculture effort, and obviously was a favored place of retreat by the Dutch, to judge by the style of the many old homes. It was raining, however, so both the mood and the view were slightly dampened by a thin mantle of fog. My desire to see the cladera threw our schedule considerably out of whack, so my crowd got hungry and decided it was time for an afternoon bowl of instant noodles. Apparently Indonesians love instant noodles, and I was a bit surprised at the enthusiasm with which they anticipated what I imagined as a cup-o-soup. Alright, when in Rome ... It took quite a bit of time to prepare the "instant" noodles, and when they came they were in proper bowls (and not in styrofoam cups), garnished with tasty spices and a fried egg. They were delicious :)

I may have mentioned that this is durian country, so I made the bad joke about eating a durian, and again Sauidi was happy to oblige. We had been driving long and hard, and it was already dark, when we pulled into a "durian restaurant" to have a durian dinner. Now, durian is a very strange fruit, about the size of a cantaloupe, but covered in a crust of spines, like some sort of armored dinosaur. Its main call to fame, however, is that it stinks. It stinks to high heaven. The durian restaurant, thus, is an open-air restaurant, where you are served tight little packets of sticky rice, with a sprinkling of shredded coconut, while you wait in anticipation for the main course. The waiter, wearing welder gloves, brings the durians to the table so they can be peeled back in quarts. Now is time to reach in for one of the fleshy seeds (about the size of a date) and suck in the soft fleshy outside. You need to hold your breath while this is going on, because if you smell what you are eating you might not be able to swallow it. It is actually quite tasty, accompanied by small gobs of sticky rice, and between us we dispatched a good dozen of durians. Travel is definitely a learning experience.

Indonesia 2023. Day 5. We cross the equator!

 

A long day of hard driving, always following the strike of the West Sumatra fault, but twisting and turning a thousand times. In the distance we saw another large geothermal development along the fault, and we stretched our legs in a small hot spring that issues from the floor of a small tributary valley. Clearly the fault has created suitable conditions for lots of hydrothermal systems to form.

By now I have had an annoying head cold and sore throat for four days, and I am sick of being sick. I am at the stage, as my father used to say, that if you tell me that chest rubs with monkey shit will cure me I will start looking for a monkey. Speaking of which (the monkey, not the shit), I was reminded that I am on a remote island by a family of monkeys, peacefully munching some plants by the side of the road. This is also the place where the Sumatran rhinoceros and tigers are fighting the threat of extinction, where small Sumatran elephants are to be found, as well as boas and rather innocuous crocodiles.

We went through the fabulous gorge of the Lintas Sumatera river (near Sunpadang), where the fault makes a "bend", not unlike the bend of the San Andreas fault as it crosses the Transverse Ranges. Formally is where one right-lateral fault segment has taken a step to the left, causing a transpressional regime, the uplift of the mountains that caused the gorge, and the clockwise rotation of the intervening block. One can see quite clearly the beds on Google's digital elevation model, and making some quick and dirty calculations, and a whole lot of assumptions, it seems to me that the displacement rate of the fault could be from 1 to 0.1 mm per year.

I am curious about what caused a major right lateral fault to form above the Sumatra subduction zone. I think it is because of the change in the elongation direction of Sumatra and Java, such that Java experiences subduction perpendicular to the trench, while Sumatra experiences subduction at an oblique angle, a component of which is accommodated by the right-lateral fault. Poor guys the Sumatrans, for they get their earthquake risk from two different and powerful sources.

With a lot of fanfare we crossed the equator! This was Irvan's first time crossing it, so we were ready to throw him unto the river but had to stop because he is still learning to swim. Pity. Instead he got a celebratory T-shirt from me.

We finally made it to Bukittinggi, where we will spend the night. It is a very nice city with beautiful buildings, ample boulevards, and lots and lots of people! Today is Saturday, so everybody is out for a stroll, meeting with friends in a cafe, or just hanging out at the Central Park, where there is a big clock tower, and where children can run around, buy shiny little toys, or meet their favorite cartoon characters (once again it is confirmed that children around the world are all alike). Bukittinggi is very close to the even larger city of Padang, and because of its beauty and cooler climate the Saturday crowd included many visitors from "the city". 

And we met new friends! Just by chance we bumped into three young associates of Sauidi, and tomorrow we will travel with them to see the Little Grand Canyon of Sumatra. 

Looking to the west, southwest, and southeast I can see that we are surrounded by volcanoes like the Siamese twins of Mounts Manindjau and Pandan, with their beautiful co-joined crater lakes, Mount Singgalang, and Mount Marapi (not to be confused with Mount Merapi, in Java).   

Indonesia 2023. Day 4. Lake Toba to West Sumatra

 

We spent the night at a resort by the lakeshore. It was a modern beautiful resort, with more walkways and rooms than Hogwarts, but every room had a beautiful view and the swimming pool and the open veranda afforded us great views of the sunset over the lake.

The following morning we crossed the bridge that joins the island to the west side of the caldera, and following the lakeshore a couple of kilometers to the north reached a hot spring area where the rocks have been hydrothermally altered. One of our youngsters kept calling it “a karst” (or maybe I misunderstood), but relict textures showed that we were dealing with a rhyolite dome. Perhaps one of the ring fracture rhyolites intruded after collapse. Clearly the place enjoyed some past glory as a spa, but I think it needs a facelift to cater to the modern tourist.

Then we started climbing out of the sheer wall of the caldera. The lower part of the wall was formed by andesites and basalts, and about half way up I clearly saw the welded base of the Toba Ignimbrite, marked by several large discharge springs that cascaded down unto the cliff. But we couldn’t stop because the road was so steep and narrow. Finally I told Michael, who was driving, that I needed to see the rocks, and with some dangerous maneuvering he stopped a few hundred meters later by the side of a rolled boulder. My bad, because I have not been able to explain to them what “outcrop” means to a geologist. The view from up high was spectacular.

Once we made it to the tableland formed by the upper surface of the Ignimbrite I started to panic. I spotted a long road cut ahead and yelled “Stop!” To Michael, who adroitly managed to half pull off the road. And there it was, in all its unwelded glory, the famous Toba Ignimbrite. I went all mushy and reverently picked small lumps of pumice, and with them in my hand I proceeded to amaze my audience with an emotional speech about the way ignimbrites form, their significance, how we recognize them, and finally—after breaking a piece of pumice in half—told them how this was a vesiculated sample of rhyolitic magma with a fair amount of crystals of biotite, sanidine, and quartz. My good friends didn’t disappoint me, reverently collected a piece of pumice, and we got under way.

For the next 30 km we saw nothing but Ignimbrite, with many sand quarries that would have made a much better place to stop, but I figured that by that time my companions had had enough volcanological rapture from me.

At the edge of the tableland we plunged into the real landscape of Sumatra, with jagged mountains and many intervening valleys. This landscape continues all the way to the western shore of Sumatra, which brings with it the challenges of moving through a mountainous region (lost of narrow twisting road ahead of us), and for the locals the challenge of moving and farming in small plots, scratching as best they can just enough corn, coffee, and vegetables to make it to the next season. It reminded me a lot of southern Mexico, where the mountains of Oaxaca and Chiapas, and the variety of climates, have been a serious deterrent to social and economic development.

Our next geologic stop, 100 kilometers from Toba, was at another hot spring. My newly trained geologists were eager to find the hydrothermal alteration, and were very disappointed when I told them that no, this was a carbonate spring, and all the white they saw around them was travertine limestone (I wouldn’t call it “karst” because I don’t want them to start a new rumor), beautifully decorated with stalactites, stalagmites, and travertine fountains. “So why is it here?”, they asked, and I turned to Suaidi for him to explain that we were on the West Sumatra right-lateral fault, which cuts the island in the same way that New Zealand is cut by its own Alpine fault. The hydrothermal activity, in this case, is caused by deep circulation of meteoric water through the fractured rocks, a phenomenon that repeats itself at the Seraille geothermal field 50 km to the south (along the fault), and a disseminated gold ore deposit another 50 km south (this time a bit off the fault).

After this little adventure it was time for our friends from the meteorological station at Silangit to depart back home. I am going to miss them greatly. Kris, Michael, Cindi, and Andre have become good friends and fabulous traveling companions, displaying great curiosity and interest in all that we saw, and stretching their command of English to make sure I felt welcomed at all times. I hope to see them again soon, either here in Indonesia or when they come to visit me in California. Good friends always meet again!

Suaidi, Irvan, and I continued south along the fault, and with the help of Google Earth located the different segments, and a great example of a pull-apart basin in the valley of Tarutung, and figured that it is a right-lateral fault. The fault is also a cultural and culinary watershed, and as night fell we started hearing the baritone voice of the bilal chanting and calling the faithful to prayer. Indonesia is largely a Muslim country, but in the highlands of North Sumatra we had found a good number of Protestants and Catholics (the missionaries probably enjoyed the more salubrious climate and the beautiful Toba Lake), but now we are in Muslim Indonesia.

I was by now pretty tired of being in the car, and was just thinking of falling asleep at our hotel in Padang Simuenpan, but could not very well say no when Sauidi suggested that we should have dinner before going to the hotel. He knew just the place. It was a large restaurant complex, with large, open-sided “booths” where you “crouch” on rattan mats around a low but very large table. Then you order enough dishes to cover said large table with plates. Seemed like a lot of food to me, but the aromas wafting from it were very enticing. Three types of fish, each braised on a different but delicious sauce with piquant spices that were quite unbeknown to me, a stew of leaves of cassava that was to die for, two or three types of salad, white steamed rice (of course), and my rather spartan beef broth. The place is famous for its fruit juices, but I am still being cautious about not drinking water of unknown origins, so I missed on that part of the treat. Otherwise, it was a heavenly feast!

Random notes on drink and food: For lunch we had horse meat in a savory sauce (plus many other dishes), and I drank a Badak cream soda (rhinoceros soda).

Crossing the West Sumatra fault we also came into durian country. This smelly fruit is much feared by foreigners, hotel managers, and taxi drivers because it stinks. I am being discouraged to try it, but remember from when I tried in Malaysia that if you can pinch your nose it can be quite tasty.

Indonesia 2023. Day 3. Lake Toba (continued) and Samosir Island

 

Yesterday afternoon our gracious hosts dropped us off at a local hotel, with the promise that they would come fetch us at 7:30 pm, which they did. A few minutes later we drove into a gated compound and were proudly introduced to "the office".  It was a beautiful compound of two small buildings decorated as some sort of tropical paradise. Clearly this was Kris' pride and joy, and she enjoyed retelling the story of the unattractive warehouse where the office was located, and how she had looked at it in despair 10 years ago when she first came to take charge. With patience and a lot of good taste she found local carpenters and masons and renovated/beautified the space, added the gorgeous conference room, and had the garden planted and manicured to create a sense of tranquility and joy.

Dinner had been prepared by the staff, and it was a delicious buffet with traditional Indonesian dishes (we don't eat Indonesian cuisine in the US, do we?). Fried fish and chicken, steamed vegetables, tempura-like veggies and tofu (I studiously avoided the latter), rice, soup, and some rice-coconut dumplings for dessert. Yummy.

The conference room has a reasonably large TV monitor, connected to the internet, and after dinner it came to life. We were going to have a Karaoke party! Turns out that this is a fun way the office workers have to relax together, and they are pretty good at it. They know all sorts of songs from the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Frank Sinatra, the Bee Gees, and on and on. Unfortunately I have had a raspy throat for most of the day, and trying to sing along turned it into a full-blown laryngitis. But I could still mumble and follow along, and went all for it when they switched to Indonesian love songs. Turns out that Indonesian has a very similar phonetics to Spanish, and is pronounced as it is written; there are of course precious few cognates with any language I am familiar with, but if you see it written it is easy to sing along slow songs (fast songs are hopeless). So we sang and sang, and at the end we faked a concert of the older generation, while the younger generation laughed and took many photos. It was a blast!

Early morning we started on a trek that was going to take us to Samosir Island. We first made a stop at a local museum, set up by a prominent politician who just happened to be born by the shore of the lake. The cultural displays were pretty interesting, and we learnt the legend of the poor fisherman who pulled a beautiful colorful fish out of the water. It was so beautiful that he could not bring himself to kill it, and in response to this kindness the fish transformed itself into a beautiful princess with whom the fisherman fell madly in love. The princess did not want to get married, for they belonged to different worlds, but he finally convinced her by swearing he would never make reference to her origin. So they got married, and she brought from the depths of the lake a rich dowry and they became very prosperous. They finally had a son, but as he grew up he became lazy and a general goof up. Finally, after the umpteen screwup his father lost patience and call him "You, son of a fish!" Immediately the princess abandoned her human form and returned to the lake, taking with her the son and the dowry she had brought to the marriage, and leaving the fisherman as poor as ever, which is why the fishermen of Lake Toba have to work so hard to make a living. 

"You, son of a fish!" What a great way to give a tongue lashing to someone.

By 11 am we were in the ferry, and I can only say "Flying to Indonesia, $2,000 ... Sailing Lake Toba, priceless!" This is one of the most scenic lakes in the world, and as the boat slowly crosses the southern end to reach the resurgent dome you can admire in awe the enormous cliffs that mark the edge of the caldera, as if you were entering Nature's greatest cathedral.

Once on the island we stopped at an outcrop of hydrothermally altered rhyolite, to answer some nagging questions my gracious hosts have had about this particular outcrop. This is probably one of the moat rhyolite domes. I have not yet had a chance to look in detail at an outcrop of the Toba Ignimbrite, although I have had many fleeting glimpses as Mikhel drives pass them at demonic speed (OK, maybe it is not that fast, but the roads are narrow and the incoming traffic seems to believe they own the road, so it feels like he is defying death at every curve; he is a good driver, however, and I am very grateful he has taken upon that job). 

As we climbed the west side of the island we reached a small mountain lake, which Sauidi believes to be some sort of a releasing bend between two segments of a strike slip fault. Irvan noticed some interesting fracture patterns in the lacustrine sediments that could corroborate this idea. The rest of us, less scientifically minded, took this chance to skip rocks, and art in which I excelled amongst my younger traveling companions.

Eventually we made it to the east side of the island, which is where the tourist developments are growing. We stopped at a group of traditional houses, which resemble A-frames with very tall peaks at each end of the roof, not unlike what you see all across Polynesia (think Moana). Here the neighbors have come together to treat the tourists to a cultural show that includes wearing traditional scarves and hats, and dancing to traditional music. All the kids joined in, as well as Kris and myself, and we had a blast. In reflection, I very much admire Kris’ managerial style: She is very clear in her expectations, and her young associates are happy to shine at their assignments for her, but she can also laugh and have fun with them (e.g., karaoke or dancing), which I think is the hallmark of an excellent leader. I am very happy I had the chance to meet them all and travel with them.

Indonesia 2023. Day 2. Jakarta to Selangit (Lake Toba)

 

Traveling as I do can get a bit lonesome, so I jump at the opportunity to make new friends and have fun conversations. Fakhry was my willing victim, and after spending the day together and talking about his plans for the future, my travels, and our mutual likes for movies we started developing that personal connection. A little shyly he asked me how old I was, and almost fell off his chair when he learnt that I was nearly 70 years old. He must be in his late 20's, so he probably feels like he has witnessed one of The Ancient Ones still roaming the Earth!

On the subject of movies, he would like to see the newest Mission Impossible or Indiana Jones (but I already did); at the end we found out we both wanted to see Oppenheimer, so we agreed to meet at the movie theater at 8:30 pm and see it. It was a great, albeit poignant film about the Manhattan Project, the dropping of the bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which ever since I visited those cities 10 years ago I have considered a vile act of terrorism on the part of the US), and the political aftermath of MccArthyism on Oppenheimer himself and the scientific community at large. Good movie.

The following morning my new friend came to pick me up to take me to the airport, where yet another member of BMKG chaperoned me to the boarding area, where I met Dr. Suaidi, who is a geophysicist with BMKG and is going to be my guide through northern Sumatra. I also met my traveling companion, young Irvan (pronounced Irfan), who is a recent geology graduate who I have hired to travel with me through Indonesia. We got in the plane and a couple of hours later we landed in Silangit, a brand new airport in the middle of nowhere that was built to promote tourism into the Lake Toba highlands. Waiting for us was Kris, who is the BMKG Chief of Station, and three of her young assistants, who are going to be our companions exploring the surroundings of Lake Toba. By now I am beginning to feel like the Pied Piper, gathering more and more friends as I move through the land.

Lake Toba is one of the geologic wonders of this world. It is a caldera lake of enormous proportions (think 20 times as large as Crater Lake), formed by collapse of the roof of a magma chamber that erupted 74,000 years ago to form the Toba Ignimbrite, which probably represents about 5,000 cubic kilometers of magma erupted over a matter of hours or at most days! The rapid evacuation of such a large volume took away the support of the roof of the magma chamber, which collapsed to form a depression measuring 100 by 35 km. The residual magma in the chamber "pushed up" on the foundered roof and bulged it up to form a resurgent dome (Samosir Island) elongated in the same NNW-SSE direction as the caldera, 45 by 20 km in dimensions. I believe the plan for tomorrow is to take a sailboat to the island to visit the BMKG meteorological station there.

Lake Toba is also one of the most beautiful lakes I have ever seen (and this is not my first time to the rodeo), so I am hereby claiming it for myself. I am going to find some funding to do a limnological study of the lake so I can come spend some time here cruising the lake, taking water samples, and running temperature profiles. With any luck I can identify satellites that have enough resolution to do water temperature mapping, and perhaps tag shallow circulation patterns.

Indonesia is promoting this as a tourist area, so I will encourage you all to definitely come and spend a week hiking the fresh pine forests, taking the incredible views, and relaxing by the water. I suspect this will become one of the next vacation destinations for the jet set!

Indonesia 2023. Day 1. Jakarta

 

I arrived late last night at Jakarta airport, after an uneventful flight. What do you know? I had friends waiting for me there, ready to take me to my hotel!

Turns out I am enjoying the reflected glory of my friend Bob. Twenty years ago Bob and I met at a conference in Puerto Vallarta, me to give a paper on the water supply of Guadalajara, he to give a paper on earthquake risk in California. Attending this same conference was a friend of his also giving a paper on earthquake risk management in Indonesia. This is where I met her, Rita, and through Bob followed her meteoric rise to Chair of her Department, then Dean, and finally Chancellor of the university. Before embarking in this trip Bob had the notion that he would join me for this leg (at the end he couldn’t), so he wrote to his old friend, who in the interim had been appointed Director of the National Weather and Geophysics Service (BMKG, which also encompasses the management of earthquake and tsunami risk), and who was quite happy to send one of her own scientists, Fakhry, to pick me at the airport and be my chaperone on the two days I will be here in Jakarta. Nice! 

Seven hours later, at 8 am, Fakhry came to fetch me to take me to breakfast (I had, of course, already gone out for an early look at the waking city). Breakfast was a small bowl of chicken soup, a ball of white rice, salsa, a skewer with grilled chicken livers and gizzards, and some sort of hash brown. It may sound a bit strange, but the soup had a wonderful flavor and the combination of all items was quite tasty. Plus add a cup of excellent black coffee with lots of sugar. I finally found a country that shares my sweet tooth.

Next step was getting a SIM card, which was easy except that the darn thing didn’t work. The gal at the little hole in the wall where we bought it thought it had something to do with having to register the IEMI (whatever that might be) with the Communications Bureau. Fakhry tried to do it through the internet without much luck, so we ended in the local office of Telekom, but they couldn’t figure it out, so we had to make it to the main Telekom office, where the terminal to register with the Comm Bureau malfunctioned, so this young genius set to do it “by hand”, and after a million clicks in his computer he finally succeeded. Yay for technology!

I hadn’t been to the barber in two months, so by now I was looking like the wild man from Borneo (the Malaysian part of Borneo). A hair cut and a beard trim were thus in order.

Finally we were ready to meet with Big Boss Rita, who was detained in another of her official functions, so I spent a delightful hour chatting with the chiefs of the engineering seismology and tsunami analysis sections. They are doing sterling work, in a region with complex oceanography and even more complex seismic events. In the Pacific they have lots of company from the Americans and the Japanese, but in the Indian Ocean they are it, coordinating seismic, meteorological, and tsunami warnings for Southeast Asia, Melanesia, Sri Lanka, India, East Africa, and northwestern Australia (OK, India and Australia help with satellite support, but a lot of the analysis goes on at BMKG).

Finally Rita and her husband came in, and it was truly like seeing an old friend after 20 years. She recalled many events from when we had been together in Mexico, including me taking them out for tacos. Rita sends his best to you Bob, and deeply regrets not seeing you this time round. She took the time to tell her chiefs about the work you had done to help during the Yogyakarta earthquake, and smoothly drifted into expressing the need for another volume on seismic hazard management in Indonesia (I am supposed to discuss this idea with you when I get back). I see why she was selected to be the Director, because she has an idea a minute, in this case about the possibilities for collaboration between CSU Stanislaus, BMKG, and her BMKG Institute (more about this later). On my way back to Jakarta in a couple of weeks, would I please deliver a lecture to the students of the BMKG Institute? Yes? Great, see you in two weeks … and she was off.

The scientists and engineers then took me on a tour of BMKG, where I sat on their earthquake simulator as the area experienced a magnitude 6.8 earthquake, went to the earthquake and tsunami “war room”, with banks of computers and giant monitors everywhere, where the numerous staff explained their different roles, and finally visited the meteorology “war room”, which provides meteorological information to aviation, shipping, and the public in general. It was fabulous! [Later Rita came back, and I told her how impressed I was with the technology they were handling, to which she answered in the vein of “oh, this old thing”, and proceeded to outline her plan for a major revamp in the immediate future.]

Toward the end of the visit we met a battalion of young people, maybe 200 strong, looking very smart in their “naval” uniforms. These were some of the students from the BMKG Institute, who had come to say hello to their visitor from the United States. This is when Rita came back, introduced me to the young men (two thirds of the total) and women (one third of the total), and we then proceeded to take an endless number of photographs together. True to her passion as an educator, Rita has fostered the development of a 4-year college program to train the workforce BMKG will need as it continues growing. Each class has 250 students, for a grand total of 1,000 in all four levels, with a graduating class of 250 each year, and a corresponding freshman class of 250. The course of study is heavy on the match, physics, and chemistry basics, and then the students get to learn a lot about meteorology, oceanography, and geophysics. Fakhry is a graduate of the institute (he now works in the tsunami response division), and he tells me that everyone of the graduates has a place in BMKG, albeit some are sent to remote posts in this multi-faceted island nation. This is the audience to which I have to talk in a couple of weeks about earthquake geology. Yikes!

Australia 2023. Day 20. Litchfield to Darwin - The last day

 

I wish I had a great story to tell about my last full day in Australia, but I don't :(

I woke up early and had my breakfast out in the courtyard, together with the different flocks of beautiful parrots that come take advantage of the free grain and fruit that the owner of the holiday park puts out for them.

Afterward I took to the road, where I am a nuisance to all other drivers because I go along at a sedate pace, passing many of the places I visited yesterday.

At about 11 am I reached The Cascades, and took a lazy walk through the plateau for a couple of kilometers, to reach a place where a creek tumbles through the horizontal layers of sandstone to create a series of steps (or cascades), each of which has created its own swimming hole. Very pretty and relaxing.

Once I approached the city, I made a stop at the Charles Darwin National Park, a very small protected area with many bike paths and distant looks at Darwin Bay. There are also many World War II bunkers, but by now I have heard enough of the war and I didn't explore them. On the way here I also drove past a couple of WWII air strips, which today look like abandoned streets.

Back in Darwin I drove slowly along the waterfront, once again getting the impression that this is a relaxation town, where visitors take time to walk to the shore and catch a movie at The Deckchair Cinema, or to take a ride in the Ferris Wheel.

I had an early dinner/late lunch at Hungry Jack's (Burger King under a different name) and finally made it to my hotel, to make my final preparations for tomorrow's flight to Jakarta. Since travel days are boring I think this will be the last entry of my Australia journal. I am not sure how robust my access to the internet will be in Indonesia, but I will try to stay in touch whenever I can.

Finis

Australia 2023. Day 19. Litchfield National Park

 

Grilled barramundi was very tasty, very tasty indeed. It is a white fish, but it has the meat-like consistency of tuna. Unfortunately it was rather boringly accompanied by chips (I.e., French fries), which is the accompaniment of choice here in Australia, and that took away a little of the glamour of a fancy dinner.

Talking about fish, I forgot to tell you that in the brackish waters of the estuary you also find the archer fish, a dumpy guy with the uncanny ability of squirting a powerful jet of water at insects and small crabs standing as much as a meter above the water on the roots of a manglar, strongly enough to topple them in the water where they are greedily devoured. Interestingly, this instinctive behavior has to be honed over the life of the fish; young fish often miss their mark because they do not account for the refraction of the image of the crab, but as they grow older they learn to take account of the refraction and eventually become ... deadly archers. I know, because I have seen them at work!

Today I spent exploring the Litchfield National Park, a good 75 km south of the estuary. It is what I call the baby Aussie brother of the Grand Canyon National Park, in that it is a plateau capped by horizontal sedimentary rocks, uplifted in recent geologic time. Although it is not cut by a mighty river like the Colorado, the infiltration during The Wet recharges it sandstone layers with enough water that base flow can sustain the flow of several streams that tumble off its edges to form beautiful waterfalls and swimming holes. The Parks System keeps a close eye on crocs in the swimming holes, and promptly remove any they find before certifying the swimming holes as "safe". Australians, of course, love to go go swimming, which makes this park tremendously popular.

The Litchfield Plateau is formed by a basement of Proterozoic quartzites, overlain by a horizontal sequence of fluvial and aeolian sandstones with lamination, asymmetric ripple marks, and faint cross bedding. I am not sure what age they are, but they uncanningly similar to the Jurassic Aztec Sandstone of the Mojave Desert (but they could be Permian or Triassic). Now and then you see some interbedded limestones.

 

The many streams that issue from the plateau have formed wide floodplains, which appear as beautifully manicured grass ribbons crossing the land. Great place for wollobies to hold hopping races, but hard on any other plants and critters. Except for termites, which have adapted their survival strategy by building particularly tall termite mounds. On a flood plain these termite mounds are not protected by trees from the brutal heat of The Dry, so the clever little animals have learnt to make them tall and fan-like, oriented in a north-to-south direction. Tall because these termites don't have the option of going underground, fan-like because it is a good strategy of heat dissipation, and north-to-south so they present a minimum target to solar radiation during the heat of the day. Clever little buggers! 

I did my job as a tourist walking many trails and admiring many waterfalls. We will see if I have any energy left for tomorrow, which will be my last full day in Australia.

Australia 2023. Day 18. The coastal monsoon forest

 

I agonized between a trip to the Tiwi Islands or the exploration of the Darwin estuary. At the end the estuary pulled me to it, so I took my little car and headed south, backtracking 70 kilometers on the road I had come in from Alice. I mentioned before that much of the shoulder of the highway has been burnt, presumably a controlled burn to limit the accumulation of dead wood and shrubs that could fuel a big fire. It is just not very pretty. However, as soon as I turned into smaller roads to approach the estuary, the scorched forest was replaced by a rich coastal monsoon forest.

You probably know that the monsoon season in India and Southeast Asia happens between April and September, when a high pressure zone develops over Australia so the wind blows from the southeast across the Indian Ocean and the Timor Sea to bring heavy rain in the aforementioned India and Southeast Asia. At the same time Australia goes through The Dry (season). Conditions start to change in September, when the high pressure zone shifts over the Himalayas, causing northwesterly winds to cool India and then blow over the Indian Ocean, bringing The Wet (season) into the Top End. The rain can then be very significant in the Kimberly and Darwin areas, which is why we have the development of the coastal monsoon forests here.

The Darwin estuary looks like a hand with fingers pointing down; the wrist, at the northern end, is where the city of Darwin is located, while the fingers are the different embayments, where salt and fresh water interact to create a heaven for mangroves, crocs, and any number of boas, fishes, and birds. I must confess I was ... hesitant ... to go walking through this wonderland, so I cheated and instead visited a wildlife park, where for a fee I could walk in relative safety through the forest and its bizarre looking trees and palms. I also saw wallabies (in fact, one of them was so close to me that I broke my cardinal rule of not touching wild animals and gave it a good pat in the rump) and water buffaloes, all sorts of birds, parrots, and paraqueets, a very fine aquarium with a great variety of estuarine species, and Nocturnal House where it was so dark that I could barely see my hand, and a fascinating presentation about the fish and rip rays that are found in the sandy bottom of the estuary channels. The most prized catch is the barramundi, a particularly ugly fish that has the distinction of being male while it is young. And you know how boys are: it sows its wild oats while he grows up, and gets caught and eaten by people. Then, the few that survive to achieve lengths of a meter or more (and probably weigh at 40 kg plus), spontaneously transform into females and are responsible for spawning the next generation. Did I mention it is an ugly fish? However, it is a fat ugly fish, and the Aborigines very much favor it as a prize catch.

Living in the same coastal lagoon are very large rip rays. The three we saw were at least a meter in diameter, had a two meter tail, and loved to be fed by hand by the ranger (who stuck his whole hand holding a small fish into their cavernous mouths). Apparently they are naturally friendly, with crocs and sharks being their only predators, but they carry a nasty barb at the base of their tails, that they can lift to a 45 degree angle and punch into whoever they don't like (Armando II and Armando III can attest to this very painful dislike).

I also attended a bird show training session, in which the ranger, rather than trying to put a show for the handful of people who were there, took the time to explain how he trains the birds, and put them through their paces to reinforce their behaviors.

I am spending the night at a holiday park just outside of the Litchfield National Park, which will be the adventure for tomorrow. For now I better go to the restaurant before it closes. I think I will have barramundi for dinner. 

Australia 2023. Day 17. Darwin and The Top End

 

You may have known me to use the expression "I now own this city", and that is exactly how I feel about Darwin. I was here a few years ago, and I just know where I am. I can drive without a map, and tell you where the Woolworth's or Hungry Jack's are. I don't feel I have to see every nook and cranny to know what is there, so I can just look for either my favorites or places I missed last time.

One of my favorites is the Botanical Garden, and very specifically their fabulous collection of baobabs. Turns out that these bizarre trees, which the Little Prince worried about splitting his small world apart, are found in a small area of Madagascar, patches in Africa, and the northwest regions of Australia (maybe a hint of Gondwanaland continuity here - but then again their seeds are small and durable enough to have drifted through the Indian Ocean). As trees go, they are supercool, with a fat trunk (sometimes akin to a barrel) and scrawny branches on top (there are at least six species of baobab, and some have a more healthy growth of branches). I am hoping to add another geographic location in California, where I have planted four seeds. If la Fabiolita has not forgotten to water them, in ten years or so they might look like a Dr. Seuss tree, and in 20 years they might make some heads turn as cars go by.

Then I went to the Northern Territories Museum, on the north end of Mindil Beach ... wait, today is Thursday, which means the Sunset Market will be open behind the dunes ... I will have to come back around 6 pm. But I digress, at the museum someone asked me where I was visiting from, and when I answered "from Mexico" the gal at the counter called out to her colleague Fabiola, who is also from Mexico, and we had a nice chat about how she had ended in Australia (did her graduate work at Melbourne, married an Australian, lived in the Central Desert for some time, and finally landed in paradise here in Darwin). Darwin reminds me of places like Newport Beach or Miami Beach, a dream place to retire, with beautiful sunny weather (today the temperature was a comfy 30 degrees C) and gorgeous beaches (with mean man-eating saltwater crocodiles).

The meanest of the known crocs, Sweetheart, is on display at the museum. He was drowned a few years back by the friendly biologists who were trying to relocate it. Sweetheart was an 80-year old croc that had attacked several outboard engines, but never actually got used to the taste of Captain Hook's hand. 

The museum had some interesting displays of shells and butterflies, but what was most exciting to me was its collection of Polynesian sea-going vessels. I could almost smell the wake of saltwater they left behind them, as they traversed the archipelagos of Southeast Asia. I think I am going to try to convince Chico to help me repair/tune up the sailboat so we can take sail once more.

Another museum gallery taught me that Darwin has been hit by a few cyclones in recorded history (1839, 1897, 1915, 1923, 1948, 1974, and 2019 to name just a few), but the worst was the Christmas Eve Tracy Cyclone, in 1974. The cyclone was moving east to west, parallel to the Torres Strait, when a week before landfall it turned suddenly south and headed straight for Darwin, and hit it right between the eyes. Half of the city was destroyed and there were many casualties. A bitter reminder that nature is not something we can control.

And since I was into crazy dreams, I drove a few kilometers to the airport, outside of which is the Darwin Aviation Museum, whose central piece is the last B-52 the US Air Force flew in the South Pacific. The B-52 bomber is absolutely huge, easily rivaling a jumbo jet, so just to walk around it is an experience. They also had other airplanes, from ultralights to old seaplanes, and from fighter jets to the legendary Spitfire. I am not really a military buff, but looking at those engines and the complexity of the inner workings of a large airplane sure gave me a lot of respect for the aeronautical engineers and technicians who can put these marvelous machines together. 

A big section was devoted to the Japanese attack on Darwin Harbor, which came two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. No wonder the Australian government was freaking out about the threat of invasion. As analysis of documents later showed, the Japanese Navy was ready for the invasion, but the Japanese Army chickened out. 

I went briefly back to my hotel, to take a swim, and then was back on my way to Mindil Beach, where the party was in full swing. Where did all these people come from? There were craft vendors, Aboriginal art vendors, and many food vendors. I treated myself to a basket of peri-peri breaded calamari (yumm!), enjoyed the sunset with everyone else, and after a round of the crafts market said goodnight and came back to my hotel. Time to go to bed!

Australia 2023. Day 16. The North End

 

OK, I can say I have crossed the great Central Desert, but besides the bragging rights I don't have much to show for it. It is a dry, desolate country (and apparently the highway has missed those portions that truly look like the Sahara, with endless swarms of longitudinal dunes), inhabited by very friendly but very rough people. The divide between Caucasians and aborigines is pronounced, with the latter occupying a much lower social and economic status. There is not "apartheid" per se, but the cultural differences and the delay in economic opportunity of the aborigines has created an enormous gap that will not be easy to heal.

No kangaroo or wild camel herds :(

Slowly the country becomes a bit greener as one approaches the north coast, but the controlled fires along the highway have left behind scrawny partially burnt trees and no grass. One feature of distinction are the termite mounds. I have seen them throughout Australia, but here they are very abundant. Now and then you see a really big one, but most of them are less than a meter tall and very slender, so from a distance they look like a forest of spear tips, as if the warriors of the underworld were getting ready to spring out and attack the land. Creepy.

We arrived in Darwin and 3:30 pm. The contrast with the outback is pronounced, because Darwin is a very beautiful modern city, by the Timor Sea, with ample boulevards, high rises, and handsome parks. Besides, after getting off from the bus I walked 10 minutes to the car rental agency, and 15 minutes later I was no longer a lowly pedestrian. 

My hotel is modest but very comfortable, one block from the coastal promenade, and two blocks from the business area, where I bought a six-pack of hard cider. A few minutes later I was in the hotel swimming pool, cider on hand, blinking in disbelief at the change of scenery. Tomorrow I will go back to being a tourist, but for today I am taking it easy and enjoying sleeping in a real bed.

Australia 2023. Day 15. Soaring

 

I decided to treat myself to a hot-air balloon ride over the desert. I was picked up at 5:20 am, and from there we went to pick up five other aeronauts before heading for the desert south of Alice, and south of the MacDonnell Range. We are the only balloon taking off today (slow season I guess), and when we got to our little patch of nowhere the crew unpacked the balloon from the trailer that seems to be an integral part of 70% of Australian vehicles. Once it was laid on the ground we were invited to get out of the bus to see the inflation of the balloon, which is a very thrilling sight. As balloons go, ours would qualify as being small, with a small basket, but then again there will only be six tourists and Captain Duncan on board.

The Cap released a helium party balloon with a tea light attached to it, to judge the changes in the direction of the wind as altitude increases, and then we were ready to board. The balloon roars every time the burner goes off, but otherwise the takeoff is gentle and in slow motion. Dawn was just breaking over the East MacDonnell range but we were drifting due west, toward the Alice Springs airport. I was hoping we were going to soar over the range, but there are restrictions on that area, so we were pretty much confined to the vast desert to the south.

We saw a handful of cattle in the distance, and learnt that the rule of thumb is one head of cattle per 10 square kilometers, or one head of cattle per 40 square kilometers during the dry. The central desert just went through a drought from 2017 to 2022, so cattle are pretty sparse these days in the enormous paddocks of each station. Dry stream courses are very much in evidence.

The sun finally peeked out from behind the range, and the desert lighted up in tones of tan, red, and green. Very pretty. Down there we saw a kangaroo family with Joey, Mom, and Dad cautiously hopping away from the balloon. Dad is big!

By this time we had been joined by a couple of eagles that were making circles over the balloon. They must be intrigued by this monster, but the Cap told us that they also enjoy the thermals bleeding off the top.

The Cap was very good, and kept us on course, sometimes climbing and sometimes going down. The landing was perfectly smooth, and no more than 100 m from where our bus and crew were waiting for us. Then came the grand production of deflating the balloon, folding it, and stuffing it back in its box, followed by loading the basket on the trailer, before celebrating our accomplishment with a flute of champagne (apparently a tradition started in 1783 in France, after the first successful manned flight). Leonardo da Vinci first conceived the lifting of objects with hot air, but for many centuries nobody tried it because they believed the air was too thin (or maybe even poisonous) to support life. The attempt was done in the mid 1700's with a rooster, a mouse, and a cat, and when they landed in good shape the suggestion wa made that convicts could be used to test human resistance to high altitude; but then a couple of aristocrats realized that if convicts had that first the whole enterprise would be tainted, so they hopped aboard and the rest is history.

Back in town I took my sweet time to check out of the hotel, but my bus to Darwin was scheduled to depart at 5:30 pm, so I had a good 6 hours to kill. I decided to go to the public library, to check out their exhibition of Nevil Shute books. There was no special exhibition, but they had a shelf with his books, so I had a good time browsing through them. Now, I have mentioned Nevil Shute before as a novelist who I like very much. I was introduced to his books by Tom Olson, maybe a couple of years ago, and since then I have become a fan. He is a master at placing normal people in unusual situations that force them to push themselves to the limit. My favorite novels, which I heartily recommend, ar A Town Like Alice, Trustee of the Toolroom, and The Pied Piper. He was an English aeronautical engineer who participated in World War I, and was involved in some secret aviation projects in World War II. He published 24 novels and novellas between 1924 and 1959, just before his passing in 1960. He emigrated to Australia in 1950, and many of his novels have to do with life in the outback. Other two recurring themes in his work are aviation and ships, no doubt reflecting his two favorite hobbies. Now, enter the problem: Books published between 1924 and 1959 are not easy to find, so I may have read only about half of his work. Here, in the public library at Alice Springs I had the opportunity to browse through some of his less known work: The Seafarers, Stephen Morris, Pilotage, Landfall to mention a few. I didn't have enough time to read them all, so I chose the novella The Seafarers and enjoyed reading it from cover to cover without interruptions. 

I also looked through the library for other interesting books, and among the many I pulled out of the shelves I took some time browsing through Scorched Earth, the government-issued plan to deal with a potential Japanese invasion during World War II. The Japanese rapidly invaded The Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and were finally slowed down in the mountains and islands of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands by the Americans. The Australians were only protected by the Timor Sea and the Torres Strait, and in fact Darwin was bombed on more than one occasion. The danger of invasion was therefore very real. So the Australian people were instructed to "scorch the land" in case of invasion, to deny the invaders access to water, wells/bores, fuel, vehicles, machinery, tools, and food. It was not to be chaotic destruction, but carefully thought destruction of anything that the enemy could find useful (unlike the Germans, in their rapid invasions the Japanese had relied on commandeering the resources of the invaded areas, rather than on their own supply lines). I am not a World War buff, but I was suitably impressed by the extent to which the Australians were ready to go to expel an invader.

Oh, oh, my bus just pulled in and I have to go. Alice to Darwin in 22 hours!

Australia 2023. Day 14. A town like Alice (continued)

 

A little bird told me that temperatures in the Central Valley of California are reaching 110 degrees Fahrenheit over the next few days. Here in Alice we have had several days of perfect weather, with a high of 67 F, a light breeze, and shiny sun. Of course this is a biased view of Alice and central Australia, where temperatures of 110 F are quite common during the summer. Remember the survival strategy of the aboriginal folk: Get your work done between dawn and 10 am, sleep under the shade of a bush over the day, and become active again late in the afternoon.

I woke up early and went to the car rental agency to see about renting a car for the day, but it was expensive (US$ 100) and only included 100 km. Ha, with that I would not be able to go anywhere in this part of the desert. Then I tried a motorcycle shop, but they didn't do rentals, nor did they know of anyone who did. OK, so long-distance trekking was out of the question. Finally, I settled for renting a bike for just moving around town (US$ 30) and had another beautiful day looking at the surroundings of Alice. My first stop was at the old telegraph station, which has been preserved as a living-history museum, right by the original Alice Spring (or water hole, as I explained before).

Then I went to the Alice Springs School of the Air, which claims the honor of being the first school ever to use radio to connect with students in the far-flung corners of the outback in 1951. They started in Alice Springs and piggy-backed onto the Flying Doctors Service network, enrolled a few dozen kids living in the outback, and in combination with the parents (or local hired tutors) delivered K-9 instruction. It is somehow similar to home schooling, and after the pandemic indistinguishable from online instruction. They now have about 10 school centers covering all of Australia.

From radio they tried to move unto television in the 90's (maybe at the same time Mexico was experimenting with its Tele Secundaria) but it didn't work out, and in the late 90's they jumped on the internet wagon to a pattern we are all familiar with. 

In historic retrospective it was a fabulous effort, but it seems to me that it has evolved into a kind of elite school for the kids of station owners. It is open to all, of course, but I didn't see any aboriginal kids in the videos, and when asked our guide said aboriginal families prefer to send their kids to aboriginal schools. Presumably the state government has to establish a school anywhere there are more than 15 kids, but I remain skeptical. 

I then went for a long ride along the River Todd, which right now looks like a completely dry sand bed, but a log stuck on a branch 3 m from the ground tells me that it can carry a lot of water after a severe rainstorm. 

I then followed the foot of the MacDonnell range (which in past emails I have misspelled as "MacDonald") for maybe 10 km, enjoying the slow ride through the desert, and then parked the bike and walked a couple more kilometers to an outcrop of an augen gneiss that looked very different from the overlying quartzites. 

By the time I got back to the bike I noticed that my butt was sore from the narrow, hard seat, and when I finally reached the bike shop my legs were starting to ache. I am starting to get too old for this kind of exercise :(