Frontier Flying: Exploring the Australian Outback by Air
(continued) But while there are all sorts of quirky and memorable people and sights to be found in the Outback, the most powerful lure of the place is simply the land itself. Flying over such a vast expanse of red sand dunes and multicolored rock ridges that snake across the landscape like the vertebrae of prehistoric earth lizards, it’s impossible not to sense the power of the geologic forces that worked their magic here long before any humans set foot on the land. Australia never had the violent tectonic plate shifts and other eruptive events that have repeatedly changed the surface terrain in most of the rest of the world. For the past few million years, the strongest geologic force in Australia has been erosion. Consequently, the Outback contains some of the world’s oldest rock formations and mountain ranges, offering one of the best windows back in time of any place on the planet.
Just a half day’s flight south of William Creek, in fact, lies the oldest mountain range in the world—a stretch of mountains known as the Flinders Ranges. We flew into two separate, rustic resorts tucked away there—Wilpena Pound, which is a stunning, natural enclosure of multicolored rock that looks exactly like a meteor crater, even though it was formed through simple erosion of the surrounding mountain ridgelines, and Arkaroola, which offers a breathtaking collection of ridges, valleys and rock formations equal to anything the American Southwest has to offer.
Both resorts have gravel runways and are run by gregarious and energetic pilots who talk about the Flinders the way Scarlett O’Hara talked about Tara. But after spending a couple of nights gazing through Arkaroola’s 14-inch telescopes at the southern hemisphere sky, and waking up to the sun peeking over Wilpena Pound’s rainbow rock ridgelines, I began to understand their enthusiasm for the place.
 And yet, the Flinders are just one of the geologic wonders the Outback has to offer. Just a day’s flight west of there lies Ayers Rock, which—along with its companion outcrop, Kata Tjuta – reigns as Australia’s best-known geologic tourist attraction. Ayers Rock, or “Uluru”, as the Aborigines call it, is a massive monolith of arkose that’s more than eight miles in circumference and rises up some 1,200 feet from the flat desert floor. It’s a sacred place of great spiritual significance and power to the Australian Aborigines…and standing at its base, looking up at enormous, smooth-edged caves and rust-colored rock walls so powerful and expansive that I couldn’t even begin to capture their grandeur in my camera lens, I understood why.
But it was flying over the Outback landscape that I found perhaps the most stunning link between the Aboriginal people and the land they’ve called home for more than 50,000 years. Looking down on waves of ochre sandstone, serpentine ridgelines and lizard shapes of dry river beds on a sand canvas dotted with circles of spinifex grass, I realized I was gazing at a real-life model for the Aboriginal dreamtime paintings I’d seen in local art galleries. Their characteristic artwork truly reflects the nature of the land, as seen from the sky. How could they have known? But that’s the mystery of Australia and this ancient desert land.
The Australian Outback may not be the most comfortable vacation spot in the world. But what it lacks in creature comforts, it more than makes up for in adventure. It’s a place of history, power and beauty, where the ancient world, a frontier culture and modern-day conveniences all come together, and where a pilot can find welcoming, friendly people, abundant laughter and beer, wide open skies, and memorable sights—on the ground and in the air.
In retrospect, my teenage dreams didn’t even begin to cover it.
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