The first week…

The day of arrival: my first thought when we approached Hamilton Downs Youth Camp after driving some 140k NW of Alice Springs was that it reminded me of the American Summer Camps I'd seen in the movies. Except that this camp had three distinct flags - the Aboriginal, Australian and local flag of the area - and the landscape was definitely our mythical and utterly real outback. However, this was not the deep rich red sandy desolate desert, rather, it was the dry riverbed laced with river red gums, enormous rounded boulders, jutting rock, rolling plains and long yellow/green grass kind of desert. Facing South, you were smacked in the face with the ethereal (was it a mirage?) ridge of the MacDonnell Ranges. This ridge snaked like an old decrepit spine for hundreds of km's on either side. Every day this Ridge would play with your visual senses, teasing you with optical illusions of distance, shadow and light.