The west in the Central Australia refers to the country beyond and surrounding the West McDonnell ranges and extending as far as the West Australian border. I flew west from Alice Springs to Nyirripi, northwest of Yuendemu. I looked out the window and watched the ground beneath me. First there are mountains, some grouped in clusters some as part of long ranges, they all rise abruptly from the desert and are almost bare of vegetation. It was early morning and the shadows cast on the western slopes makes that part of the landscapes invisible but the obliquely of the light highlights the jagged ridge lines. In the valleys between the high ground are sparse acacias and gum trees, they all rely on the rare flows of water down these mountainsides to survive. The mountains and hills give way to swathes of red sand, rich in iron, a memory of the ancient sediments of great seas that covered this land. A time so lost in deep time, that nothing but insects crawled on its beaches, and fish with armour plates swam in the water and trilobites scurried on the sea floor. Now, dunes extend for hundreds of kilometres laid in long parallel lines. Yet, in some places this pattern is broken, the dunes interweave as if engaged in a timeless conversation leaning against each other.

There are more echoes of the seas, salt leached out of the earth by summers evanescent lakes are left behind by fierce evaporation.They can form simple circles, dead spotty soakages and in other places, weirdly tentacled ghosts haunting the earth.There is an incredible diversity in the topography of the desert. This mountain range plows into the desert, leaving a bow wave of green spreading over the sand.

Most of the roads are glorified tracks, some are of stone and gibber, some are rutted, punished clay and others yellow sand with sand pits and washes filling the deeper corrugations. They cross rivers, gorges, passes and all the empty miles between the remote settlements of the outback.These tracks and highways, are as necessary as water and as dangerous; tourists cars get flipped by deep sand or when young men play chicken on them and lose.

Every aspect of the desert must be treated with respect and caution, it’s beauty, it’s variety is amazing but in its immensity are the dangers of isolation, heat, thirst and fire. This place suffers no sentimentality, possesses no cruelty but nor has it any love for us that will protect us from folly or the perils of ill luck.