Alice Springs, Australia  - Fly from Sydney towards Alice Springs and you start with lots and end with almost nothing: the city, its suburbs, then bigger and bigger farms give way to desert so harsh and unyielding it has mostly been left alone.

That's what you see from the air, but from the ground the view is more varied. What seemed flat is actually undulating. What looked like swirls of different coloured sand are really dunes and creeks and stands of trees.

It's inhabited; Aboriginal people have lived there for thousands of years. And there is lots going on, if you know where to look.

We're at Kata Tjuta, a rock formation near Uluru, the big boulder in the centre of the continent that is the main tourist draw in the region.

Tim Rogers, our national parks guide, points to clumps of spinifex grass forming a circle about a metre wide. "It's a mini-ecosystem," he said. "There are plants and insects and animals that live their whole lives just there."

From the air, the darkest of what appear to be swirls of sand are actually stands of desert oaks growing in dried-up river beds. They last 800 years because they take their time, growing at a rate of just 2 centimetres a year.

"As a species they are older than the gum trees and their bark is like cork so they can survive fires," Rogers said, explaining that the tall and thin oaks are that way because they are young and haven't put down strong roots while the bushy ones are mature.

Some who come to what's often called the Red Centre of Australia expect to see lots of wild animals and are disappointed when they don't.

"Many Germans have been on safari to Africa and they think it's going to be the same here," said Leipzig-born tour guide Joerg Berger, who specializes in the German market. Berger can show them wild horses and camels, wild dogs and donkeys. Most go away happy, after delighting in so much wide open space.

It's not just possible, but likely, that you will drive for an hour and not pass another vehicle.

Some find the distances, the desolation, frightening. The bush can be both beautiful and frightening. It is so unforgiving of the unprepared and the careless. Forget water, or a spare wheel, wander off the track or misjudge your fitness, and the consequences can be fatal.

"There isn't choice out here," said Rogers. "There is just one way to do things."

He illustrates this point by saying that the local Aboriginal people are careful not to bathe in a waterhole.

"You wash in it and animals you hunt for food know that a predator has been and they go away. So your actions today have consequences for tomorrow. There is no choice. You have to follow the lore."

For some tourists, those who hire a four-wheel-drive vehicle and take off into the bush, getting the hang of the lore of the road is both essential and fun.

The Finke Gorge National Park is 138 kilometres from Alice Springs, the last 16 kilometres of which bring some heart-stopping moments because the drive is over soft sand and boulders in a creek bed.

A German family in a rented Toyota Landcruiser almost fell out of their vehicle in exhaustion when they arrived at the park's Palm Valley beauty spot after the drive from Hermannsburg, a former Christian mission station.

When the sign says all-wheel-drive only, it sometimes really does mean it. From the sky, the Red Centre can look flat and boring, but up close it is not that way at all. (dpa)