Arriving in Adelaide Day 30 October 31, 2008 Happy Halloween! They do celebrate Halloween in Australia, but doesn’t seem to be as big a deal as in the U.S. I didn’t need a costume, I looked scary enough after two days on that train. Although it was a good trip, we were ready to get off the Ghan. I had a problem sleeping last night, mainly because it was so cold and Joe didn’t do much better. The view from the train window this morning was more of the same…red dirt and rocks and scrubby plants. But as we neared Port [View Full Entry]

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Back to Alice Springs October 29, 2008 Goodbye to Uluru and our cozy cabin. We had an uneventful drive back to Alice Springs with the exception of a doozy of a dust storm that lasted about 30 minutes. In Alice we stopped for 15 minutes at our hotel to drop off the luggage and to fix a quick sandwich from the stuff in our “Cool Bag” and we were off again. This time we headed 25 miles west from Alice Springs into the MacDonnell Range (MacDonnell National Park.) This area looks a lot like parts of Utah and Arizona, if you [View Full Entry]

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The Red Center October 28, 2008 Happy birthday today to my big brother, Jim, in Denver! We’re a day ahead here so he will celebrate tomorrow. We’ve seen every nook and cranny of Uluru, or so it seems. Most tourists here take short walks to see different paintings or waterholes around the rock. Of course, we were obligated to walk the entire six miles around the rock. I guess it gave me a sense of accomplishment and did give us a feel for Uluru’s size. It was warm, but not uncomfortably hot. The flies were kept at bay for a while [View Full Entry]

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The Rock October 27, 2008 Our 280 mile drive from Alice Springs to the middle of nowhere began early with a few stops along the way for gas and diversion. One roadhouse had caged emus and kangaroos for our amusement, another had saddled up camels ready for a ride (we passed), and another had a memorial to some guys who had died at that spot in the high speed Cannonball Run. Our favorite stop was the roadhouse where we ate lunch. It had a lot of Aboriginal crafts for sale and you could look through a window and see the [View Full Entry]

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A Town Like Alice- Day 25 October 26, 2008 We haven’t seen that movie or read the book, “A Town Like Alice” but now that we’ve been to Alice Springs we surely will. The Ghan uncharacteristically arrived 30 minutes early, so we had our rental car and were checked into our room at the Desert Palms (near the casino and golf course) by noon. Seeing all that nothingness on the train for hours and hours really gives us a sense of where this town is…in the middle of Australia and close to very little. Even Uluru (Ayers Rock) is a 4-hour [View Full Entry]

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October 25, 2008 With three alarms (Joe’s phone, the clock in the room, and a wake-up call) to assist us, we made it down to the curb at 7 AM for our taxi to the train station in Darwin. We are riding “The Ghan” in the Red Kangaroo Car to Alice Springs. The Ghan bills itself as one of the great train rides of the world. The Ghan name and symbol, the camel and its handler, is in recognition of the pioneering Afghan cameleers in Australia. They used to use camels as transportation from Adelaide into the center of the [View Full Entry]

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Top End October 20, 2008 We are now in what is called the Top End, the Northern Territory… not a state but it acts like a state. Our flight out of Cairns was delayed for “technical problems” (have no idea what that was all about) so we landed in Darwin an hour later than scheduled. Things are expensive here. Internet is $11 an hour, so if you are reading this entry days later it’s because I think that’s excessive. Have you ever heard of a hotel with three stories with no elevators? Well, you have now. It’s called the Mareemba Resort [View Full Entry]

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Darwin to Kakadu October 21, 2008 It was a long but good day. First order of business was hiring (that means renting) a 4-wheel drive vehicle over the phone. Then we went to Woolworths (in Australia that is a grocery store chain) and bought some food before Andrew arrived at the hotel with our Nissan. We are now in Kakadu National Park, the largest park in Australia and was named a World Heritage Site for both its cultural and natural resources. It is quite the place, especially when it comes to bird watching. We started out with a visit to Window [View Full Entry]

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Nourlangie Rock and Yellow Water Cruise October 22, 2008 We hated to leave our Bush Bungalow. We both slept well, the weather cooled considerably after dark and we even pulled up a blanket during the night. It was hot again today so we did our hiking around Nourlangie Rock (more amazing rock paintings) early in the morning. We did some bird watching at the Sandy Billabong off a short 4WD road. Ooh, it’s so much more fun to write “billabong” than “water hole.” We’ve been getting a kick out of all the frilled lizards running around on their hi [View Full Entry]

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Back in Darwin Day 23 October 24, 2008 Breakfast was included with our cabin at Banyan Tree and we had our choice of juices and a ham and cheese sandwich (white bread, of course). We were back in Darwin and had returned the Nissan by 10 AM. Too hot already to do much walking around so we bought an internet pass ($$$$ gulp) and worked out more trip details. We are trying to figure out why internet usage is free in Guatemala and costs so much in places in Australia. Darwin is a nice city considering it was bombed in WWII [View Full Entry]

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