Ayres Rock

Well it's been a long two weeks but a really fabulous time too. Last time I left you I was in Cairns so I'll pick up from there. After meeting Lucy for half hour to catch up I went and bought the ingredients for dinner. I met up with Marc (a friend from Brisbane) and cooked a chicken and bacon salad for him and Penny, later Shaun and Adam came over a drink at our hostel.

The next day was my last day in Cairns before heading to Alice Springs and Ayers Rock Penny moved to a new hostel today, Travelers Oasis (it was lovely and I have booked myself in to it when I was back in Cairns). We spent the rest of the day shopping and wandering around town, we bumped in to Adam (Leigh-on-Sea guy) and had coffee. So a relaxing day. In the evening Marc was coming to meet me and Penny for a goodbye drink. (My Alcohol tolerance has really gone down, I have 2 or 3 drinks and feel drunk). As Penny and I were on our way out to meet Marc at PJ's I saw Sanne walking along the road (Dutch girl I met in Brisbane) I was really shocked as I had spoken to her a couple of days before and she was in Bunderburg but was going to try and get to Cairns before I left on 7th August. She said she had received a call to come to Cairns and work on a boat called the Dufkun which is a replica of the first Dutch boat to arrive in Australia in 1606 over 100 years before Captain Cook in 1770. She was only in Cairns for an hour then had to go to Port Douglas as the ship was being used in a film there but she would be back when I was back from Ayers Rock, she came for a drink with us and her friend from the boat stopped for a few before they all headed to Port Douglas and I headed to bed.

The next day I woke up to a text from Penny telling me she still had my jumper and would come and meet me in the morning to drop it off, so I text her to say I was leaving at 9.30am. I packed my stuff had breakfast and checked out. After meeting Penny we went for one last coffee before I called a cab. As I called the cab a girl was also calling one for the airport so I suggested we shared as it turned out she was on my flight also. Penny cried as I left and I shed a tear too, when you are traveling you become closer quicker than you would in everyday life mostly because you spend every minute of every day together.

I arrived at the airport and checked in everything was going to plan we took off on time THEN!! The Pilot come over the tan-oi and announced that there was a technical problem with the plane and we would be turning around to land back in Cairns as the engineers were there. So we landed again in Cairns then spent the next 9 hours at the airport waiting to take off again. By the time I finally got to Alice Springs it was 11pm and dark so I didn't get to see anything. I checked into Annie's hostel, my room was horrible it was 11pm and the room really smelt of poo. I took out of my bag the stuff I needed for Ayers Rock (the hostel were lending me a smaller backpack for the trip which I had to pick up in the morning at 5.30am). I went to bed but I just couldn't sleep the place smelled so bad and I was worried about getting up on time. I managed about 4 hours sleep before getting up at 5.15am, I got dressed and went to reception the told me there wasn't a bag so I had to repack my backpack and take everything. As I was trying to sort all of this a met a girl called Liz who was also coming on my trip.

After a free breakfast of toast the bus departed Annie's Place, Alice Springs and drove through the desert to Kings Cannon. I slept for most of the six hour drive so by the time I got there I was wide awake. We went for a 3 hour hike around the Canyon and this was the start of getting to know the people in my group. there were 18 of us as a group we all got on very well but inevitability you end up dividing in to smaller groups. I became close to Liz (the girl who had been in my room at the horrible Annie's Place), Sandy (a Canadian girl) and Paul (who is going to take me to the summer solstices at stone henge near his house). I also got on really well with the tour guide Pete who thinks I'm a complete princess which if you carry on reading will make more sense.

As we walked in the boiling sun we understandably became hot and sweaty, I was really looking forward to a shower later. Whilst talking to Pete I realized that we were not staying at a campsite we were to sleep in the middle of the outback with no showers or even toilets!! Considering I have spent the last few weeks telling anyone that will listen that the first thing I an going to do when I get home is have a bath this really felt like bad Karma. The first day I felt really unsure and out completely out of my comfort zone, I felt so dirty from the sweat and sand and I was a little scared about sleeping in a SWAG (a matrices with an attached tar pooling that you zip your sleeping back in so you are pretty much in a sack with a flap to lay over your head if it rains (luckily it didn't rain on the whole trip). As I settled in for the first night I was really tired so I fell asleep straight away, I only woke up a few times to check that there were still people around me (I hadn't sleep walked or been picked up in my sack and moved) then dropped off to sleep again. It was actually a good nights sleep.

Another early start, it was again dark as we got up at 5.30am to go and watch sunrise, then breakfast and a 4 hour walk around the Olgas which are five large stones near Ayers Rock, they are actually more sacred to the Aborigines that Ayers Rock but they get less press. We had lunch by the Cultural Center whilst discussing who was going to climb the rock and who wasn't, the opinions were varied some felt is disrespectful some couldn't be bothered (the climb is at a 45degree angle for a mile and really hard going) but eight of us were going to give it a go. I felt that the Aborigines were hypocritical in that they only open this sacred sight as it makes them millions per year and they also felt photography destroys the soul but sold pictures of the Rock for profit. I also felt that as I'm not aboriginal and do not have there believed I was just climbing a rock not a sacred sight.

Pete the tour guide stayed behind me on the climb on the odd occasion he had to give me a push but mostly he was just making sure I didn't fall as my shoes kept slipping. When I finally pulled myself tot the top of the chain I collapsed on the floor gasping for breath thinking yes I did it!! Pete then informed me we were only half way up. This coupled with my obsession with the lack if showers is the point when Pete called me a princess (in a nice way, when he wrote in my book he said I was a top shelf girls, when I questioned whet this meant he said that it meant someone with a lot of spirit). The climb was really tough and it was such an exhilarating feeling to have achieved it when we finally got to the top. The climb down was easier but still another challenge as I was shattered and it required balance an concentration to get down.

At night we all had dinner near the Rock after watching the sunset over the rock. Then went to camp (the middle of the outback again) we set up the fire and sat around drinking for a while. I was the first to bed again as I hadn't slept since my 5.30am rise earlier and most other people had. I spent a lot of the time talking and giggling with Paul.

Yet another 5.30am start to watch the Sun rise again, today we walked half of the base walk around Ayers Rock then got in the bus for a 8 hour drive back to Alice Springs. On the way back we stopped off for a camel ride, although I had previously sworn never to get on a camel again (a bad incident with the girls on holiday in Gran Caneria) I decided that since I had achieved so much in the last few days I would get over this fear of Camels to. Sandy and I were on one camel and Paul and Liz on the other. The camels just walked up the paddock but then the ran back to the other end, poor Paul didn't know what hit him he was bounced up and down with no warning, I think any men reading this will sympathize.

Finally we arrived back at Annie's place, there was a table put aside for us for dinner. I dived into to shower first then Sandy was straight in after. We were going to walk around Alice Springs so that I could see it but by the time we had shared it was time for dinner. Our group had a last supper with Pete before saying goodbye.

No rest for the wicked I had to get up at 5.30am again to get on my 3 day tour back to Cairns, this time there was only 18 people on a big air-conditioned coach. Which I initially thought was brilliant as I spread out and settled in for some sleep but later in the tour realized it made it really hard to meet people and the tour didn't end up being friendly. But as I talk a lot I went and sat myself at the front of the bus for a better view which meant sitting next to Rita who was traveling with her sister-in-law. We chatted for most of the tour and they felt I was a good substitute for there daughters who where in Port Douglas and the same age as me.

The three day tour meant three more days of 5.30am starts but it was a really good experience I got to see the real outback, isolated towns with just one resident, the second biggest termite mound in the world, the smallest bar in the world as well as staying on a cattle ranch with a pet kangaroo, at a town of 250 people some of whom had never left the town which was in the middle of nowhere, we played killer pool here I only managed to pot one ball. Most memorable was when the driver told us to get out and just walk for 20 mins, I walked for 10min alone and 10 with Rita and Trudy (my American friends). It was an amazing experience to walk at sunset through a desert alone, the feeling of complete isolation in amazing. We also stopped at the town where Waltzing Matilda was first performed by Patterson (Rita, Trudy and I had a beer in the hotel it was performed in). As the trip was so long we also watched a lot of films played bus bowling and had competition to see who could rip out the best kangaroo from a piece of paper. We also went for a walk through the rain-forest on the Atherton Table, it was like all the other rain-forest I have been in but there was a beautiful waterfall and swim hole at the end of the walk. I have mixed feelings on the tour it was really good today and it was so different to anything else I have seen in Australia but it was long and on the last day the toilet on the bus really smelt bad so it was horrible being on the bus.

The next day back in Cairns checked in to the lovely Travelers Oasis hostel I slept in!! I also did my laundry chucking away some of my Ayers Rock Clothes as the Orange sand doesn't come out and layed by the pool. Marc came over in the evening to cook me lasangue which I now know how to make. He was leaving Cairns the next day to go to Darwin so I wont see him again until I visit him in Germany. We had a few beers (three actually and I felt drunk I really can't handle it anymore) then said out goodbyes, Marc promising to come to London. the girl from my room also sat with us and another guy, I found out that I am sharing a room with two guys and a lesbian ( normally like one girl at least int he room as it makes me feel safer, not sure how I felt about that girl being a lesbian).

Yesterday I went on a boat out to The Great Barrier Reef, I did two dives, I found Nemo and saw a sweetlips, barracuda and lobster. It was one of my best days so far. I also got offered a job on the boat for three months in return for training me to be a dive instructor, unfortunately they don't pay so I I had to turn them down as I have already run out of money. Later I went to the cinema on my own something I have never done before, I watched Harry Potter and really enjoyed the feeling of Independence. The who day was one of my best ever.

Today I have been laying by the lagoon getting a tan and later I am meeting Sanne (Brisbane Dutch Friend) for dinner and drinks and the guys from the boat trip are meeting us later for drinks too so hopefully will be a good night.

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