Welcome to the Red Centre! This is my third time to Central Australia, and each time I never get sick of seeing that red dust. I arrived in The Alice on Monday after a long 1,200km drive from Katherine. Katherine Gorge was good - not as good as my last visit there, maybe because it was not so “new” to me. But enjoyable none-the-less! As I am heading south, the temperatures have dropped somewhat, so a few days in a cabin were definitely on the cards. My plan for Tuesday morning was to head out to the West Macdonnell ranges. I [View Full Entry]

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Some aeria shots I took this evening on my sunset helicopter over Uluru and Kata Tjuta. There were only 4 people on the chopper - including myself and the pilot. Was great!! Enjoy! [View Full Entry]

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G'day Everyone We have just got back from 4 days staying at the Ayres Rock Resort in the Northern Territory. It was an amazing trip. I know the photo's will not do the sights justice but i hope you like them. Me and Ellen are now feeling like seasoned travellers, one flight to Sydney then another to Ayres Rock - no problem :) whats 5 hours on a plane eh !! The Outback Pioneer where we stayed was great, just wish the showers and toilets were not outside ! As soon as we arrived we had a nice shower - (Ellen [View Full Entry]

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Monday 28 April was an exciting day for me because my good sister arrived in Alice Springs, after not seeing her for a year and a half. She arrived on a little bus. Toot toot! After chatting and chatting and chatting, it was suddenly the next day and time for our trip to the Red Centre to leave. The first part of the trip was King’s Canyon, a steep canyon (yep) made out of red rock. It used to be under the sea, or something. We did a steep walk up, round the back of the canyon and back down the [View Full Entry]

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Day 1: we flew into Alice Springs which took 2 hours and literally looked out the window and saw red the whole way. When we took the bus to our hostel we did not see one white person. The town was filled with aboriginal people. We took a short walk through the town but since we had such an early start the next day, we ate, packed and went to bed early. Day 2: we thought we woke up at 5am. dopey me (gemma) didn't put my clock back so in fact we woke up at 4.30am. we realised this when [View Full Entry]

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We had time and money (sort of) for one last trip before we left Australia. It was a toss up between Tasmania and Uluru (Ayers Rock). We decided on Uluru as you can’t come to Oz and not see the rock! So we booked flights, a tour and a couple of days off work. It’s pretty expensive to get to Alice Springs but we managed to get “cheap” flights with the local equivalent of Ryanair. We arrived in Alice Springs where our hostel picked us up, handy. After we’d checked in we went into town to get food, check in for [View Full Entry]

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There are not enough adjectives to describe Uluru (Ayers Rock). This huge monolith which rises 348 meters from the desert has a girth of 9.4 kms. It is estimated, however, that at least two-thirds of the Rock lies beneath the surface. It has such a magical aura about it. To me it looks like a huge big red sandhill. Indescrible really. Since we were here 25 years ago we have travelled to many countries and seen some amazing sights however this is by far the most remarkable. Ross and Phil decided as soon as they saw it they wanted to climb [View Full Entry]

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OK - Big Rock. That´s about it. Cool though - exceeded our expectations in scale. Stayed in the world´s most expensive tent at 90 bucks a night. Freezing at night as well. Did a 3 hour trek around the Olgas - good training for South America. Minus the coca leaves. [View Full Entry]

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After one of the best drives ever along the great ocean road, and up to the grampians, we were then faced with a five hour drive to adelaide to drop off our car and meet our tour bus. It was the most boring drive ever! There was one stretch of road that was 10km and we didn't have to turn the steering wheel once! Mad. Anyway, we made it to adelaide and dropped the car off on time (yay). Next morning we were up at 5 to meet our tour bus to take us to the outback. Despite the early start, [View Full Entry]

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Arriving back into Darwin after our jolly in Bali, we eventually managed to convince the immigration officer that despite her intuition we really aren’t illegally working our way around Oz (and we’re really not!) and finally stamped in for another six months were reunited with Tilly, our van. Obviously upset that we’d abandoned her for a week, she’d decided to leak clutch and brake fluid everywhere. We managed to limp round to the caravan park we’d previously stayed in which was still locked up for the night, and so ended up sleeping on the side of the road for a few [View Full Entry]

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