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Published: November 17th 2009
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me with my retard trolley ice skating in adelaide!So the past few weeks haven't been as exciting as the first couple because i have been working lots! But i've been to lots of different places!
I worked in Adelaide for three weeks in total, moving house each week and feeling like a nomad! One good thing that came from getting lost on the bus was that we got a tour of the City, (didn't want one, but we got one like!) We went though the beach suburb of Glenelg, when was really nice. So on our Sunday off, me, kevin and Aafje went for a drink in one of the bars on the harbour. There was live music and it was a really relaxing day off!
The only dislike i had of Adelaide was the weather, it was like being in England again! cold, rainy and windy! It hadn't quite reached summer down there yet!! There were occassions when the jumper was worn, a scarf was borrowed from Kevin, and i had to buy some jeans. I just wasn't counting on this type of weather when i packed 98 pairs of shorts!
The second week in Adelaide, i made friends with a lad who worked on a stand
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lovely dead seal painting on my wall! opposite us in the shopping centre and he took me out for drinks...that was about as exciting as it got really! We also went ice skating after work one night which was funny! I was well out of practice and the only positive thing i can say about my skating was that i didn't fall over!! They had special frames there that looked like shopping trolleys, which you could use if you weren't that steady! I've not seen these before but i'm sure they must have them in England! Anyway, this was the sole reason i didn't fall over!!!!
The morning after we went ice skating, i woke up feeling awful, sore throat, fever, and general lack of energy. I just put it down the the cold weather and forced myself to work. The rest of the week was basically going to work then falling asleep as soon as we got in the car to go home!!
On the Saturday, it was time to move house again! So we packed up and left for our new appartment, which was absolutely beautiful!! It had a little garden and we had a bedroom each with a wardrobe and double bed! It
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appartment in adelaide! was so strange to put my clothes on a shelf again rather then in a crumpled heap on the floor!! The appartment was very homely, there were photographs of the owners on holiday and their neice's wedding, the only strange point was the art work above my bed.....a painting of a dead seal.....nice!!
On my next day off, i went to find a doctors in town as i was still feeling no better. It was a lot easier than i thought it would be, and they told me to come back in an hour for my appointment. So i went back and explained how i was feeling to the doctor, telling her that i probably just needed some penicillin as i get tonsillitus a lot. Anyway, turns out i had swine flu! Not only did she charge me $50 to tell me this, she couldn't give me any medication as i'd left it so long, and she also threw in a lecture on how i should have worn a mask as she 'didn't want my germs!' nice lady!
So, feeling sorry for myself, i texted Aafje in work to let her know, and got myself home to rest. When
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champagne sunset uluru! Aafje and Kevin arrived home, they were bearing gifts!! They had got me some pig shaped sweets, some nice cookies, and a card with a big pig on the front! It was actually a birthday card, so they had changed the message to read "HAPPY SWINE FLU DAY!" yes...very happy day indeed!!!
Another gift they bestowed on me was a michael jackson face mask, which was a treat! Aafje can get seriously ill from germs, so i had to wear it when i was near her so she wouldn't catch it! Already finding it difficult to breathe through my snotty nose, it was even harder wearing this thing. Plus i looked like an anal Japanese tourist!
So as my boss didn't think that giving kids swine flu along with a free photograph was an image she wanted for the company, i had a week off! I decided that i would rest for a couple of days, then fly up to Alice Springs and go to Ayers Rock!(Uluru) We were scheduled to drive up from Adelaide to Katherine in the Northern Territory with our set a few days later, so me and Christy made arrangements to fly up and Kevin
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map of the long drive from alice to katherine! and Aafje would drive through Alice and pick us up to drive the rest of the way a few days later. So we booked a cheap flight with Tiger Airways, cost about 40 quid. I was in a cafe by the appartment booking my flight, when a local man overheard me talking to the lady that worked there. "Alice Springs? What are you going there for?! Ive only been twice in my life and i never want to go back!" he told me, along with other positive comments like, "don't go out by yourself there, it's not safe." and "watch what you say to people there!" awesome, i thought! So we got to the airport and were on our way there when the flight attendant started talking to us. There was a spare seat next to Christy, so he sat down and we talked for most of the flight. He was also full of the same love for Alice Springs that the man in the cafe had possessed! "Don't go out after dark," and "Don't go out by yourselves!" However, it turns out that he had worked as a tour guide to Uluru in his previous job, so he reccomended
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devils marbles! us a one day tour to do that was pretty cheap!
So we arrived and found our way to Toddy's hostel, where we had an 8 bed dorm to ourselves! We walked into town to book ourselves onto the tour the flight attendant had reccomended, and on the way back we popped into a garage so i could buy some sun cream. The man who worked there took it upon himself to say, "Don't be goin' out at night just the two of you girls, it's not safe around here!" Jeez Louise, i only wanted some sun cream, why is everyone hell bent on scaring the living daylights out of us!!!! He went on to tell us that a lot of female tourists get raped by drunk aboriginals and that with a population of 28,000 people, over 18,000 got stabbed last year! "So last year, more people got stabbed than didn't get stabbed?!" i asked. "Yeh." he replied......nice scary statistics!
So, safely scared off ever leaving the hostel, we went back and had an early night before our early wake up the next morning to go to Uluru!
When the alarm went off at 5am the next morning,
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the photography set in katherine! i was not happy! "This rock better be worth it!" i scowled. But it was! Loved every second of the trip! It was a 5 hour drive there, and 5 hours back, and it was 38 degrees outside with little shade. We started our tour at the Olgres, which are in the same national park as Uluru. Then moved onto Uluru, we did a walk around the base, not the entire perimeter though as it's too big. We saw ancient aboriginal drawings on the rock, and they told us stories that the aboriginals told about markings on the surface. It was really interesting, the only down side was the heat, it was unbelievably hot and there was nowhere to hide from the sun! You can sometimes climb to the top of Uluru, but it is against the aboriginal religion, so it is frowned upon really. They often make excuses like, it's too windy, or too hot etc so you can't do it for safety reasons, but we were told of people who had died doing the climb. No-one has ever fallen and survived, and if anyone dies on the rock, the aboriginals go into mourning because it is a sacred site. Apparantely a german tourist fell just a few metres from the ground last year and died.
Anyway, after the tour, we drove to the lookout point where we had an awesome view, then they cooked us a bbq and gave us free champagne to watch the sunset. It was really beautiful and i really enjoyed it. After that came the long drive home again! Through the desert, the stars were so bright and there were thousands of them, it was really pretty, although we did run over 3 kangaroos on the way!
The next day we didn't do a lot. Put off leaving the hostel, we lay by the pool all day and a fat old man gave me a steak dinner for free! good times!
The next morning we set off in the car with Kevin and Aafje for a long, boring day in the car! We had a 12 hour drive ahead of us through desert. I was armed with my book, mp3 player and a magazine! We passed through an alien themed service station due to alien sightings in the area years ago! It was surreal! There were aliens everywhere and it was really quirky! Even the toilet had a picture of an alien holding it's groin! Soon after that we passed by the Devil's Marbles, ancient stones that have been weathered into perfect circular shapes. They were huge and there were loads of them. After that it got a bit boring! I finished my book, my mp3 battery ran out and it was too dark to read the magazine!!! We finally arrived at the camp ground in Katherine in the evening.
Katherine was definately an experience! I'm glad i got to go there, although anything longer than a week would have been too long!! We had been warned that last time the set was there, the guys that worked there got head lice and something scabies like on their skin from the dirty aboriginal children, so every day before work we sprayed our hair throughly with anti-nit spray, and used anti-bacterial hand wash after every photo shoot! The Aboriginal people are on the whole friendly, however, some of the parents don't have names for their children, don't know their date of birth or how old they are, and most cannot read or write, all of which making the experience quite a difficult one!!
On a Thursday, the aboriginal people get money from the goverment as compensation for us taking their land and stealing their children from them, which means that most of them are blind drunk by thursday afternoon! By the time we finished work, we had encountered several events!! We had watched one man in a drunk coma in the shopping centre doorway! I had made friends with a man named Norman, and a man who called himself 'Old Macdonald' had pulled of his hat, revealing his bald head whilst shouting "I'M A BALDY MAN!!!" mid-conversation with us! The scariest encounter of the day, however, happened when i leaned down to pick up my water bottle from the floor. When i stood up, a huge aboriginal woman had appeared from no-where and grabbed me! "2 DOLLAR!" she shouted in my face! She looked at my uniform and saw that i was working, let me go, apologised and grabbed the woman nearest to me, again shouting "2 DOLLAR!!!" in her face!! This pattern continued for most of the afternoon as this lady desperately searched for 2 dollars to buy more booze! Hilarious!
Anyway, i'm in Darwin now. I've been here for 2 weeks and i like it, but i'll save that for the next blog as i've been typing for 2 hours now!
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J stewart
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Glad to hear you took the local advice Helen and no more scary stories for us. Sounds like you are enjoying yourself Have fun stay safe and have a great Xmas . Love A Joyce