Advertisement
Published: June 21st 2009
Edit Blog Post
Bus
The airconditioning blower vents. Closing them was punishable by death. lol Or so we were warned. Tuesday April 14 2009 was our last day in Cairns. We had already spent 2 weeks in the city, which was just as much time as we had spent in Sydney. So it was time to move on to Alice Springs and journey to the Red Centre of Australia! Of course this happened to be on a Tuesday, so early that morning we made sure to check out another movie at the theatre across the street. Lol We saw DragonBall Evolution. It was fun. It took a lot of liberties with the original story, but as long as you recognized that and didn’t let it bother you, it was enjoyable.
After the movie we hopped on the Greyhound bus to Townsville. The problem with getting to Alice Springs is that you have to backtrack along the east coast before heading west to the centre of the country. So the bus ride ends up being 6 hours to Townsville and then ANOTHER 25 hours to Alice Springs! We weren’t looking forward to that. Luckily we stopped for the night in Townsville instead of just hopping on the next bus to the outback.
Wednesday morning we woke up bright and early
Scenery
We were seen off by rain during our last day in Cairns. to catch our 7:00am Greyhound bus. The ride was long, but in the end it wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be. There were plenty of stops (the bus drivers definitely need it) and the first 12 hours went by quite fast actually. As for scenery though, well it got quite boring after the first hour heading inland. Once you’re off the coast, things dry up pretty quickly. And no more mountains, everything’s just flat. Which makes the roads very straight and boring. Lol We were able to watch some movies again (like the Pink Panther with Peter Sellers, but Hillary stuck to reading and I listened to my podcasts).
We hit Mt Isa around 7pm. I know this entry is titled Mt Isa, but that’s really just because it was like the half way point. We weren’t able to see much because the sun was just setting, but we were able to see that the place was pretty big and fairly populated. Three hours after that we crossed the border into the Northern Territory. Upon crossing the border, we entered a different time zone and set our watches back half an hour. Talk about making things
Scenery - 02
Everything's so lush and green. Thigns won't look like that for much longer during the bus rides. difficult. Lol Around 2am we passed through Tennant Creek. This was the point where we now started heading south to Alice Springs. Heading north would take us to Darwin, but that would be our next destination.
And finally, we made it to Alice Springs around 8am!
We were now officially in the centre of Australia. The town really is in the middle of nowhere, but at least it is surrounded by mountain ranges in an attempt to protect it from the elements. Alice Springs used to be a rest point for traveling from Adelaide to Darwin, straight though the middle of the country. And it was also used as a military base during the second world war. Quite frankly, the only reason the town exists is because of its location. Otherwise, I doubt too many people would purposely travel all the way out there to make it their home. Lol I believe the population is roughly 20,000, making it the largest city in the Outback and the second largest city in the territory, after Darwin.
A few things to get out of the way: yes, it is very dry in the outback. Hillary and I had spent
Scenery - 03
Love the scenery. the last couple of months on the coast, and were very used to the humid weather. Now once the sun went down, it started getting pretty chilly. Not to mention you wake up with a dry mouth or in my case a bloody nose because it’s so dry. Lol And yes, as some of my friends have already asked me, there are a LOT of flies! We had plenty of time to practice the Aussie salute, which is waving your hand in front of your face to keep flies from landing on you. Haha!
Kevin (and Hillary)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.235s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 11; qc: 29; dbt: 0.1778s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb