Which Island?

It wasn’t that long ago that we told you about Australia and, now that we’re about to leave for Singapore, we thought we’d finish the Australian leg of the tour with an update of the last couple of weeks. We arrived in Alice Springs to be greeted by 34 degree heat, buzzing pesky flies and the French and Irish friends we met on the East Coast.

Alice is slap bang in the middle of the Australian Desert and so 2 days of thunder storms and huge hail stones were the last thing we expected! It‘s also miles from anywhere and we drove for hours to reach the wonderful Kings Canyon. Thankfully, the weather cleared by the time we got there and we really enjoyed hiking around this lesser known gem. The views were fantastic, we’re sure the photo doesn’t do it justice but that’s true of so many things we’ve seen!

Next we headed for the main reason anyone goes to the middle of Australia, Ayers Rock (or Uluru as the aboriginals know it.) We saw it at sunset and sunrise and it’s true that it changes colour throughout the day, with sunset being our favourite. We also went to the Olgas (Kata Tjuta) which, like Ayers Rock, are hugely important to the aboriginal people for their spiritual and traditional significance. They also change colour through the day and the 6 of us had our tea there, sweet chilli and rice, while we watched the sunset. We’d bagged the prime viewing spot and the bus load of posh champagne sipping tourists seemed unimpressed that 6 scruffy backpackers had the best seats in the house!

After this we headed south through miles and miles and miles of semi desert. We got talking to a few Aboriginal people who asked where we were from, it took the Irish a while to explain which island! We broke up the long journey with a couple of nights at an underground campsite in the mining town of Coober Pedy. We had a go at searching for opals but, despite a few peculiar looking stones, we never made our fortune and we’ll be sticking to the hostels.

The rest of the journey took us through Adelaide were we said goodbye to the Frenchies and Irish who went off to pick oranges for a month. Instead, we took a few days to drive the Great Ocean Road back to Melbourne passing fantastic sites like the 12 Apostles. No trip to Australia would be complete without surfing so where else to try is that the world famous Bells Beach? (If you know your surf then you’ll know that Bells Beach hosts an international surf competition each Easter). The waves were good and after a few poundings we learnt to ride them (woohoo!) although we couldn’t stand up.

So, back in Melbourne and another stay with Simon, Jo and their wonderfully comfortable spare bed. Oh, and a little trip down Ramsay Street.

That’s the end of the Australian leg of our tour and we’ve loved the lot. There are some great things in this big country and making friends along the way made the miles between sights more enjoyable. We could easily have stayed longer but South East Asia is calling and we begin it with 5 days in Singapore.


Love
N&J
xxx

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