The Outback

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Got picked up for our tour through the outback at 6.45am on Wednesday. Had a 6 hour drive to Kings Canyon, thankfully the driver did plentry of stops and had lunch on the way. When we got to Kings Canyon we had a 4 hour hike around it!!!! Was not expecting this for the first day! The start of the hike was up a very steep hill and it was boiling hot, so was pretty killer! There were some spectacular views once we got to the top though. We then proceeded to hike through the canyon, stopping at various stops for a quick rest but by the time I caught my breath we would be on the move again. Inside the canyon is a place called "The Garden of Eden" where there is a lake, surrounded by trees, inside the rocks. We stopped here for a quick swim. It was a bit un-nerving that the water was a strong yellowy-green colour, but it is just from the leaves in the water. We then proceeded to finish the hike, which was pretty tough. Downhill is great, had no problem with that, but uphill is another matter!!! At our campsite for the night everyone has to pitch in to make dinner and clean up afterwards, which is pretty much the last thing you feel like doing when you've been up since 5.15am, driving all day and done a four hour hike! But we had stir fry and it was pretty nice and ate it around the campfire. We slept in swags tonight - which are canvas bags with a thin matress on the bottom, and you put your sleeping bag inside them. It was actually pretty chilly at night, and every time a gust of wind blew past it would wake me up with a very cold head! 😞

On the seconds day of the tour got up at 4.30am and after having breakfast and packing everything up we drove to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Here we went on a 3 hour hike around Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) which are there's rock formations in the centre of Australia, probably best to google these for a better explanaion, ha! The hike was pretty had and started feeling faint and severly short of breath towards the end on the last climb. The only thing that made this hike slightly better than yesterday was that as we did it so early in the morning the sun was out yet and it was actually quite cloudy and cool. After dinner, tacos today, we drove to Uluru (Ayers rock) for sunset. It is really cool to see Uluru, but the sunset was nothing special due to the clouds and it actually started to rain so I ended up getting back on the bus. Slept in swags again tonight, but slept better this time as I covered my head with the hood of my sleeping bag to shelter from the wind.

Day 3 got up at 4am and we drove to Uluru for sunrise. I was expecting it to be something quite special but it didn't really look any different to how it did in the daylight yesterday. We then walked around the entire base of the rock, this took 2 and a half hours! It was a long walk, but at least it was on flat ground today and no climbing up steep hills. Some people actually climb up Uluru if weather conditions permit, but this is highly disrespectful to the Aboriginal people as they consider it sacred and they ask you not to! Only the highest elders in their tribes are allowed to climb it so I didn't do the climb for this reason. After Uluru we had a VERY long drive to Cobber Peddy in South Australia. Upon crossing the state boarder we jumped forward an hour in time due to daylight savings, but the drive was soo long one more hour didn't really make any difference. Tonight we slept in underground dorms, carved out into the side of a mountain. It was a massive dorm split into smaller sections of 2 or 3 bunkbeds separated by curtains, it was actually really cool. We shared a curtained section with 2 Norwegian girls who are really nice. Most of the people on our tour are German, there are a few Swiss, 2 French, an Italian couple and a Taiwanesse family. Everyone is really nice, but the Taiwanesse family did not mix at all and the mother did not help out for any of the cooking or cleaning duties which everyone noticed and found very irritating! Tonight we had pizza delivered so it was great not to have to cook!! Though we still had to wash up.

Had a slight lay in on the 4th day, got up at 7am! Normally I would never consider 7am a lay in but after getting up at 4am it seems a lot better! Cobber Peddy is the capital of Opal mining in South Australia, so we went to an Opal mine and museum here. We were shown a film on opals and a demonstration of how they are cut and polished up, and told about the different types of opals. I bought myself a ring with an opal in it at the shop here it was really nice. We then went for a walk around the town, on one of the dirt roads we had a little look for opals, and collected a few stones. We took them but to the people at the opal mine to see if they were worth anything, most of them were worthless as they had no colour but I did find one with quite a bit of colour in it. The nice man here offered to clean it up, cut and polish it for me and after he had done this he told me it was now worth about $100!!!!! :O I was so chuffed, what a lucky find! I didn't know what to do with it, wether to sell it or not, but I have kept it for now. Then went to a kanaroo orphanage, all the young kangaroos here were brought here because their mother's were either hunted for food or killed in traffic accidents. They had quite a few cheeky characters and 6 month old joey who was very cute. The woman owning the place also had a newborn joey strapped to her chest under towels and blankets. She let us have a quick peek, it was so young that it didn't even have any fur yet and looked like a tiny little alien. The couple owning this place are doing such a great job taking in and caring for these young kangaroos and they do it all off their own money and any donations they get as they do not charge any entry fee or get any other payments. So I gave them a small donation to help their work. I lingered at the orphanage for too long and ended up late for lunch, but this turned to be a great thing as by the time I got there they'd run out of the quiche everyone was having (which I don't like) and I got to have veggie lasagne instead :D Two bits of good luck today were soon balanced out though when I noticed the stone was missing from my new ring! I managed to find the stone in the bus and I can probably get it fixed evetually but I am still pretty gutted! 😞 On the way to our campsite for tonight we stopped at a salt lake. This was pretty cool, as all the water had dried up we could walk out onto the lake which is totally white and made up of salt crystals. Slept in swags again tonight, the campsite is pretty cool except there are hundreds of tiny worms in the toilets and showers which is pretty gross!

Got up at 6.30am on day 5 and we drove to Alligator gorge. Hiked around the gorge for 2 hours, this one wasn't too bad as it was mostly flat but the last bit was a steep climb back out of the gorge and I was glad when it was over. Saw some wild kangaroos for the first time when driving through the national park here. We then heading back to Adelaide, passing throught lots of cute little towns. We drove through a town called Melrose, which will have significance to certain readers! And stopped at a park in a town called Clare for lunch. Arrived back in Adelaide around 4.30pm too tired to do anything tonight. We've gone back to the same hostel we were at before as we liked it here and this time they have done us a discount for being returning customers 😊

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