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Published: November 2nd 2006
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Hello, I know I said I would update again in Sydney but I have too much to tell you and photos to add so here goes. Firstly we were really lucky and was upgraded to 'Safari in style' instead of the ordinary safari tour that we had booked. This meant that we had our own chef with great food, our own private perminant tent with proper beds and free wine/champayne throughout the trip. It would have cost us an extra 300 pounds for these extras!
When we first realised we had been put on the wrong tour I almost told them as we were a little worried that the people on the 'Style' tour would be old, boring and stuck up. Fortunately I decided against telling them and although most of the people were old and boring there was an Irish couple that we really got on with and the tour guides were fab.
So the adventure began as we jumped on the 4WD and headed off on our long journey. We stopped at a few road houses, which all tend to have some sort of aviary or animal enclosures. the first one was a camel farm and some people had
Perentie lizard
Second largest lizard in the world after the komodo dragon. We were really lucky to see this as they are rarely seen! It was almost 2 metres long! a ride whilst we just wached and admired. They also had rescued emus and kangeroos- who just chilled out all day (see pic). So after a few hours drive we headed to our first stop- valley of the winds at the olgas (mountain range). On the way there we were really lucky to see a Perente lizard, which is the second largest lizard in the world. He was almost 2 metres long and although we almost ran him over he just stood and posed for us- really cool, even our tour guide was like a kid with excitment as they are very rarely seen. He hiked around and through the olgas mountain and viewed some amazing scenary. We then headed to Uluru and would you believe that it was actually raining!!!!! It was the first time to rain at uluru for 4mths, the first sight of rain for us in 5wks (since Perth) and there were no flies!!!! The tour guides loved it and repeatedly said that we were lucky to see that sight. We watched sunset over uluru with snacks and champayne until it was dark. The changing colours of the sky and the impression on uluru was awesome.
The next day we were up and out of bed at 3.30am..... yes that it not a type error, we had to be ready to leave after breaky at 4.45 in order to be at the sunrise-over-uluru area by 5.15 for sunrise between 5.30 and 6am. And after only getting 4hrs sleep the sunrise was crap as it was too cloudy- really disappointing. Anyway the sun did come out a bit later as we walked the base of Uluru. We decided against the climb as it looked bloody hard work especially after only 4hrs sleep! Also it was really steep and the people coming down looked as though they were crapping themselves and sliding down on their bum as it was that steep.... no thankyou! The base walk was really interetesting with great views of the rock, there were also ancient aborigional art work and interesting shapes in the rock, at one bit it looks like a lions head, its really weirdly obvious. We could only walk 3/4 of the way around as the other 1/4 was sacred to the aborigionals and you couldn't even take photos. These areas were left for the aborigional initiations. On our last day we
went to Kings canyon and had a 3 1/2 hr tour around with even more amazing views from the top. I can't remember the names of all the places but they were all great. Weirdly we bumped into Jen again- she was on the tour that left the day after ours so meeting in alice for dinner.
Our tour guide Rachel was really cool until she played a joke on the group. We were walking kings caynon and listerning to all her really informative talks. We had seen loads of animals we had never seen before so naturally we believed her when see said that there was a native koala in the northen territory- thought it was a little weird but we went with it. She offered a beer voucher for the first person to spot one- so off course we all started searching the gum trees for one. 'Here I found it' shouted David pointing up at a branch, everyone started zooming in to take photos of these tiny creatures about half the size of a fist. It was only until people starting cooing over how much they looked liked cuddly toys that she gave up and laughed at
everyone- they were those toy things that you attach to the top of pencils that had been planted on the branch high up enough that you couldn't make out the faces. We felt like complete idiots but had to laugh at it. It was just after that that she asked us to listen to the sound a gum tree makes.... yeah right we said, but this was actually true- if you listen to the branch of a gum tree you can here water running.
After a swim in the camp pool it was back to Alice for a last meal and a few drinks with the Irish couple and finally got to bed after being awake for 21hrs and having a very exhausting day. Needless to say we had a very good night sleep!!
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Charlotte
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Howdy!
Pics are amazing i am very jealous, corinne you look like ur getting a bit of colour girl.Keep safe xx