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Published: March 18th 2007
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Hey Hey! I'm back in Northern Territory now after a 7 day tour from Adelaide to Alice. I had flown to Adelaide from Tasmania with the worst hangover imaginable and didn't have much time to explore unfortunately. What i did see of Adelaide i really liked though and was quite surprised. The central market was my favourite place - fresh fruit, veg, cheese, meats and bread and a fantastic buzz about the place.
The bus picked me up at the ungodly hour of 6.30am and i met my fellow passengers i would be spending the week with. I must say that i was hugely disappointed when i realised that 90% of them were German and weren't speaking English! I do speak German so i could understand some of what they said but not very good at answering back! I don't think I've ever mentioned how many Germans there are travelling here in Australia - bucket loads of them! Even more than the Irish in fact!! My other observation of travelling at the moment is the number of females - where are all the men?! Are they not adventurous enough?!
Anyhoo, i was much happier later on that day after
Nora and I
in our sexy flynets! i got to know my group and they spoke english most of the time thankfully! The group was made up of 10 germans, 3 swiss, 1 english guy, 2 swedish girls, me and the aussie tour leader Sandy.
There was a lot of kilometres to be covered in the 7 days. It's 1500km from Adelaide to Alice direct but our tour woud cover over 3000kms because of the stops. We were warned that the flies are pretty bad in the outback at this time of year so we all boutgh very sexy fly nets! these proved to be invaluable throughout the tour.
Our first stop was in the Flinders Ranges and we stayed in a nice little village at Angorichina. Here we got to know each other better and had our dinner and sat round the campfire trying to remember 18 other people's names! We also did a hike to the top of the mountain here which had great views, however it was slightly spoilt by the smell of rotten goat carcuses!
We stopped at Williams Creek and after dinner had a drink at the bar which is covered in businesscards, drivers licesnces, student cards and even
Great sign
there are some really funny signs here in the outback. kangaroo is yummy! knickers, all donated from the people who have visited the pub over the years. Williams Creek is the smallest town in South Australia (population = 9) and it was here that we had our first night sleeping under the stars in swags. (Swags are like thicker sleeping bags with thin rubber matresses).
Anyone who knows me can imagine how much i was freaking out as i am not an outdoor type of person and there was no tent or protection from any of the insects/animals, just a sleeping bag in the middle of the red dirt on the ground. I hardly managed to sleep as i was so paranoid a beasty of some kind was going to climb over my face. I decided that i should wear my fly net to bed so nothing could climb in my ears and lay eggs!
One of our stops along the way was to see a man called Talc Alf. Talc Alf is a very interesting and individual man. he lives in the middle of nowhere in a house made of the old Ghan railway line. His washine machine is powered by a bicycle and a few of us had a
Having a spa
and a water fight. we needed cooling down as it was 38 degrees shot at this curious invention. He also sculpts figures out of talc stone (the stuff that makes talcum powder)
Talc Alf showed us the original flag of Australia - which is the aborignal sign and southern cross instead of the union jack/southern cross. He also believes that the letters of the alphabet relate to aboriginal times and alot of the meaning have been lost in our current alphabet. Apparently JILL stands for journey of an individual to another land - can't argue with that since I'm on my round the world trip!
Next stop - Coober Pedy, it is a town of about 3000 people in the desert built around opal mining and it gets so hot here that people have built their homes underground! It can get up to 50 degrees but the underground housing is at a constant temperature of approx 24degrees, they even have an underground church! After a nice meals in the local restaurant we had a swim in the pool and in the evening we went to the local (underground) bar. Laura and i kicked everyone's ass at pool and we played doubles with the locals. We had a great laugh and they
driving in the outback
complete nothingness for miles! kept on shouting us drinks so we were quite tipsy at the end of the night. This evening we slept in an underground bunkhouse.
Uluru was our next main stop and this is the main reason that most tourists come to the red centre. To be honest it's not as impressive as i had imagined and seen from the postcards - it's just a huge rock. The first sunset was rubbish due to clouds. the sunrise was pretty good and the 2nd sunset was very good as we sat watching it with nibbles and some wine and we got the photographs we all hoped for.
After the really good sunset (and wine) we were all in party mood and i was DJ on the bus. I put some good tunes on and we danced back to the campsite and had a water fight before making dinner.
Whilst at Uluru (aka Ayers Rock) we stayed at another campsite, and i actually got to liking the swags for 2 nights (Shock horror!!). However I was very glad to leave when Nora found a Scorpion really close to where our swags were. Thank god i found out after cos i
wouldn't have slept a wink if i knew one was nearby.
It is possible to climb Uluru but as the aboriginals consider it sacred they ask you not to out of respect. All of our group except 1 boy chose not to climb the rock before we got there. In the end it was closed due to the temperature being above 36 degrees! There were a lot of disappointed japanese tourists, as they always choose to climb apparently. It looks a very steep climb and people have died attempting to do it in the past. We did the base walk, which doesn't really give you the best impression. All you see is red sandstone so you just walk and talk with you group without giving it your attention.
Kata Tjuta (aka The Olgas) was good to see - it's a group of dome shaped rocks which is also sacred to the aboriginals. We had a 7.4km hike through the domes and stopped halfway to paint our faces with Ochre, which is what the aboriginals use for face and rock paint. The landscape reminded me of the Bungle Bungles in Western Australia, which i preferred.
We camped on
Having a drink..
in the underground bar with Nora our last night at Kings Creek Cattle Station. By this time I felt happier with the swags but we all had an awful sleep as a huge storm started at 1am and we all had to get up and run for shelter. I couldn't get back to sleep which was not good that morning at 5am when we got ready for our hike to Kings Canyon.
Kings Canyon was definitely my favourite part of the trip. The landscape there is like you're walking on Mars and the Canyon is deep and too scary to go too near the edge. We had a lot of fun walking here and got some great pictures. I particularly like the group one of us all lying down and looking over the cliff edge. It was a bit of an effort to get to the top as we had to climb "Heart Attack Hill".
I am very happy to say that the flies here are nowhere near as bad as they were on the road - thank god! So no need to wear the fly net anymore - Yippee!!
And now...We've made it to Alice Springs and i'm working in Annie's Place
being silly...
on the highway as we wait for the flat tyre to be fixed - a funky little hostel. Housekeeping ( i know i said i would never do it again but it's only 2 weeks) and working as a kitchen hand, which is actually pretty fun (except when i have to wash the dishes).
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Scott
non-member comment
Back at it....
HOUSEKEEPING!!! I can't believe it! Before you know it you'll be an exec! Love your blog, but it makes me home sick. Take care, Scott