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Published: April 13th 2007
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Maud
Isn't she beautiful! The road sign behind her has the ridiculous distance to the next town! Well guys, it's friday the 13th here in Oz, although you still have a couple of hours until little old Blighty reaches that dreaded date. At least, i think you have but i'm a little bit confused about the time difference due to us finally leaving queensland and entering a new time zone. This combined with your clocks changing has left me ever so befuddled as to what time it really is.
Well, as i said we've left Queensland - Yay, no more identical east coast towns, or tropical humid weather. In a moment of cash-flow related madness we decided that it was a fabulous idea to drive from Cairns to Alice Springs - well it's only 2,500 kms so why not! You may be wondering how we managed this as we don't actually have a car to drive, but we did what's known as a relocation. Basically, the big hire companies need there cars moved around this vast country, so for the measly cost of $5 day skint backpackers drive them to where they need to be. They even chuck in a nice fuel allowance. The only catch is that you have to take whatever vehicle is available,
Devils Marbles
We stopped to look at these on our road trip, very random but very cool. and drive it on specified days and in a limited time.
We thought that we'd be allocated a nice little campervan that we could call home for the next five days. However we were actually allocated the upmarket version of our vision - this was basically a fully equipped motorhome, complete with shower and toilet. We were very happy at this news until we laid eyes on our new vehicle - she was huge! Due to the fact that i've only ever previously driven a fiesta (which i found a challange to manouvre!) I was absolutely terrified of driving this monster! This fear was increased by the 'helpful' advice of other travellers regarding road-trains. Now road trains are lorries with up to four trailers on the back which will cruise along at about 100 kms/hour. Everyone we met had some little anecdote of advice about what best to do when you encounter these monsters on the road, such as needing at least 1km clear road ahead of you if you want to overtake them. Do these people not understand that I lived in England so wouldn't have the first idea what a kilometre of clear road looked like! At
The first three dates!
We entertained ourselves by making gummy bear stories on the dashboard! home your lucky if you can see a metre of clear road ahead!
Anyway, with a bit of excitement, a lot of trepidation and three CD's for a five day journey we set of in Maud (every vehicle should have a name!).
Surprisingly the journey was actually good fun, although the limited choice of music was - well limited i guess! I feel that everyone should play 3 CD's on repeat for five days to experience the closest thing to noise torture in the western world!
The journey was generally uneventful, as we were driving a moving house we were able to pull into little rest stops along the way, where the most strenuous thing we had to do for the night was open a beer. Aussie roads are fab to drive, as they are empty and straight - we estimated that you can see for 10-15 kms, before you lose the road in the heat haze, as i said we had limited music and this game passed a few minutes! A few other 'fun' games were timing how long it was between oncoming cars and guessing how many trailers the oncoming road trains would have!
The only minor hitch in our journey was a flat tyre. Jonny was most pleased when, whilst relaxing with a hard earned beer and cooking a BBQ, he looked over at Maud and discovered this. He then proved his manlyness by changing a van tyre in the middle of the Australian outback, while it was getting dark! What a man! I obviously stood bak and swooned at this diplay of testosterone! Actually I stood there and offered to hold a torch whist not saying very much as he was in a foul mood. To top all this off, it was the day before the long easter weekend and it's hard enough to find a garage open on a bank holiday anywhere in the world, it's even harder when your in the middle of nowhere!
Well we eventually got to Alice Springs, and booked ourselves onto a tour around Uluru - this is Ayers Rock to you guys.
On the first day we went straight to Uluru (after a brief stop on the side of the road when the bus suffered a fuel gauge malfunction and the bus slowed to halt out of petrol) and went around the cultural centre
which gave us a lot of information about the beliefs and stories the Anangu people believed to explain the rock and it's history. This was really interesting and Jill's sponge like brain was brimming with new found knowledge when we left. We followed this wuth a walk around the base of Uluru, which was nice as it gave us a chance to stretch our legs after a long drive but we were too close to the rock to really appreciate it. However we did see a thorny devil, which is a lizard that is covered in thorns! Quite a cool little creature!
Then it was off to the Sunset point, about 5km from the rock so it's size could be appreciated. We had our dinner while watching what i'm sure would have been a beautiful sunset had it not been cloudy! It was then off to our campsite and a night under the stars in swags! Swags are a kind of sleeping bag/bed which you zip yourself into and lay on the enclosed foam mat, this is actually surprisingly comfortable and warm!
The following morning it was an early start and brekky watching the sunrise behind the rock, which
There's no flies on me!
Actually there are loads, but Jonny wouldn't stay still for long enough for me to change the camera settings so it's too blurry to see them! It was a source of great amusement to the whole group how much the flies were attracted to Jonny! was quite spectacular, before heading off to Kata Tjuta. This place was actually more impressive that Uluru, as there are huge rounded rocks similiar to Uluru but in a much more dramatic fashion. The walk we went on took us through the 'range' in between this enormous rocks and looked like something out of Jurassic Park as the prehistoric feel to the place was just missing a couple of T-rexs (thankfully). After our walk we headed off into the bush to set up camp in the middle of nowhere. On the way we saw a wild camel - slighty random (but did you know that Australia has the only wild camels in the world!). With camp set up and the fire lit we tucked into Camel Burritos! Yum yum!
Our third and final morning was spent walking around the breathtaking Kings Canyon - which was definitely the highlight of the trip. As we wandered around the canyon we found out that the rock we were standing on had actually been under 1km of water only a mere 280million years ago - how to make your life feel really insignificant in the grand scheme of things! We also had a
Kata Tjuta
This means 'many heads' to the aboriginal people. dip in a billabong in the 'Garden of Eden' in one of the gorges. The water was bloody freezing, but definitely cooling!
It was then the long drive back to the Alice, for a few days of beer drinking with our tour group without the 5am wake up calls!
Until next time........
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flissy
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you naughty little monkeys!
Glad you enjoyed yourself in the outback but what did I tell you about the monsters that live out there! youve given me heart failure you buggers! x x x