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Published: February 3rd 2006
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We arrived at about midday into Alice Springs train station, climbing off the train down some steps onto a dusty 'platform'. The heat was intense, about 45 degrees, but this is to be expected in the Northern Territory this time of year.
We jumped in a taxi and headed straight to the YHA in town. This is probably one of the tattiest hostels we have stayed in- it was like an air raid shelter with a corrigated iron roof and dodgy little windows. So we decided to head out and have an explore around town, which wasnt actually as big as we thought it would be. We saw lots of Aborigines, which is something we hadn't seen in the other parts of Australia we've visited. Anzac Hill was a good vantage point to look out over the town and there's a nice war memorial at the top too. By this time the heat was getting a bit much and we headed to a nice air conditioned bar for some refreshments before making our way back to the YHA to get some sleep before our 2 day trip the next morning..
05:30 pick up, joy. The group on the bus
seemed like a nice bunch and off we went. Our first point of call was the Kings Canyon, but this being the outback this was quite a few hours away, so we stopped off at a Cattle Station that had a shop to help fund their station in Erldunda for some breakfast. As this was in the middle of nowhere the prices on everything were pretty steep. The outback scenery along the way was very baron as you can imagine, we saw quite a few camels walking around, cattle, wild horses, eagles soaring through the sky hunting out their prey and a few old abandoned cars.
When we finally arrived at Kings Canyon we were given a choice to either walk up and around it, or do a shorter base walk. Us being quite used to walking at this stage opted for the tougher route. The first part of the climb was aptly named 'Heart Attack Hill' which was a real struggle in the midday heat, a few of the party turned around half way up and even the tour guide looked like he was going to keel over. The water we had carried was now warm too, but
better than nothing. Once we had reached the top we then headed to explore the North and South Walls, The Ampitheatre, Lost City and the Garden of Eden. In the heat it was all pretty tiring, but good to have an explore. The view from the rim of the Canyon to the below areas was stunning.
Half dead from heat exhaustion we jumped back on the air conditioned bus to make our way to Ayers Rock and our campsite for the night. This was once again a long drive, we thought we were there at one point when we saw a huge rock in the distance, but alas this was Mount Connor, also known as 'Fools Rock' as had just been proved. An hour or so on from there we arrived at Ayers Rock and headed up to a vantage point to watch the sunset. We didn't hang around for long though as there were swarms of Mosquitos eating us, so we headed to the campsite for cover.
The campsite is a permanent base with a few tents, kitchen and bathroom facilities and the great Aussie barbie of course. The entire group were starving so we got busy
with the cooking straight away. A Malaysian guy in the group took charge of the barbie while the rest prepared salads, pasta etc.. We also started getting stuck into the alcohol we had purchased on the way. A couple of Danish girls in our group found a couple of Red Back spiders in the kitchen area and they freaked out, they continued freaking out for the rest of the night and even asked the tour guide if they could sleep in the van... he said no.
The tents in the site were way too hot to sleep in so a load of us decided to sleep out under the stars in swags where there was a 'slight' breeze, it was still very hot though. We stayed up drinking till about 12 midnight when the tour guide appeared from behind a bush to tell us to get some sleep as we had a 4am start...
4am came very quickly and one of the girls sleeping next to us informed us that we had dingo's visiting us during the night, she failed to tell anyone at the time but looking back that was probably a good thing as this would
have meant even less sleep.
We headed to the sunrise viewing point at Ayers Rock, there were bus loads of others there too, all trying to get the perfect picture. Slightly hungover and very tired we took refuge behind the trailer of our van until the crowds had dispersed a bit and then got our picture. The rock itself is great to see, but thats about it. After a couple of minutes marvelling it's size and red colour you get a bit bored. You can climb the rock, but the local Aboriginees that own the land prefer you not to as it's a religous site for them and they strongly encourage you to just take a base walk. As it happens the climb was cancelled that morning because of te intense heat, there were alot of dissapointed Japanese tourists but we dashed off and walked around half of it, the shady half ! This took about 45 minutes and was a nice walk.
Next stop was Kata Tjuta, which is another rock in the national park, we weren't really that impressed with it as we were starting to tire of rocks by now. Literally took a photo and
jumped back into the airconditioned van. Then we headed to a Gorge, I can't for the life of me remember what it was called but it was very impressive, a short 45 minute stroll through it and a few photos. It was strangely quiet with a small stream at the end and a rugged landscape.
Nice early lunch was next, everyone was starving, so we went back to the campsite for a load of chicken burgers and salad. We had a quick tidy up for the next group and started the 6 hour journey back to Alice Springs. This went quick enough as we had picked up a different tour guide who needed a lift back to Alice and he was keeping the tiring group entertained with a load of silly games.
The tour company invited us out for a free meal that night in Alice, being travellers we jumped at the chance and headed for the local pub. It was very 18-30 though, so we scoffed our free meal and then sat out in the beer garden with a few of the group to drink. At one point they got a group of people to jump around
the stage like kangaroos to compete for drink vouchers-we kept a low profile. One of our tour group members also bought a few jugs of beer, so was a cheap evening food and drink wise. Our tour guide joined us towards the end and he was smashed, we made our excuses and headed back to the YHA for some well needed sleep.
The following day we made our way to Alice Springs airport, accompanied by a German couple we had met on the tour (halved the cab fare). It was from here that we would catch our flight to Cairns.
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