Rocks, Canyons & Fly's

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ALICE SPRINGS TO KINGS CANYON AND ULARU

ALICE SPRINGS

We are getting used to all of this travelling and find that one of the benefits of forgetting to check in online & getting there early was that we got given the emergency seats over the wing with more leg room, because of Liam’s height! Yeah! We land on the runway at Alice Springs and are hit straight away by both the heat and the fly’s! We jump in the minibus to the hostel, Alice Lodge, via another hostel and check in. We are given our double room, which turns out to be a converted caravan! But it does have air con, free WIFI and a huge bed.

We jump into the minibus to town and have a wander around, picking up fly nets and doing some serious window shopping! We pass by a Didgeridoo shop where people are practicing, we later find out that we might well have seen Uelli (pronounced Welly, from Switzerland), who was on our trip to Adelaide. We grab a cold beer in a local pub, for local people before grabbing some food for dinner. We walk back and relax for a bit, then have an early supper as it is a 5am pick up in the morning.

ADVENTURE TOURS - KINGS CANYON
Spud picks us up on time, which is a great start to a tour, so we picked up a couple of other people and settled in for a sleep. We get a wake up song (Skippy the Kangaroo) as we are pulling into our first Roadhouse of the trip. There are Emu’s in a field next to the road house so we pop over and have a look whilst everyone else pop’s to the loo or get’s coffee.

We are soon on our way again and start to realise the enormity of Australia. There are road’s that go on for ever, all in a straight line! On the whole trip we turn left or right twice, to great applause and goading by Spud to take a picture! Spud tells us about the area, the history, the Geology and the Aboriginal dream time story’s relating to everything we see. He is a font of knowledge that we enjoyed trying to suck dry.


We stop off for lunch and experience Napajee, Napajee, Choppa, Choppa & Washa Washa. Napajee, Napajee it the Aboriginal way, in other words what is mine is yours & if you help me , I’ll help you. We had a great group who all dug in and happily helped out with all of the cooking & washing up involved. Unfortunately the Indonesian man who was in charge of cooking the Chicken was back from cooking it on the BBQ very quickly, we found the meat was a bit cold closer to the bone, so left it.

We soon arrive a out first destination which is Kings Canyon and are off on our first hike. A two hour walk around the Canyon rim. Spud kept saying that as long as the temperature does not exceed 350 we will do the walk. All but a few head up to the first hurdle, heart attack hill. Well before we got halfway up Charlotte found she was too puffed to continue so along with the man from Indonesia decided to return to the lower level and opted for the one hour short level walk in the shade.

Liam went on and continued to pick Spuds brain. To which he had an answer for everything. As we walked he pointed out various geological interests and explains all about them. He also so points out a watering hole in which some other our groups a having a cooling dip. “you wouldn’t catch me in there,” he tells us, “ the water sits for months, getting filled with effluent (the first thing people want to do at the top is go to the toilet) and dead animals that fall in and can’t get out” not the most pleasant place for a swim. We go around the edge of the beautiful canyon rim where you can see the domes of the lost city, across the swinging bridge and through the cool surrounds of the garden of Eden before slowly descending back to the car park.

Where Charlotte is waiting with Toni, the Indonesian couple and a couple from Melbourne, in the shade, refilling our water bottles we reboard the bus and head off to our next road house. After a little sleep, all of this walking is exhausting, we get chance to pick up some goon or beer for the next couple of days at the roadhouse. This also doubles as the local pub, so as we enter their are a couple of rowdy characters at the bar. They call out quite friendly but do enjoy ribbing the German Henning, who did not really get what they were on about. It was quite sad really as the boys were being a bit funny if a little rowdy and the bar maid got upset and thought she would lost her job if we were offended! They called out to Henning apologising and asking him to join them for a beer, but he did not really get it! We were soon back in the bus and on our way again. More long straight roads! We had to stop a few times en route to camp as the Melbourne woman was violently ill. First we blamed it on the waterhole that they all went swimming in, but soon realised it was the Chicken. She had realised it was not quite right when eating it, but was so hungry she ate it anyway.

We finally turn left! Yeah! And heading towards Ayres rock for the sunset. As we are going along one of us spots what we believe to be Ayres rock in the distance. Spud does let us know that in actual fact it is the Faux Ayres rock, its real name is Mount Connor. We had another hour before we saw the real thing!

The next spot was in actual fact “The Olgas” or “Kata Tjuta” which we get to walk through tomorrow. Then finally “Ayres Rock” or “Uluru”. We pull up at our campsite, wow, much more luxurious than we expected! There are permanent tents with proper beds in! Although we are given the option to “Swag” it tonight. We head straight up to the Uluru sunset viewing hill for some wonderful shots of both Uluru and the Olgas.

Back down to camp and Choppa, Choppa for dinner of salad and burgers. Liam kept an eye on the BBQ cooking this time as we did not fancy getting sick again. A little chat around the table and we were all ready for bed! We decide with Toni that swagging it is the way to go! She has been on the trip since Darwin and stayed in both the tents and swag’s and has decided it is cooler in the swag’s. Although she does sleep with her fly net still on! We pulled out the swag’s, checking carefully for spiders and any other creature that might have crawled in whilst they were in the shed (a swag is a Aussie bedroll). One by one everyone follows suit until we are all out there!

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