Alice Springs through to Adelaide, an awesome outback adventure!

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10/02/12

Alice springs, weird, weird and weird. We arrived and got on the airport shuttle bus. The driver asked us where we were from. We told him England and he said, in extremely strong Ozzie accent “so, you’ve cam to see ya facking convict cousins then have ya?” Charming, but actually despite the coarseness he was a really nice guy and gave us a free short sightseeing tour on the way in pointing out where everything…or in Alice Spring’s case nothing really….was. We were dropped off at our lovely hostel called Alice Springs secret backpackers before heading off to get some food.

Alice Springs has a very strange and slightly scary atmosphere. There are a lot of aboringals who sleep, sit, drink, fight with each other and mutter to themselves everywhere also it has white ozzies shouting and swearing at the aboriginals and starting fights with anything they see. Walking through town was not pleasant. We did though find the supermarket but again inside we had security guards threating to punch aboriginals in the face if they didn’t leave. Needless to say we got our shopping and walked straight back to the lovely hostel. On our way back to the hostel we were asked for money by some drunks but we said no and walked a little faster.

Strangely enough we met a nice girl in the hostel who was from Korea (south not north obviously) who had decided to work in Alice Springs, not sure why you would really want too.

11/02/12

Day 2 in Alice springs. Not much to do here so Katie wrote the blog while I sat by a pool reading. We did though venture out to put our pictures on c.d and buy a six pack.

Early night due to early start in the morning, for the outback tour.

12/02/12

Nice and early 5am start, we got on our coach and filled out the “not your fault if I die” form and went to sleep. After a few hours of driving we hit our first stop, camel farm. Katie and I decided to skip the camel ride to save some money but the stop was a good first chance to get to talk to the other people on the tour.

We arrived at our camp at midday day and had some lunch and played the usual getting to know you games before heading off to Katatyita national park for our first outback trek up and passed big rocks. Bron was really good at telling us about the geology and we enjoyed taking the mick out of her a bit. That night we also saw sunset at Uluru (Ayer’s rock) with some “champagne” and crisps and dip, which was really cool, or as Bron would say “AWESOME” she says this word about 10 times a minute!!

Tonight we had all cooked together well “5 volunteers “cooked before heading to our little hut type buildings, sleeping in sleeping bags as we were up at 5 for breakfast and ayers rock sunrise.





13/02/12

After a wakeup call from Bron (our tour guide) we headed off to see the BIG RED ROCK at sunrise which was pretty cool before taking a 3 hour walk around it in the hot, hot heat. After our trek and the group were gelling and fortunately we all seemed to be getting on. After the walk and a visit to the cultural centre we headed back to make lunch where one of our doctors (we had four on our tour, two couples, Germans and Americans) was called away to another group for a medical emergency. The American went and on the way out joked he should charge him. He came back and told us the guy was fine, it was just a bad throat and he couldn’t really examine it properly as he didn’t have any equipment. We later found out that he had actually charged this guy $100 and had pocketed the lot! He said that he was teaching the man a lesson for “making a fuss out of nothing.” We were all outraged when we found out. Luckily for him he and his wife were only on a two day tour and left after lunch so we couldn’t give him a piece of our minds!

That afternoon we drove another 4 hours to Kings canyon enjoying some of Bron’s tunes on the bus. She had a playlist of dodgy Australian music which we got subjected to a few too many times, it included Waltzing Matilda, Land Down Under amongst others.

After 5 volunteers had cooked dinner we ate together chatting and getting to know each other a bit better. We were starting to gel really well as a group, and were having a good laugh.

That evening we were staying in little huts again, and it was another early night that night as we had another early start.



14/02/12

This morning we were up at 5am again for a walk at Kings Canyon. We were starting early as it was due to reach temperatures of 40 degrees by midday. It was a really cool walk up and around King’s canyon, we enjoyed chatting to everyone as we walked round. We were treated to more of Bron’s geology as we walked around. At one point we stopped down at a little pool and there was another group there. The guide for the group asked us if we had seen two South Korean guys who were missing from their group. Just then we all heard some shouting and looked up to a cliff side, a long way above us! There they were! Lots of laughing at them as they tried to work out how to get to us. In the end they decided to wait and the guide went and met up with them.

In the evening we stayed in a campsite with another group which were doing the tour in the other direction. There were two girls in the group who were very loud and very annoying. At one point one of the girls was running around screaming causing a massive scene about a tiny bug. As Don (American guy) said “I don’t know what she was saying but it sounded like ‘look at me, look at me’!”

That night we spent the night in swags (sleeping bags with a mattress type thing) outside together looking at the stars and chatting. We had to share swags, two to a swag as the other group had nicked them all! It made it nice and cosy!





15/02/2012

Today we were driving to Coober Pedy an outback town where they mine opal and live in houses underground. It was a long drive through the outback again, with miles and miles of empty orange and red nothingness. On the way Bron had to stop suddenly as she had spotted a kangaroo which had recently been hit. She explained that she had to get out to check if there was a joey in its pouch. We all got out to help. The kangaroo was dead and in a sorry state, still warm and was still bleeding from its eye. It did have a joey in its pouch as well. It was a very small girl roo with no hair at all. Bron carefully lifted it out and wrapped it up in her fleece. She gave it to Fritz (German doctor) to hold and we bundled back onto the van to get to Coober Pedy as quickly as possible. There is a kangaroo orphanage in Coober Pedy and Bron knew the owners so she stopped to ring them on route to see if there was anything we could do. She was told to just keep her warm, which Fritz was doing very well at already! When we got to Coober Pedy we quickly took the baby roo into see the people who ran the place. The woman there was called Josephine and she took the joey from Bron carefully and told us a bit about what they would be doing to look after her. We were due to come back later to see how she had settled in and to meet the other kangaroos there.

After this we headed to our home for the night, an underground hostel which was lovely and cool giving us a chance to get out of the sun for a bit. We rustled up some lunch then went on a tour of an opal mine and an underground house. The tour was led by a lovely lady from Singapore who was very enthusiastic and extremely sweet.

After this we got a chance to see all the kangaroos at the orphanage; they were all playing with each other and boxing with the staff working there, very cute. Baby roo from earlier had been named Bronnie (after our tour guide) and she was doing well. We were warned that she was only 6 weeks old and therefore her chances of survival were very slim, but that they would do everything they could to help her. We also got a chance to get a kiss from a joey, we were instructed to blow on the baby’s nose and wait for a kiss. However, when I blew I blew too hard and the poor thing had a massive sneezing fit, it looked pretty traumatised and it took quite a while for the owner to calm him down! How embarrassing!!

We were taken out for a treat that evening to a pizza joint and then out to a bar in town. The pizza was good and the bar was OK, but the guys in there were a bit weird. They were all sitting round calling “dibs” on the single girls in our group. Two of the girls (Sam and Sian) who stayed out later than the rest of us were sitting at a table when a couple of the guys came over to them and put $50 dollars on the table. They said “have a good night on us girls” and walked off. Result! We found out that miners are rolling in money, and as there isn’t much to do in Coober Pedy guess they have nothing else to spend it on when they are there!



16/02/2012

Today was some more driving and some more experiencing the outback. So after stopping at the iconic Coober Pedy sign for some “fun with photos” as Bron would say, we headed off. We took a stop at a little outback town called Glendambo and at a huge salt lake which was pretty amazing. We stopped for lunch at a place with a pool which we all enjoyed having a dip, it was really hot! That evening we were staying at a really nice place called the Old Mill which was now owned by Adventure Tours. We enjoyed a nice BBQ and sat around chatting and enjoying the comfy sofas and TV in the lounge!



17/02/2012

This was the last full day of our tour. We took a drive to the Flinders Ranges, going along the road which is featured on the front cover of “Wolf Creek,” cue more time for “fun with photos.” We also stopped at a “historic site” although as Bron pointed out “those of you from Europe probably have houses older than this!” where we had more fun with photos. Next stop was some Aboriginal art work in some caves. In the afternoon we walked around the Flinders Ranges and got the chance to spot lots of Kangaroos in the wild and some Wallabies as well. In the evening we had a race back to town to get back to the shop before it closed at 6pm. We wanted to get back so we could buy ingredients for “Smores” which Don and Nicole (American couple) had promised to show us how to make. We were planning to eat them after dinner whilst watching Wolf Creek. Bron had her work cut out getting us there because she couldn’t speed, or she could lose her job! But we made it there at 6:01pm! Sam sweet talked the shop staff to let us run round and grab the ingredients!

So after our final supper together we all snuggled up in the lounge at the Old Mill (we were staying there again) and put the film on. It was a bit grim, and the girls in it were a bit silly! Quite a few people went to bed early!!



18/02/2012

Today we headed off to the Flinders Ranges again, once there we took a very long and hot walk up to the top of a lookout to get an amazing view over the ranges. It was definitely worth the effort of hauling ourselves up there! We had lots more fun with photos and we braved sitting on a rock at the edge of the cliff.

We had lunch back at the Old Mill and we gave Bron some presents to say thanks for being an “awesome” tour guide! Then in the afternoon we drove down to Adelaide for the end of our tour, stopping at a wine testing place on the way.

When we arrived in Adelaide Bron told us to give a wave to some locals, which we did. The response we got was not the cheeriest and involved the use of the guy’s middle finger, certainly not as cheery as the responses we got in the outback.

We were nearly all staying at the same hostel in town so we all got dropped off there and arranged to meet up later with Bron for a night on the town.

So once we were all spruced up we headed out for grub and some fun times! It was an interesting night out, and we were very suprised by how much the Australians we saw out were dressed. W saw lots of almost ball type outfits in some pretty scummy bars, rather odd! Michael broke his flip flops on a very very sticky floor at one of these bars. Every time we tried to walk we couldn't beacuse our flip flops were completely stuck to the floor! I didn't let it stop me busting a few moves on the dance floor though!

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