Visit of the icons in Australia

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Dear Followers,

It's been a long time with no updates, but now I'm back with a hell of update!

I only had 2 more weeks left in Australia and therefore planned a trip to the other outback of Australia, Alice spring in the Northern Territory.
This place contains the well known icon Uluru ( the big red rock ). Luckily I already had some experience with the outback of Australia and prepared myself by buying some winter clothes and goodies.

The follow-up trip would be to Melbourne, where I could drive along the "Great Ocean Road" and visit the rainforest.

Are you ready guys, to hear my experiences?

I arranged my trips, figured out some roads and quickly booked the tickets. On Thursday 12 June I headed off to the airport of Sydney to head off to Alice Spring. When I arrived I got a free airport shuttle to the backpackers place where I stayed. Here I sorted out what I needed as an essential and went on an explore through this town. Alice Spring is a little town and due too a lot aboriginal people living here, it is not advised to walk alone at night. After exploring for over 2 hours and buying water for my trip, I had a nice overview over the city on "Anzac Hill". I then headed back to the backpackers place where I played a game of basket with some people I recently met.

The next day in the morning, I got picked up with a bus to start the tour, it was very entertainingly guided by Andrew our tour guide.

We headed off for a long drive to our first destination 'Kings Canyon', during this drive we made the needed stops for toilets and snacks. The hiking track was requesting a lot effort, especially the heart-attack hill part, but the reward of a amazing view on top of the hill over the canyon was definitely worth it!

After this exhausting hike, when the evening fell, our tour guide made some 'chilli con carne' on an outback way at the coals of the camp fire. We camped around the fire in a swag and a sleeping bag, whilst the dingo's were howling. I obviously made a mistake by not paying attention and whilst I was busy gathering stuff out of the bus, I slept a cold night under the stars in Alice Spring with only a swag and my clothes...*But I survived as you can see*

The next day we got up early and headed off to 'Kata Tjuta' aka the Valley of the winds, when reaching the end off this parkour, the view was stunning again. The thought rushing through my head was like: " Any time now.. a Dinosaur will walk through that landscape..."

I would like to bring my condolence to the family and friends of the young girl from the UK who fell of the cliff and died during this similar trip, one day after mine.

The last day of the rock tour we received quite a lot of information about the Aboriginal Culture, although we are complete outsiders we were teached the children's stories, to figure out more of their way of living, how the rock got their in the first place and so on... After an almost 2 hour walk around the red rock (Uluru), we headed back to the camping ground. This camping spot used to be an Aboriginal graveyard, therefore coals where burning constantly to keep the spirits away. The place was already build before they knew this was a sacred ground for them as well.
We learned how sacred all these places are for the Aboriginal people. Therefore we shouldn't mess around with it, like climbing Uluru is really 'NOT DONE'. But for tourism it is allowed, so it's your own choice to disrespect the culture behind it, as you can see on the pictures, this climbing tourism has left a big scar on Uluru...

During the next day, I had a camel ride on the farm and petted a dingo, it was such a poor fellow, tied down, walking amongst the string. 😞

We ended this day with a sunset dinner and we started the following day with a sunrise breakfast, a non comparable experience the rock got more red second after second during this event.

The trip was finished so we headed back to the backpacker place in Alice Spring where I got an extra day, to recover and explore the town even more. On this last day, I catch-up with some German friends and went for a walk amongst the 'Dry river' (river bank). We also went with our group to the Rock Bar to complete the trip as a team!

At the start of the next day an airport shuttle took us to Alice Spring Airport and we headed off to Melbourne...

On the arrival of Melbourne a got a very friendly taxi driver who showed me around Melbourne and explained me whilst driving what spots are the most famous in this city.
He dropped me of at the 'Holiday Inn Hotel' where I booked 2 nights to recover from the Alice Spring Outback experience. After a relaxing sleep in this beautiful king size suite, I freshly heading off to explore this new city. At first I went to the nicely build architectural station. (Southern Cross Station)

I then went for a full city overview in the 'Eureka Tower', where I survived the Edge experience. The buildings in Melbourne contain definitely the nicest designs. With a glimpse of this amazing city, I headed of to 'Sea Life Aquarium'. If there was one thing I hadn't done yet, it was admiring the Sea life of Oceania. Therefore I spend the rest of the evening recovering in the hotel, because the next day a pick-up was planned to head off for 'The Great Ocean Road'.

The weather was quite cold in Melbourne with a steady breeze, after the red rock tour this was a must do thing as well! It was a 2 day tour due to my days shortening in Australia. But we did a walk through the 'Rainforest', along the beaches and 'the 12 apostles', 'Razor Reef' and on the last day the 'Grampians', where we slept at another backpackers place. I went out in the night to spot Kangaroo's in the wild. This tour was eye opening as well and our tour guide also provided us with own made food. I'm glad I didn't skipped these Australian Icons and managed to arrange them in the limited time I had left in this stunning continent !

I'm now ready to head of back to Belgium, packed my luggage, cleaned my room, finalised documents and said goodbye in style to the friends I made here.

I will never forget these connections I made in Australia and we definitely have to stay in contact !
Enjoy the pictures guys, hope I inspired you all to go on the Aussie Experience !

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Regards,

Maxim Asnong

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