Blogs from Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia, Oceania - page 48

Eight days, 2500km, Adelide to Alice Springs on a guided tour, you would expect this to be a long one. Lot's of nice pics, too. Day one: Big group, eccentric guide, lousy cold lunch but nice fish and chips for dinner. In the evening our group turned out to be quite pleasant, and heavy with Swiss and German. Interesting. Also, some beer appeared in the evening. Europeans drink a lot. Camped under the stars. Cool. Day two: Walked some today in Wilpena pound. Very arid, reminded me of home. Burgers for lunch and BBQ for dinner. The Australian have gas BBQs like every park and campsite, a good idea to import. The beer started at lunch and pretty much stayed till we went to sleep (everybody bought beer when we stopped on the way). Not ... read more

We spent the morning having a look around the town Alice Springs, and looking at the various Aboriginal craft shops. Then we made our way towards the amazing kangaroo Rescue Centre - where orphan Joey's have been rescued from their mother's pouches mainly from car accidents. If there has been a car accident and a kangaroo has been injured or died, it is important to check the mother's pouch in case she has any offspring that may have survived the incident. In summer a Joey can survive in the mother's pouch for a period of up to 3 days! The centre has rescued numerous breeds including the blue, red and rock kangaroos and also wallabies and is always looking out for volunteer fosterers. There is a huge need for these charity-funded organisations in Oz, as lots ... read more

After a late start - we nearly missed the bus due to the time difference -fortunately they came back for us at 6.15am! On our journey approx 3 hour drive, crossing the Erldunda point (central point of Oz), to the magnificent Kings Canyon in the George Gill Range, south-west of Alice Springs. The hardest part of the 3 hour trek (6km) was the first uphill stage, but it was definitely worth the effort as we reached the top we had fantastic views of the gorge and Kings Canyon. The rock formations are contrasting colours of orange-red. There is also lots of desert Oaks, River Red Gums, Bottle Brushes, Wattles, Fig trees, ferns and Eucalyptus trees - which can act as sunblock (if you rub the white powder from the bark on your skin), a diverse wildlife ... read more

Hi! Happy Easter! The next leg of our "Worldtour" was the Australien "Outback". We started on Wednesday, the 4th of April with 19 other "adventure seekers" with Adventure Tours from Adelaide. Our group consists of 6 Irish, 2 British (one of which is Welsh), Canadians, French, Germans, a Spanish and a Columbian girl, a Chinese girl and 2 Suisse. Vicky, our guide, steered with a strong hand to our first stop, the Alligator Gorge in the Flinders Ranges. We had some nice Wraps for lunch and some gorgeous views of the Gorge. After seing Aboriginal Paintings at Yourambulla Caves, we stayed overnight in the famous Prairie Hotel in the Metropolis of Parachilna (5 inhabitants), from where we also could see the main attraction of this village, the daily 2,8 km long train, loaded with coal, ... read more

Well this sure isn’t Kansas people. Welcome to the land of Oz and we’ve already had quite an adventure and so this’ll be quite a long entry. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin. We had a bit of a stress landing as we had to collect our bags at Sydney airport, get through customs and then re-check in to Alice Springs. We had to do some queue jumping but we made it and had breakfast at Hungry Jacks which is the name for burger king here (I think and I’ve no idea why it’s different). Anyway we got to Alice Springs and were picked up to go to our hostel. You notice the heat straight away (around 30 degrees C) though it’s not uncomfortable. We had only one day in Alice Springs so ... read more