Tour of the Red Centre - The Real Australia

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I spent a total of 3 weeks in and around Alice Springs - two playing with puppies and kittens at the RSPCA, and one on tour in the Red Centre. After almost a year of travelling it would be very difficult to pick a highlight, such is the range of experiences i have had, people i have met and places i have been, but this would certainly come high on the list.

Day 1: As all such tours do, the day started early at 6 am getting picked up from the hostel. I had booked a 5 day tour of all the major highlights of Central Australia, all of which lie a good few hours drive from Alice - Uluru is not just down the road! Myself and a German guy called Juergen were last to be collected and so sat together in the front of the tour's 4WD off-road bus, which looked more like a military armoured vehicle, complete with camo-coloured paintwork. The morning's drive cut through a number of stations and properties where i felt sorry for the few cattle we spotted. They seemed to be in good condition but there didnt seem to be much around for them to eat. Our first stop was at "Jim's Place" - a camel farm and roadhouse where we warmed up (it is winter and still dark until around 7.30 am) with coffees and giant cookies and $5 camel rides around a paddock, where i discovered that it is possible, and more comfortable, to do rising trot on a camel! The Imparja Camel Cup race is on in a week's time from now and i so wish i was still out there to see it! Further along the road we stopped at Mount Ebenezer Roadhouse for breakfast for those that hadnt eaten back in Alice and to admire some Aboriginal artwork. The Alice is full of art galleries as well as indiginous people selling art on the street, but this stuff was a little more creative and unusual, and more constructive as the money raised goes towards supporting local women and educating children in remote communities. We also stopped at another road house, which also had the compulsory pen of emus and kangaroos, as well as an exotic array of native parrots, for beer and other essentials, and veered randomly off the road for a bit of 4WD to find firewood (only tree-sized pieces were acceptable!) before the last push on to our campsite at the Uluru Resort (camping anywhere else in the National Park is prohibited). Here we had lunch - the usual make your own sandwich affair with everyone trying to be terribly helpful on the first day, such that at one point people were taking it in turns to cut up tomatoes - and picked up the last member of the group, Renata. The rest of the company consisted of American couple Joyce and Bill from Montana, Bob and Suzanne from Port Stevens NSW, 3 Irish sisters (who were only with us for 3 of the 5 days), Thalita (Tally), Ester (Essy) and Roos (Rose) from The Netherlands, Thomas from Switzerland and tour guide Peter, who spends half his year in China teaching English and used to be a chef!

The afternoon was spent doing the Base Walk around Uluru, which we couldnt quite see from the campsite due to some large trees. Naive perhaps, but i somehow always thought that Uluru was kind of smooth, but it is in fact an amazing array of colours and textures, features formed by wind and water, or giant wallabies, catepillars, snakes and grumpy aboriginal women if you believe the 'locals'. I quite like the fact that the areas of the rock that are sacred to the local indiginous tribe cannot be photographed - it means that you have to actually be there to see some features. Sadly, tourism has pretty much driven these people away from their land due to lack of privacy and in return they are reluctant to share the stories of why certain parts are sacred, but Peter did entertain us with multi-part stories, mostly of animals, plus places for ceremonies, giving birth and mens and womens business, which even now cannot be shown to the opposite sex for fear of the death penalty! My favourite features were 'the frog' and the 'wave caves' (see facebook pictures). I like how Aborigines often see shapes, especially animals, in the spaces between things. The climb to the top was closed that day due to strong winds at the summit earlier that morning, but i dont think i would have climbed it anyway. The Aborigines dont like it anyway as several people have died (mostly of heart attacks) trying and it sort of ruins their sacred site, but even walking around i didnt really want to even touch it. It just felt it didnt belong to me, rather like you wouldnt touch a painting in a gallery. It was a 9km walk all the way around, half in the fairly warm sun and half in shade, but we were all pretty knackered by the end.

Sunset over Uluru is something that has to be seen to be believed. I had never heard, before arriving in Australia, that the rock changes colour during sunset, but i reckoned it couldnt be that dramatic a change, but i was wrong. We moved the bus to the official 'viewing point' and the group enjoyed crackers and champagne during the spectacle. And it really does change colour, and pretty quickly and dramatically. It starts off the usual bright orange/red and gradually goes darker and richer, then quite quickly changes to mauve then purple, the colour rising from the base, until the last phase of slightly-less-attractive brown. The entire group became Japanese tourists, taking endless combinations of group photos. What made me laugh was that Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) another major, amazing rock formation, was right behind us and looked just as stunning, but nobody else seemed to have noticed. I dont know why Kata Tjuta isnt better known, as it is so close to Uluru, its just as amazing a formation and just as beautiful. Crackers and champagne finished, we headed back to the bus to attempt to leave the car park before the multitude who had the same idea but were enjoying more food. It was generally agreed that once the sun had gone down it was pretty freezing so we stopped at the resort's shopping precinct so people could buy fleeces ("but its Australia, I thought it would be hot, so i only brought shorts...") but i bought sunglasses as i had forgotten mine (along with my warm coat, which i had left at the RSPCA....).

Dinner was a feast of pasta, pesto, spinach and feta cheese, a fairly amazing feat cooked in a camp oven over a fire, which Juergen and others had gone a bit over-the-top with in an attempt to keep people warm, causing it to blaze at around 5 feet tall! The temperature had really dropped by now, causing us to do the non-native "fire dance" rotating the body every half hour to warm the otherside, with the obligatory rubbing of the buttocks! Peter doesnt do puddings but we did feast on roasted marshmallows, after i had been nicknamed "Outback Jill" (the female version of outback jack) for my skills at fire lighting, marshmallow stick selection and roasting technique - gooey and brown without being burnt or falling off the stick! We were all pretty knackered by 9pm but we had also been drinking coffee so Juergen and i were far to awake to go to sleep. So we rolled out our swags with everyone else, used a few obliging bushes for brushing our teeth etc then settled down for an hour or so of star-gazing and playing cards! It was freezing, especially with our arms out of the sleeping bags, but really rather nice. Eventually i got a bit knackered and settled down for a sleep, but Juergen felt the need to go for a run in his thermals!!

Day 2: Because its winter the days may be warmer than in the UK but they are still pretty short so we had to be up at 5 am, 2 and a half hours before daylight, to get dressed and packed up, have breakfast and get on the road for sunrise at Kata Tjuta. It was FREEEEEEEEEEZING but not actually that hard to get out of the swag as i was already cold because the blanket had slipped off the top of mine so i was a bit damp from the frosty dew. Unfortunately i was also feeling rather ill and ended up vomming 4 times in the hour and a half we had before setting off, and then again half way there. Probably not what the rest of the group wanted to see out the window, but Juergen was a real sweetie, giving me tissues and water. Despite this we still managed to make it to The Olgas in time for the 20 minute hike through the valley to see the sunrise in the Valley of the Winds. This is an amazing place of red domes and undulating valleys where, for only a few weeks of the year, you can see the shadow of Sydney Opera House appear on the walls! It was really stunning and worth the early morning and the mad hike to get there. The rest of the group set off for a 4.5km walk through the valley but i was still feeling pretty weak and a bit dizzy, and hadn't slept that much due to the symphony of snoring from Thali and Bill, so headed back to the bus where i crashed out asleep across the front seats for an hour or so, feeling much better afterwards. Joyce had got blisters the day before so she was also back at the bus and we went for a wander together before the others came back. Juergen has borrowed my camera, as he doesnt have a digital, and brought back some amazing shots but the view from the car park as the sun rose was also really beautiful. With the sun still rising we stopped off at the sand dune lookout to see Kata Tjuta in its entirety with Uluru bathed in sunlight across to the right. I still cant get over how close they are to each other, in a landscape of nothing else, and how overshadowed Kata Tjuta is. Despite not getting to do the Valley of the Winds walk i would still probably pick it over Uluru.

The Uluru climb was open this morning so Thali, Juergen, Roos and Renata headed upwards while the rest of us enjoyed the Culture Centre and a BBQ lunch (except me who still wasnt eating but at least had stopped vomming). There was an excellent video on bush tucker - in which they even said some stuff doesnt taste good! - and a slightly weird video (trying not to be culturally insensitive) of older, topless Aboriginal women painting themselves and dancing. It was kind of beautiful but i have never appreciated bras and underwiring so much! The climbers claimed their burgers and we got on the road to Kings Creek Station, stopping off on the way to admire Mount Connor and the salt flats. Already we were experts at firewood collection, trying to out-do each other on who could get the largest tree, and drag it back to the bus (we let the men folk lift them onto the roof!). Despite having seen a lot of bush before, when on the station, i still cant get over the space and the almost instant variation in vegetation with the change in terrain and soil types. In places there really isnt anything but scrub, and in other places there are tablelands and hills and all sorts. You can really see how it all used to be underwater and the tablelands used to be islands. i would happily have spent time at Kings Creek on the stock camp, watching the yarding demonstrations and having a go on the mechanical bull, but Peter had big plans for dinner that night and we had to get to camp, another 20 or so kilometres down the dirt tracks, and start the boiler fire for the bush shower! i think most of the group were not looking forward to this, expecting it to be cold, full of bugs and creepy-crawlies and generally not that pleasant, but we soon had a fire roaring and it turned out to be beautifully warm. Everyone who used it said it was the nicest shower they had ever had, especially as the front is completely open so you can star-gaze while getting clean! Dinner that evening was Thai chicken with rice and spiced vegetables (is there anything Peter can't cook on a fire?) with the outback favourite - damper. Traditionally this is a kind of bread made of flour, cornflour and water, and not much else, eaten either with jam or honey or savoury with corned beef and billy tea. But Peter made a cheese and black pepper version which was simply heavenly. Thomas is a baker so he couldnt get enough of it, hoovering up everyone else's scraps, especially the cheesy crust! It was the Irish girls' last night so we had a few beers around the campfire while people's hair dried and a star gazing lesson from Renata and Thomas with their star chart. Here i discovered that Juergen had been amusing himself, telling each person that asked, where and how we had met, which varied from being married for 6 years (!!!) to working on the station together! And he had managed to tell each person a different story so that by now they were all thoroughly confused!

Day 3: Apparently a group (what is the collective noun?) of camels came through camp during the night, about 10 feet or so from where i slept, but i never heard a thing. Another early morning start to get on the road and reach Kings Canyon before the crowds arrived. I had managed to eat some tea the night before but still wasnt feeling 100%!s(MISSING)o skipped on breakfast but kept a supply of museli bars in my pocket for the hike. Sadly we didnt beat the crowds, but amused ourselves listening to the other groups' safety briefings about standing too near the edge etc, knowing that Peter wasnt the type to bother with such things! Despite being the last group out of the car park we were one of the first to the top of the ascent, a fairly steep climb of steps. A bit early and cold for such things but definately worth it. the view across the plains was spectacular, only slightly marred by the bright array of white buses in the car park below. the canyon looks a little like the Bungle Bungles in the Kimberleys - an endless series of stripey domes. something you have to see to really appreciate. Peter amused us all by telling us the information signs were mostly wrong! There are all sorts of features, such as The Amphitheatre where your voice echoes off the rocks all around, fig trees growing laterally in tiny cracks in the walls and the 'painted' wall on the far side of the canyon. i like Cotterill Lookout best, purely for the sense of adventure of standing near the edge at the highest point, and the panoramic view. There is also a formation of rocks, maybe only 5-6 inches tall, that looks just like the canyon itself, nicknamed Lilliput. It gives you a really amazing sense of scale, perhaps seeing things as the lizards do! Further along we descended to the bottom of the canyon into the Garden of Eden - a little sparse of vegetation to deserve the name but the reflection of the rocks in the water was amazing. There is a swimming hole at the bottom but only the brave and wreckless few, i.e. Peter and Thomas, risked it because it was so cold. We were all very impressed by their dives, laughed mightily at their expressions when they surfaced and were very glad we hadn't joined them. i could have spent all day wandering and exploring there, every time you looked around it looked different or you saw something new.

That night was to be spent at the Oak Valley Aboriginal Community, so after lunch, where everyone fought over the fresh pineapple and leftover damper, we hit the road along the Earnest Giles Road, a dirt track with the odd bump or two. I am pretty used to driving on dirt after working on the station, but never done it in a bus before! The bull dust was pretty deep in places, too deep we soon discovered as we came across a bogged road train. why anyone would try to take a road train down such a road is beyond me, but in talking to the driver we discovered that this was the second or third time in as many days he had bogged so i think it had more to do with driver skill than weight! he had already tried to get himself free using railings under the tyres and had called for help, so with nothing more for us to do we looked for a way for us to pass. not so easy as the road was steeply banked with sand about 3-4 feet high on each side and the road wasnt wide enough to get by. back in the bus Peter picked a suitable spot, we all fastened our seatbelts and took a "run up" at the bank. we got to the top in one try, to lots of cheering, but then bogged and stalled. Peter tried again, twice, in each direction but we were definately stuck. nothing for it - everyone out to push! armed with a shovel and a few twigs to allow the wheels to grip, we tried to push the bus out several times, to no avail. In the end Peter backed the bus back down the bank and headed off down the road to find another spot. All was quiet for a while, then suddenly through the scrub (just about where Roos had gone off to 'use a bush') we saw him coming hurtling along! He had managed to get the bus up the bank and moving, without our additional weight, and so didnt want to stop or even slow down incase he got stuck again! It was like a charging rhino, this monsterous camo bus bombing through the scrub! we cheered him on as he careered down off the bank and back onto the road. loading back on we realised that the bull dust ended at the top of the next rise, maybe only 30-50 metres further than where the road train was stuck!

We said goodbye to the Irish girls at the Curtin Springs roadhouse (managed to get away with a few photos of us sitting on the bus roof!) and picked up a Danish guy called Hans who is a travel rep for a company back home, so was checking the tour out to recommend to customers. We had a bit of a swap around so that others could sit in the front of the bus, which gives a totally different experience to being in the back, where you cant see the bumps coming, as we continued down the Hugh River Stock Route, to arrive in camp in the light for once. We were instantly greeted by a camp dog - a kind of blue heeler cattle dog cross, very common in Aboriginal communities - who turned out to be incredibly friendly and ended up following me around! Turns out that was quite handy as he could be a bit of a nuisance to others who didnt want to pat him, but he would come straight back to me if i whistled!! Turns out his name is Toughy but i didnt see any evidence of it. Here we met out guide for the next day, Robbie, who is 1/4 Aborigine, 1/4 French and 1/2 Irish!!! Hew as a good bloke though, very real and straight-forward without any of the very common secrecy or defensiveness of many other Aborigines. Dinner that night was BBQ steaks, after Peter had burnt himself several times and 3 people had tried to melt their shoes standing IN the firepit because they were so cold! The showers were reasonable - proper stone building with a bush boiler but not as good as at the last place. We were all exhausted from 3 days on the road, cold nights and early mornings so after a few drinks to congratulate the insane swimmers from earlier, and a touch of star gazing, we all settled down for the night. Becuase we had had a bit of frost the night before, several people chose to sleep under the canopy by the bathrooms, so there was more space around the campfire so i could lie side on and get really, properly warm for once!

Day 4: We were allowed to sleep in until 7am this morning, a bit of a luxury, and i finally managed to eat some breakfast, quite possibly because it was bacon and eggs! Peter had most of the morning off, which i think he needed. Once again i managed to sleep through the invasion, this time the community's herd of horses. We spent the morning on the Oak Valley Community with Robbie. I have done one or two 'Aborigine Cultural Experiences' before but this one was totally different. Mostly we looked at plants, fossils and rock formations from an alternative point of view. Robbie insists that the Alps are the "bottom" of the mountain range which used to be present in the area, which he says sank (convention says it was eroded away), pushing up the Alps from below! There were lots of cave paintings, birds and wasps nests and interesting trees. Thali asked some really good, quite piercing questions, which started an interesting conversation on the future of Aborigines and the integration of western lifestyles with traditions and customs. Robbie is the first Aborigine i have met that claims that a lot of his culture's traditions make no sense or hold his people back. There is of course a place and use for many of their customs, but such things as banning the use of names or images of the dead means that films with Aboriginal actors can only be shown as long as the entire cast is alive, and everyone in theory has to have a unique name otherwise they can never be called by name after a namesake dies! To start with it seems comical that electrical or gas cookers are a total mystery to them, until you realise that until a few days ago most of the group couldnt light a fire. Its just what you are born and grow up with that becomes familiar. His main view on The Intervention (where goverment controls and restricts income to Aborigines to ensure they dont spend it on alcohol, pornography, etc) is that until Aborigines have respect for themselves, their elders and ancestors and their culture, they will never change and their lifestyle will continue to deteriorate. It was a sobering and very honest discussion and gave me a lot to think about. It was a pretty cold morning but we discovered that humpees, the huts that Aborigines make out of sticks, to look rather like igloos, are really rather warm on the inside. We also had time to admire the new olive oil press on the community, and their arts centre where i finally found a piece of art i wanted to buy, but it wasnt for sale! typical!

Back along the Hugh River Stock Route, taking a short cut across Owen Springs Reserve, the monster-bus's suspension was fairly tested as the road got rougher. At a fork in the track Peter chose the left hand track as another tour had bogged to the right the previous week, but we had only gone a few hundred yards further when we hit a low-hanging tree branch. With the air conditioning unit and a large stack of firewood on the roof, it didnt seem to want to let us slip under to easily, so Peter tried to reverse to free us. Unfortunately the tree was almost completely hollowed out by termites and the strain of the branch again the firewood caused the entire branch to snap off at the trunk and crash down onto the bus! We all got a fair fright, not least Bill who had been asleep up until then, with the window open, and part of the branch very narrowly missed his face! The branch covered the entire front of the bus and lay half across the roof and half on the ground. Once everyone had wiggled their way out, had a good laugh and taken some photos we set about shifting the thing off again - easier said than done! there was a certain amount of comedy disorganisation with at leat 3 people proposing ideas at the same time, 2 different people counting '1-2-3' each time we tried to lift/pull/push/rotate the branch and half the team going on 3 and the other half after 3!! We did finally manage to get the thing off the roof, after lots of twig snapping from the crew on the roof, who also almost got knocked off several times, with minimal damage to the bus - just a wee dent and some minor scrapes! We all thought it was hilarious in the first place, a lot of fun rectifying the situation and Peter was rather proud and impressed with our team work! But Bill still hadnt quite gotten over his shock and was still grumbling about nearly getting killed!! After a bit of a breather and some rehydration, and lots of hi-5ing, we carried on, stopping off briefly to inform the park rangers about the branch we had left across the track.

We reached the West MacDonnell Ranges by mid afternoon. One swim in a ridiculously cold pool apparently wasnt enough, so Peter and Thomas were joined by Juergen (why boys feel the need to show off in this way i will never know!), at the pool in Ormiston Gorge. Its a very pretty area, with high cliffs around and a variety of bird and plant life. The water doesnt look that deep, but sadly Peter knows from experience that it is infact over 20 feet deep, as he discovered when they had to remove the body of a guy who drowned. The water is so cold that you can only swim out for a few feet before your muscles cramp. The warnings and the stories still didnt deter them, although they were only in for less that a minute, claiming in was "invigorating" - Thomas sat and shook for nearly 5 minutes afterwards! Once the boys had changed back from blue to a more normal colour we moved on to Glen Helen where we admired some rock wallabies taking a drink at the pool in the gathering dusk. Thomas, who i think would do well as a nature photographer, managed to get within around a metre of one of them! they knew we were there, and they are not tame, but they still didnt run away. Tonight's camp was at Two Mile, with no facilites, but by now we had camp-set up down to a fine art and soon had the firewood down off the roof and the fire lit, swags out, kitchen set up and layers on to keep warm as we sat around the fire. It was our last night sleeping out under the stars and everyone was in a good mood. After a dinner of kangaroo mince tacos, an in promptu talent contest began where each nationality had to sing a 'native' song. I was shocked to discover that Renata, half English half Italian, dooesnt know the national anthem, so we ended up doing a terrible rendition of Swing Low Sweet Chariot, complete with actions, but we all got the giggles half way through and almost collapsed! Poor Thomas and Hans had to sing alone, but did a great job. Thomas, being Swiss, managed a little yodelling in a song about milking a goat that kicks! classic! The best by far was Bob, Suzanne and Peter's "give me a home among the gum trees!" (video will be on facebook at some point!!).

As the evening wore on we did eventually get a little cold and tired and so prepared for our last night under the starts (i.e. put on as many thermal layers as possible and took it in turns to go pee in the bushes!). Renata and I did a touch of star gazing, including inventing constellations (far more fun that trying to find the real ones!) and gradually everyone nodded off to sleep, except me! For some reason i wasnt tired at all and was wide awake, though if you are going to be an insomniac The Bush is the place to do it! Juergen and i lay awake talking for quite a while and were just settling down to attempt to sleep when the "distant sound of cows mooing" suddenly seemed to be a lot closer. I had heard them on and off for about an hour, and they were steadily getting louder and closer and i realised that they were almost certainly bulls looking for cows! i sat up, found the camp torch and used the eye-shining technique Sean had taught us in Kakadu National Park to locate the bulls' eyes. I knew there was more than one but a sweep of the perimeter of the camp reveraled at least 3 and there was another further back that i couldn't yet see. It was freezing out of my swag but the bulls were definately getting closer so i kept my torch on them. it wasnt that i expected them to be aggressive, more likely they would either step on someone by mistake or get nosy about the kitchen table, knock something over and get spooked and them trample someone trying to get away. Hans had woken up by now so he stoked the fire to give us more light and to disuade the bulls from coming any closer. but then i suddenly realise that i could see the outline of the nearest bull and he was only a few metres away from Joyce and Bill who were still asleep and unaware of his presence. He was pretty big and had a huge set of horns. So i raced up the camp, torch in hand, screaming at it to get it to move away. He froze momentarily, unable to see me again the torch light, then suddenly swung away and pounded off through the scrub. I woke a few people with the screaming but figured waking the whole camp was a bad idea so just told them to go back to sleep. Hans and Juergen was fairly impressed if slightly startled by my Outback Jill moment. i brushed the sand off my feet and got abck into my swag to get warm, but kept an eye on the bulls, who were still roaming and bellowing. the one i had chased and another smaller one skirted around the edge and dissapeared off towards the road, and a little one started coming around the other side, but then the largest, over a tonne i'd say, decided to take a short cut, heading straight for where Suzanne and Bob were sleeping. So i got back out of bed and stood over them (also still asleep and unaware!) as the bull came right up, skirted around the tree they were under, wandered on, considered coming back and then thought better of it. Suzanne woke up at this point, asked me what was happening, i told her and she rather inexplicablt started shouting for Peter the guide, who didnt reply and in fact slept through the whole thing! Finally they all seemed to have moved on, although we could still hear them, and for the 3rd time i went back to my swag, but now the fire was really roaring so i stood by it with Hans and Juergen warming up again. At this point Joyce appeared from her swag, looking very pale and shaken. She had been awake when the first bull approached but was too scared to move! Renata also woke up, smiled inanely at me then fell asleep again! An hour after all the excitement began, everyone eventually went back to bed. I still couldnt sleep (too much adrenaline now!) and Hans had used almost all of the wood for the morning so the fire was now roaring 5 feet tall and spitting sparks onto my head! oh well.....

Day 5: Our final breakfast was enhanced by the stories of the previous night's events, including various accounts by people who had only been half awake and had no idea what was going on! Hans made my "rescue" as he put it sound rather more dramatic than it was, but i spared Juergen the embarassment of telling them all that he had been too scared to help and had actually put his runners on so that he could run away if necessary! Bus packed and another warm and adventurous day ahead, we stopped off at the Glen Helen "resort" (a cafe/shop) for "supplies" (chocolate). It was interesting to note the vast number of Aborigines that passed through the shop that could not read, evident by the way they missed the "push" sign on the door. We then headed off around Namatjira Drive stopping at Tyler's Pass to view Gosse Bluff, a meteor crater that caused the land around it to ripple, making it look like a kind of desert-style Teletubby Land! The Aboriginal story relates to a magical illigitimate child that got thrown into the air and the crater was formed where he landed! After a poke around inside the crater, and an amazing view of Mount Sonder we headed off to Palm Valley and some extreme 4-wheel driving. I think most people were really looking forward to it but Bill made a bad start after falling alseep (as ever) and then smacking his head and his knee as we hit the first big pothole! Lunch was "eat as much leftovers as you can" before we did the main leg of the bumpy driving. i've done a fair bit of off-roading before and drove 4WD vehicles on the station, but here there really wasnt any road and we were taking a BUS over rocks! i thought it was hilarious, even if we did have to brace against the seats, even with our belts on, and Thali and Roos were shrieking in the front! Palm Valley is so named for obvious reasons and is the only place in the world that the cabbage palm grows. It was a swealtering 37 degrees that day and the first part of the hike was all uphill, but definately worth it. the palms were huge, the scenery spectacular and the rock formations, from when it was a salt pan and a river, amazing. After 5 days you do get slightly "immune" to seeing another mountain/valley/canyon/rock formation but they are all amazing and beautiful in their own way and always surprising. We bounced back along the non-road but when we got to the last lookout and another hike, we all voted for ice cream instead and just took pictures from the bottom! and then of course the obligatory "everyone stand on a rock each and jump in the air" photo! I think the Hermannsburg shop ran out of Magnum ice creams that day as several of the group had 2 and tried to feed bits to some wandering half-dingo puppies! No one except Juergen was interested in having their photo taken by the Hermannsburg Mission sign (exhibit was closed as we were back late!) but that was our last stop, apart from the obligatory final visit to Jim's Place and those lovely camels!

Got back late, had a fantastic dinner out with the tour mates, crashed out in a REAL BED! Such a good time, easily the best tour ever. Its the real Australia to be sure.

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