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Published: March 7th 2008
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Curtin Springs, Northern Territory
Petrol pumps, but where's the road? Hey,
So we left Cairns and headed for the red centre. We took a flight into Alice Springs- flights are kinda handy in a country this size :-) Despite the searing heat (45 degrees Celsius in the shade) and an unimaginable number of flies we had a great few days exploring the outback. We spent one night in Alice before departing on a 3-day outback safari with 'The Rock Tour Company'. There's not a whole lot to report about Alice- its a fairly small town with a large Aboriginal population and the starting point for most tours to Ayers Rock (Uluru). Anyway our tour guide, Ben, picked us up at 6am the next morning to start our trip. I thought we had flown in to somewhere near Ayers Rock- but oh was I wrong- it's a 6 hour drive from Alice to the rock!! Anyway Ben was a local outback boy who grew up on a 4,500 sq. km cattle station close to Ayers Rock. The nearest supermarket is a 6 hour drive from the station and the next door neighbours are a 2.5 hour drive, so its hardly surprising that his schooling was by correspondence. Needless to say he
See what I mean about the flies...
I wore a net over my face for the whole trip. had a few interesting stories to tell us about living in such a remote area. We called to visit his family cattle station while on the trip.
After a lengthy drive and some entertaining stories we arrived at the famous rock and I have to say it's pretty cool. I have heard the comment that 'it's only a rock' but I think it was definitely worth seeing and the Aboriginal culture, although very strange, is fascinating. A few of us from the tour group did the base walk around the rock, the actual rock climb was closed because of the temperature. I'm glad it was closed because the local Aboriginal people ask you not to climb the rock as they believe it is sacred so at least we didn't have to make a decision. In any case, the base walk was strenuous enough in that heat! That evening we had dinner while watching the sun set over the rock- unfortunately we didn't get the spectacular sunset you see on the postcards. So back to our campground to settle down in some very comfy swags for the night, before another early start to see the sun rise over the rock.
This time we weren't disappointed- it was beautiful.
The next stop on our trip was Kata Tjuta (otherwise known as the Olgas). These are in the same national park as Uluru and are made up of 36 rounded sandstone domes, the highest of which is actually taller than Uluru. We did the Valley of the Winds walk around the Olgas which led us through some amazing scenery and was actually more impressive than Ayers rock. Little did we know but the best was yet to come. We all hopped back into our little tour bus to travel to our next campsite. A couple of hours later we arrived at Kings Creek where we set up camp for the night and Ben prepared another dinner for us over the campfire.
The early starts weren't over- a 4.45am wake up call to go and trek around Kings Canyon! But this was the highlight of the trip so I can't really complain. The canyon is beautiful- we climbed up to the top of it and walked around the edges- the views were amazing. A swim in the Garden of Eden at the bottom of the Canyon refreshed us all half way
Sleeping under the stars
Ed getting comfy in his swag for the night through the walk. After this it was time to head back to Alice Springs and get cleaned up for a night out. All was going well (nice food and plenty of beer) until Ben got a call at about 10pm to say he had to take another group out at 6am the next day. Tough going for him but he says he's used to the driving so it doesn't bother him- I guess you would have to get used to it if you lived out there.
The next morning we left Alice Springs and caught a flight to Melbourne. We picked up a car at the airport and headed towards Canberra straight away so as of yet I still haven't seen Melbourne. The road trip to Canberra was a last minute decision- we hadn't really planned on visiting it, but while we're here we figured it would be good to see the capital city. Canberra is in ACT, Australian Capital Territory- a small state somewhere between Victoria and NSW. The entire state is only 2,400 sq. km- much smaller than Bens' cattle station! We broke the journey in a place called Albury-Wodonga on the Victoria- NSW border and stayed
in a motel that could be described as faulty towers! Tired and hungry we were in no position to be choosy. We arrived in Canberra the following day which was a Saturday and the local rugby team, the CA Brumbies, were playing their first home game of the season in the Super 14 competition. So off we went and got ourselves some tickets. It was an entertaining way to spend the evening- the home team struggled to hang on for a 2 point victory over the Otago Highlanders (a New Zealand club).
The next day we headed for the Royal Canberra Show- there was a good bit of advertising going on for it so we figured we should check it out. It was pretty much like any other agricultural show I've been to but there were a few things that I reckon are probably uniquely Australian- 'Flyball' being one of the more entertaining 😊.
One more day in Canberra, so we better go and see what we really came to see. We spent the next day walking around the city (which is fairly time consuming as it is so spread out) and went to see the Parliament houses,
the War Museum and a few of the other attractions. The war museum was brilliant and we passed a few hours there without evening noticing (easy to say it was the best museum we've visited because we haven't been to that many). The parliament houses (new and old) were fairly impressive- I actually preferred the old and think its a pity that its no longer used. It was replaced in 1988 because security wasn't tight enough and the building wasn't really big enough. Canberra is definitely the quietest capital city I have ever visited and its easy to see it was purpose built. Am glad we made the trip though- it was definitely worth spending some time there.
When we left Canberra we headed for Batemans Bay and took the coastal route back to Melbourne. We spent a night in Merimbula and a night on Phillip Island on the way back. Phillip Island was great- we got to see the world famous fairy penguins making their way from the water to their burrows behind the sand dunes. They really are amazing animals. And so we got back to Melbourne airport, dropped off our car and headed off on our
holidays!
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