The Middle Bit - A Geographers Dream

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Well what a week it's been. I am now writing this in Cairns which is very hot and a world away from my last week of adventures. I am happy to say I am enjoying some much needed chill out time. Read on and you'll see why!

I last wrote about to start my tour to Uluru, Kings Canyon and Kata Tjuta. We set off early last Tuesday morning which gave me an opportunity to revenge myself against being woken up by others at 4am for the other days I'd been staying in the hostel. I must admit I was pretty evil with the plastic bags and used them to maximum effect. We met our tour guide Tegan and got on our way to our first stop a camel farm on the way to Uluru. Having gone out for a meal the night before with some of Fiona's friends and eaten camel steak (and loved it!) I thought it was only right that I should take the opportunity to ride a camel to see whether I preferred them dead or alive. It was actually really good fun and I enjoyed it but the fact I had camel pie on Friday night should indicate my final preference....We continued onto to our camp site which was just outside the Uluru - Kata Tjuta national park. It was very exciting when the big red rock first came into view and caused the entire bus to spend the next half hour trying to take blurry photos out of the bus window, much to the amusement of Tegan. It really is a spectular sight and one that I think you have to experience first hand to realise how majestic it is, literally emerging from a pretty much barren landscape around it.

We went to our first campsite for lunch then went back into the park, past the rock and to Kata Tjuta which is also know as the Olgas. These are a range of 36 mounded rocks which are actually much bigger in height than Uluru and much more of a sacred site to the local aboriginals but just not as famous. We went on a walk through the rocks which was lovely and I took loads and loads of really sad geography type photos of the rocks. For those of you who are interested, Uluru and Kata Tjuta were both formed during the Alice Springs eroginy by tectonic plate shifts from the Indian and Antartic plates which lead to the formation of loads of ranges etc in central Aus.

Anyway, then we went back to Uluru to watch the sun set. That was really strange. There are car parks designated for the sun set and sun rise so we joined about ten million other tourists to watch it. They all had champagne and canopies laid out on white tablecloths before getting back into their air conditioned coaches. We drank cheak plonk out of plastic cups full of red dust as someone hadn't put the lid on the cooler properly. I know which experience I would prefer! The sun set was pretty good but we were really lucky to be seeing it on the same night as a full lunar eclipse which was pretty special. After the sunset we returned to our campsite and went up to a lookout point to watch the full eclipse, very special. That night I had my first experience of swag sleeping which was very surreal. It is basically a giant canvas sleeping bag which you sleep in and keeps you toasty. It was a wierd experience sleeping out in the open and I had to work hard to not think about snakes, dingoes and funnel web spiders....

The next day we got up and drove to the other car park for the Uluru sun rise. This wasn't as busy (presumably the posh lot were having a lie in) but still as good to see. We then had the option of walking up or around Uluru. I chose to walk around the base which was a really good walk. Certain sections are sacred to the Anagu people which means you cannot photograph them. Obviously the Liverpudlian lads on another tour thought that meant they could still take a slash though.....We then said our reluctant goodbyes to Uluru and took the bus to our next campsite at Kings Canyon, about a 4 hour drive away.

The 2nd campsite was much more remote and had no cooking facilities except a huge campfire so we ate our meal by torchlight around the fire which was pretty good. I slept fine that night until one of the girls, Christina reported she'd woken in the night to see Dingoes sniffing around Tegan's swag...

Next morning we walked up and around Kings Canyon which was gorgeous again and a huge canyon of sedimentary sandstone. We walked to the garden of eden, a permanent water hole within the canyon and met the resident duck (just the one) before leaving and taking to the bus to our next stop Glen Helen. Between all this we'd picked up another guide Watto who was giving Tegan some training as well as a proper 4 wheel drive vehicle so we could travel on some of the hundreds of kms of untarred roads in the outback. The 4 hour drive to Glen Helen was pretty much all on gravel roads. I wouldn't be surprised if my internal organs have shifted due to the journey but it was loads of fun and secured Tegan's 'Wonder Woman' status even further.

Our final campsite had a pub (yippeee) complete with comedy pub singer who loved the fact that when we all arrived his audience increased by about 100%. He loved me as his wife is called Catherine so spent all night dedicating the comedy songs to me. Hearing the Dixie Chicks sung in the style of Pavarotti is very amusing. Eventually, due to the amount of Sambuca consumed (by him), I turned into Kathleen which everyone spent the rest of the tour calling me....

Our final day was spent in Palm Valley which is the only place in Aus where you can find Red Cabbage palm trees (should be fairly self explanatory) and more very serious four wheel driving for Tegan. I must admit a bit of me wondered why we hadn't just walked the 4kms we drove but I guess I was missing the point.

So that was pretty much it. It wasn't of course but I'm aware most of you will be asleep by now. I was really sad leaving Alice Springs on Saturday and will now think seriously about future holiday destinations for Mark and I considering our widely differing views on how exciting it was (mind you every cultural destination usually has a pub so we should be fine ;-) x)

So now I'm taking a couple of days to regroup and plan my trip down the east coast, loads and loads of stuff I want to do but unfortunately I think I'm going to be stuck for time. Anyway I hope everyone is well at home and not working to hard! xxxxx


P.S Last night I met a couple in the backpackers who live about 50m from where I used to live in London. I then discovered that the bloke worked for Mouchel Parkman...small, small world!

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