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Published: January 24th 2006
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Breaktime!
Taken at our first break of the morning. A not so exciting waterfall. Head West. Lots of miles.
Drive closer to the Red Rock.
Climate, wet to dry.
05:25 Alarm goes off. Press the snooze button.
05:30 Alarm goes off. Okay, I'll really get up out of bed now. Wash up, pack up and pull off the sheets.
05:50 Ready to rock and roll! Hand in my room key and head outside for the bus to pick me up.
05:55 Waiting outside of the Global Palace. Not the best time or place to be in the wee hours since there appeared to be some less than sober people on the streets still. Thankfully there were three other girls also waiting for the bus with me. One random guy walked past me and he said something to me but it didn't sound like English. A few minutes later he passes by again and then stops and asks me, "Do you speak English?" Not wanting to encourage a conversation I answer, "Yes." Then he asks me, "So are you going somewhere tomorrow. I mean today?" What a brainiac! I only had my big pack and day pack by my feet. Again not wanting to encourage a conversation I just answered, "Yes." Guess he was satisfied
with that answer and stumbled off. Jo, one of the girls that was heading to Alice Springs as well, and I just looked at one another and shook our heads.
06:05 The bus arrives and picks us up and the two girls headed to Darwin as well. Apparently this is not the bus taking us to Alice Springs. This is the bus that will be taking us to the bus that will take us to Alice Springs.
07:30 Checked in and aboard the Alice Springs bus. Ready to finally hit the road! We're in a huge bus which is nice since we're able to spread out a little bit.
The drive from Cairns to Alice Springs is over 2000 kilometres. So that's an average of 700 kilometres a day and some of that on dirt roads. I hear that day three is all on dirt roads. Yikes! That's gonna be one long day on the road! Thank goodness I have my bag of snacks with me. 😊 I have to share a bus seat with Cecelia from Switzerland. She's a bit nervous about travelling on her own and was grateful to share a bus seat with me and we
chatted for a couple of hours before our first stop. It was nice to chat because I think I would have just fallen asleep looking out the window. Mind you, it was quite nice watching the landscape change from green sugar cane and the wet weather to the dry climate of the Outback.
11:53 We have stopped in the middle of nowhere to set up for lunch. We all pitched in to set up a table and cut up all the veggies for our sandwiches. That was one of the best sandwiches I've had in a while because usually I'm too lazy to wash and cut up tomatoes and lettuce. And who would have thought a slice of pineapple would be so good in a sandwich? I draw the line at adding beetroot to my sandwich since I was wearing a light coloured shirt and knew it would have gotten stained for sure. Plus the fact that beetroots are not my favourite. lol
12:37 We washed and packed up our portable lunch station and continued our drive for another 3 to 4 hours. To help pass the time we put on a DVD..."Van Wilder. Party Liaison." Apparently the best movie of the bunch so that's saying something about the selection of DVD's we have on board...not very good! It did provide some laughs and a few winces...especially the cream puff scene...won't describe that one but it was disgusting. At least it did help to pass the time.
16:12 In the afternoon there was a stop to walk down a gorge to see a Rainbow Triangle Formation. Can you tell I wasn't paying attention to the name of this place?!? It turned out to be quite nice to be able to get off of the coach and stretch the legs and expend a little bit of energy. The walk down was nice and for the most part the walk up was alright too. We saw an echidna on the side of the path all wedged beside a rock. It was kind of a weird and vulnerable spot to hide oneself. Also saw a lot of wombat droppings...well at least that's what Jo was telling us.
17:17 More driving before pulling into Hughenden for the night.
18:42 We pull up to our hotel in Hughenden and get ourselves organized and into rooms for the night. I ended up sharing a room with Jo and Gin. They are two nice girls from England. We had a good time teasing one another. Dinner was buffet and really good since even though I didn't do much throughout the day and also snacked a lot I was super hungry! I piled my plate with a little bit of everything and that was a lot of food! It was so nice to have mashed potatoes, a selection of veggies (miss those!), pumpkin (yum!), a couple of chicken dishes, beef, lasagna and fried fish cakes. Hughenden is a small town so we all congregated in the bar/lounge area where a game of killer pool took place and a bit of drinking and socializing too. Considering I didn't really do much during the day I was pretty tired by 10:30! Apparently Gin was not as tired as me and came back to our room at about 5:20AM! A little snogging action with Ben the barman! At least that's her story. 😊
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