Adelaide

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I've just arrived in Adelaide.

I had a great tour from Perth to Alice Springs, met some fantastic people and saw some amazing sights! I saw a lot of desert too!

As you can no doubt tell, I decided not to waste any more time in Perth, I was getting a bit sick of doing nothing, and needed to get away.

The trip that I've just been on left Perth on Wednesday 19th at 7am, we traveled as far as Kellerberrin before our tour guide - Clark received news that the roads we were meant to be traveling had been washed out by floods and heavy rain! We all got back on the bus, and after a long chat we decided to press on anyway and go via the Nullaboor Plain (Nullaboor means no-trees). This meant a lot more driving for Clark, and he had to psyche himself up for the journey ahead.

After 8 hours of nothingness, there's a fair amount of that here, we stopped at a designated camping area, We were in a four-wheel-drive bus, 15 of us in a 17 seater bouncing around through a small wooded area until we came to a clearing.

2 of the five nights were spent off in the scrub, it was easy to find firewood and we used our fire for cooking and as "bush-television". It was an early start each day, usually up just before, or just as the sun was rising. We had a different meal everyday, fajitas on the first night, and a couple of different stews, lastly steaks and sausages on the final night. There was some steak left over, so I managed to devour 2 and a half!

Each night we slept out in the open, able to see the stars, apart from when it was raining heavily! The swags that we slept in, a kind of tarpaulin sleeping bag, were weather-proof, not water-proof. This was fine until the last night when we got caught in a storm. I woke-up at about 3 in the morning soaked through, fortunately I had had enough beer the night before to dispel the discomfort and I managed to fall back asleep immediately.

On our third night we stopped in a town called Coober Pedy, it's a tiny flyspeck of a place in the middle of nowhere. It's hot and dusty, but we had a great time there. We went to the Underground Bar to play pool, table-football and air-hockey. This closed too early for us, so our tour-guide took us across the town to the bowls club. This turned out to be a lot more fun than it sounds, had a great time with the locals and enjoyed a little more Ozzy beer!

Sleeping that night in Clark's mate's front yard might have been the strangest night out in the open. We were woken several times during the night, once by the police who were looking for something to do and thought we were up to mischief. Later that night, having just returned from the bowls club we were lying in our swags when Clarks' mates got back from the pub. Two cars pulled into the drive at high-speed, sliding across the gravel. Everyone was a little the worse for drink, and not a little surprised to find us there. One bloke jumped out and ran into the house shouting "There's ninjas in me yard!" The driver of the other car executed a dodgy three-point turn, running over some of our camping equipment and narrowly avoiding our swags!

The next morning we were up at first light and back onto the bus. Another day's hard driving (sitting and eating crisps), we arrived at the Uluru campsite early evening. Just in time to scramble up a hill and watch the sunset, great evening with some Hahn light beers (picked up the wrong ones!). Had my first shower for about 4 days. Welcome relief, meant I had to change my clothes though! First few spots of rain during the night.

The next morning we got up whilst it was still dark, about an hour before the sunrise we jumped on the bus (packed the night before). We arrived at Uluru's sunrise site just in time. The place was crawling with huge tourists and many more backpackers. In the end it was a big disappointment, a really cloudy start meant that the sunrise wasn't visible, and Uluru remained in shadow. We went for a walk around the rock, we took a slow pace and made it round in about 2 and a 1/2 hours. Lots of sites of sacred importance where you couldn't take photos. Moving 10 metres on you could still see the same things, and take photos!

We had some great lasagne for $6 at the visitors centre and then back on the bus for a trip to the Olgas. A few more rocks jutting out of the Earth, about an hour drive from the big dull rock we'd just seen. We had a pleasant stroll in searing heat for another hour or so, made it to a platform to look over a creek between the rocks.

That evening we stopped at Kings Creek station, it's a campsite about an hour and a half from Kings Canyon. More showers and a nice swim in a swimming pool full of French and German people from the Groovy-Grape tour. We got out when the weather got a bit serious. Lightning and thunder grumbling around the hills. Half the people on our tour had stayed in the camp preparing dinner and drinking beer. When we got back we found that we'd missed out on a Mulga snake, the third most poisonous snake in the world had come into our camp. Usually they avoid people, like most of the wildlife here. However, like most of the wildlife here the snake was seeking shelter under our camp-shelter.

I had 2 and a half steaks for dinner, a bbq on the campfire, and some damp marshmallows in the rain. Another good evening, lots of crickets and ants running and hopping into our fire. That night my swag leaked. I woke about 3 in the morning completely soaked! We had torrential rain, because of the storm there was a fair amount of groundwater as well. Fortunately we never had to find out if our swags could float! The van has a hole in it somewhere, just behind the passenger seat at the front. Helen's gear was soaked! I almost went for a swim that morning, however when I looked in the filter there were a couple of frogs bobbing about, and what looked like a small snake and a scorpion!

On to Kings Canyon. It's a beautiful place in the middle of the desert. Really green, with steep sided canyon walls and a long walk both in and around the canyon. We took the long walk, which is supposed to take about an hour and a half. Learned a fair bit that I've now forgotten, very interesting at the time! In some ways we were lucky to have had such heavy rain, the waterfall from the canyon was a steady torrent, and when we reached the lagoon just above it. There was a lot more water than usual, and it was deep enough for a decent swim.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on the bus, going the long way to Alice Springs to avoid more flooded roads! My hostel in Alice was pretty crappy, didn't spend much time there, just enough to cook some nasty not poodle on the second night. Ivan, Christian and I stayed there, a few people were in Haven, and the rest dotted over the town. (Alice Springs is tiny).

Most of us met for a $5 meal at Annies Place, and had a great and far too easily forgettable evening. I staggered back to my bed, managing to avoid both swimming pools and finding my door first try!

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Comments

[Inforashock]

Ok, so.
That blog entry's a bit long. The basic gist is that I traveled from Perth to Alice Springs with Western Exposure (a tour company). Met some great people, had some great times and drank some crap beer.