Alice & Onward

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Whew - another major leg of the trip completed today. We arrived in Adelaide after a superb one day trip on the Ghan train from Alive Springs. The food was first class - Ann had kangaroo steak for supper last night, which compared very favorably to Alberta beef (sorry, fellow Albertans). Several new Australian and Tasmanian wines and beers also added to the experience. There we apparently many Canadians on the train, but we only talked to one - guess we were too busy talking to the couples from England, Ireland, Victoria (NSW) and east Australia. Two of the couple we talked to had separately taken the Rocky Mountaineer train trip from Vancouver to Banff.

In Alice Springs we stayed at Toddy's, whcich caters to backpackers - two slices of toast and instant coffee constitutes breakfast there, so the Ghan looked really good after that. Last Friday, we started the safari style tour of the Uluru (Ayers Rock) National Park areas, and that turnout out to be great in some ways, but too much adventure overall. The scenery on the guided hikes was amazing, but Ann has a pretty bad head/chest cold and combined with hot temperatures, black flies galore, 5-6 hour bus rides, way long days, and some large insect encounters, we were pretty glad to be out of there. The typical day was 4:30 AM start, breakfast, bus, hike, lunch, bus, camp, prepare dinner, eat at 8:30 PM. It is only spring here, so peak temperatures are around 30C, but the sun is so intense, that you feel the heat way more than that. Apparently the black flies haven't really started in ernest, but 3 to 4 constantly in your ears, eyes, nose & mouth is ernest enough for us!

Had a great laugh on the hike around Uluru. We were well into the hike, and Ann noticed that the group had strung out quite a bit along the trail, with (as you might excpect) the Germans in the front, the Italians in the rear, and the Canadians somewhere in the middle

At Kings Creek Station we went on a short camel ride. Ann decided that our camel, appropriately named Dr. Heather, was cute, but was not quite smooth enough to replace Hans. She was good on the straight aways, but her lateral work seemed to be a bit rough. Really surprised to learn that all four of the camels in our group were wild until rounded up by the cameleer, Abdul, in June this year. We hung on to the "saddle" tighter after learning that.

We highly recommended Bojangles Saloon in Alice - live snakes, barbed wire on the toilet seats, 280 lb. bouncers on Saturday night (with good food and drinks if you want that too).

Of course the scenery, cultural history, and overall Outback setting makes the trip there worthwhile. We certainly saw first hand some of the issues with Aboriginal people - integration is even more of a problem than we typically see in Canada. There are some good efforts starting to show, but a lot of improvement still needed.

Tomorrow we drive to Halls Gap in the Grampions National Park, which is a really scenic mountain and forest area enroute to Melbourne. Hiking there should undo some of the effects of three Ghan meals within 24 hours.

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Photos

Manicure Needed
Good thing he (she?) was sleepy

Uluru sunset
I wouldn't normally take such tourist pictures, but the champagne was really good

Dr. Heather
Yes really - we didn't make it up

Zebra Tail Finch
You need to see the other end to know why

Ghan Train Reception
Aussie Wine is Good

Comments

[Sandi]

Laughing about "tourist pictures"
LOL Steve you ARE a tourist!!! I see you two are having a great trip. You should be back home in fine shape after all your hiking, riding, scuba, etc. Looking forward to see you soon!