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Published: October 1st 2007
After we had done the ocean road we headed for Adelaid which the capital city of South Australia. We had stayed quite close to Adelaid the night before so it didnt takes us long getting here. We arrived on the wednesday and decided we would stay untill the friday and then head for the outback. As soon as we got there we just went staright into the town centre to have a little walk about and get information on campsites.
Adealiae is not as big as Sydney or Brisbane but its still a nice capital city even though its a bit on the small side. We had a little walk around and something to eat and dedcided we would go out for a few drinks in the night to see if it was anything better than Melbourne (anything had to be better than our night out in Melbourne). We found a good caravan park and got settled and then asked at the from desk were is the best place to go out on a Wednesday night so she told us and off we went. We just had a walk around the square she had told us to go and we
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Us havin a drink in Adelaidfound a kareoke bar which was quite packed so we said we would go in there for a few and ended up staying all night haha!! We had a really good night and our Chris belted out a few tunes on the kareoke even though one started skipping on him half way through and the lady had to turn it off, ooooh the shame!! We spent the rest of our days in Adelaid just walking around the centre and taking in some of the sights and for our last night we decided to go out for a nice tea in 'The Hogs Breath' whihc is an ozzy restaraunt that serves gorgeous stake and chicken, we thought we would treat ourselves as we would be living off soup and beans in the outback.
We had decided on the Thursday night that we would have to get up at the crack of dawn as we needed to drive 850km, which is about a 9 hour drive if we wanted to reach Coober Pedy which is half way to Ayres rock. So we got up at 5am, had our breakfast, sorted the van out and off we went. Neil was driving the
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Chris givin his all in Adelaid first leg, i was driving the second and Jenna was driving the 3rd, we had to set out this early as there were so many animals on the stuart highway that it would have been dangerous to drive in the dark, so we had to make it to coober pedy before it went dark. It was a long day of driving but we finally reached coober pedy starving and tired. It was the strangest town we had ever seen most people lived under gorund to escape the heat of the outback, the roads were just dust there was no grass to be seen. We found a campsite there and set up with about a million flys attacking us. We had been told by the coulple we met in Melbourne to buy these fly nets that go over your face because the flys just wont leave you alone, thank god we did. When we checked in we got discount vouchers for fuel and food so as we were so tired we all decided to go for a pizza with this discount voucher. So we had had a 'Hogs Breath' the night before and now we were having a pizza haha, so
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A salt lake we came across while on the 8 hour drive much for the "living it rough" part.
The next day we decided to stay in Coober pedy for a few hours the set off for Erlunda which was just set at the beggining of the Lassiter highway which was the highway you needed to go to get to the rock so it was ideal for us. It was a 5 hour drive so we decided to stay in Coober pedy untill about 12pm and have a good look around. We had rad in the Lonely planets that you could visit underground homes to see how people lived as Coober pedy was known for its opal minging so some of the old miners homes were open to the public. Opal minign is the biggest trade here and is what coober pedy is known for, when you walk down the main road there is about 20 opal shops with a post off, a few restaraunts and a super market. We decided we would go to a place called the old mine which was a tour you could do and see how they used to mine for opal and there was an underground house you could look at amongst other things. We
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Us leavin our mark haha got in there and the fella was really nice and let us in for student price (we had the scousers charm down to a 'T') and as we were talking to him this little dog ran up to us which was the spitting image of Murph, Neils dog. He was gorgeous and I couldnt leave him alone haha and as we went into the actual tour bit he tried to follow us he was fab. We had to put hard hats on as it was an actual mine we were walking through. it was a really good tour and as they were building the tour they discoverd more opal in the walls that the miners hadnt seen, so you could see seams of opal running through the walls. The underground homes were bizare but you could see why they had to live like that, the tempreture always stayed around 25c but abopve ground in the summer it could reach the 50's.
After the mine we set off for Erlunda with me driving first and then Jenna taking over. I had been driving for about an hour when i seen something at the side of the road move and it
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A house underground in cober pedy was quite close to us so i had to slam on which made the van slide a bit at the back. We just stopped right in time as this cow was just crossing the road, if we would have been going any faster we would have hit it and god knows what would of happend but luckily we just mad it. Its amazing how many dead cows you see at the side of the roads along with kangaroos and emus. We made it to Erlunda in one piece and set up camp for the night. The man in reception asked how many of us there were and of course we said 3 but told him we had a tent aswell so he said he would put us on the grassy bit which had power so we were not to use the power haha!! fancy telling us that. As soon as we got on the site we plugged up and made use of the power we had because they never usually come around and check so people always do it. Well guess who came around on his quad the next day to check haha, oh well we just said "oh weve
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Cober pedy blowin a gale of dust only just put it on to do some toast" and he said "well thats what they all say" and that was that, were cheeky gets arnt we haha.
In the morning we set off for Ayres rock and Ne was doing the driving as me and Jenna had split the 5 hour drive to Erlunda an we were only a couple of hours away from the rock. We were all dead excited about seeing it and kept checking every 5 mins to see fi anyone could spot it. We had to stop for fuel 3 quaters of the way there and they bang the prices up about 60cents more a litre in the outback because they know you cant do nothing about it. We got fuel and off we went again when we seen a van had pulled over and the fella was taking pictuures of this sand dune so when we looked again there was a group of wilde camels on top of this sand dune it just showed us we were in the middle of the dessert. 10 mins after the camels we spotted the rock and it just looked so surreal, after seeing it on so
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The middle of no were many pictures and in so many brochures we could actually see it with our own eyes it looked gorgeous.
We didnt know how much it was to actually get near the rock but we knew we had to pay so we headed for the paying station and the ladt informed us that it was $25 and that allowed us in to the national park were Ayres rock was and the olgas. We had unlimted acess for 3 days so as soon as we got our tickets we headed for the campsite and set our things out. We went to the supermarket and stocked up on butty making materials. The girls and our Chris set out making the butties in the back of the van like a production line and we set off for the olgas, we had a limited amount of time to do the olgas, Ayres rock and kings canyon so we had to do things on the road.
We got to the olgas and set about doing the 'valley of the winds walk' around the olgas. The sights were gorgeous and made up for the fact that the walk nearly killed us. It was one of
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The proof we were there haha the hardest walks ive ever done but it was well worth it and we even seen two wild kangaroos right next to us eating. After the walk we made our way around to watch the sunset at Ayres rock which we had heard so many times, was fantastic. We got there and we all decided to sit on the roof of the van to watch it as we had forgotten to bring the chairs (bad idea). As soon as we all got on the roof it started to bend inwards so we all had to jump off and when we looked inside the van we had actually bent the metal supports for the roof, oooops!!
The sunset was fab and we headed off for the camsite to start our dinner.
The next day was something out of a 'carry on camping film' ive never laughed so much in my life. We had to get up at 5am to see the sunset at Ayres rock as it rose at about 6:30am and we had to have our showers, pack the van and have our breakfast. We all got up at 5am, Lisa and Chris made the breakfast whilst me and
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The scoby van in the middle of no were Jenna started to pack the van away, me and jenna couldnt figure out how our chris packed the van so we had to get him to help us. After the van was done we all went to have our breakfast and the sun was already comeing up so we all had to throw the breakfast down our necks and wash the dishes like no ones business. We all started to walk over to the van with the dishes and what not when neil said whos got the key and chris said i have. So chris is searching all of his pockets and he didnt have the key and no one else had it so we all started searching the grass for the car key. By now it was getting even lighter so were all in a mad hurry to find this bloody key and chris is getting called all the names under the sun when i find it on the grass about 10ft away from the van. So i shout its ok ive found it and run towards the van and ended up tripping over a tent wire and nearly knocking my tetth out, i fell that fast i didnt
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The Outback have time to break my fall haha i was coverd in mud. I didnt even have time to go and clean myself up so we all piled in the van and Neil started driving us about 180 miles an hour to get to the rock.
We were all laughing about me falling over and all saying weve bloody missed it, after all that i bet you weve missed it. So just as we screech up to the sunrise veiwing spot in our hippie camper whilst everyone is in a tranquill state waiting for the sun to come up, chris opens the van door whilst the van is still movig and a 15litre bottle of water flys out along with the iron and a pair of trainers hahaha!! So by now everyone is looking at us, the stewards had to stop the traffic so we could pick the stuff up and chris got out the van in his bare feet to go and pick it up, by now we were all screaming with laughter. A woman had picked up the iron and passed it too him and he had to get the wter and the trainers it was hystericle. So
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Us in the opal mine cober pedy now we had to find a parking spec so lisa and jenna were getting out the van and me an neil were hurrying them because we didnt want to miss it. So we drive off and find a parking spec and as were walking back to were the others were, jenna is walking back to us with one flip flop on and one trainer which was the wrong foot saying Sal pass us my other flip flop hahaha!! What people must have thought of us ill neve know but we laughed about it for hours later. We did actually get to see the sunrise, thank god and it was well worth it.
After the sunrise we started our 10km walk aorund the base of the rock which was a long, lomg walk and the sights were practically the same it was just another angle of the rock. We finally finished the walk and headed for kings canyon. I said i would drive and by now everyone was shatterd as we had been up since 5am and had just done a 3 hour walk so you can imagine me driving. I had to have the ipod full blast and was
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How they live underground to stay away from the heat just singing away to keep myself awake whilst everyone else was asleep. We finally got there after a 3 hour drive but it was too late to do the walk so we just decided to do a little walk and head back to the campsite. We pulled the usual trick of 3 people and found a site the furthest away from the office as we usualy do, accet this time we picked a site right opposite to were the camp site ranger lived (trust us). We had got away with it for 2 weeks so it was bound to happen. The two girls were in the shower as they had been in the pool whilst me, ne and chris cleaned the van. Next minute this ranger pulled up on his quad and looked at our window screen where we had the receipt for the cam sit as you have to display it in you window screen. He said "paying for 3 eh when there is 5 of you' and we said "theres only 3 of us" an he said "no there isnt, theres 5 of you" and we said "there isnt look 1,2,3 pointing to each one of us" hahaha
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Underground kitchen were cheeky gets arnt we! and he said "so weres the 2 girls" we still dont know how he knew about lisa and jennahed probably been spying or something but we will never know. So chris just turned round and said "there not staying with us, were dropping them off now" so he just left us then. I went into the toilets to tell the girls and they said we will just go the office and say we werent going to stay but now we want to. So when i came back out to tell the lads what the girls were going to do the ranger came past again on his quad and we had all 5 chairs out with the towles on and he counted each chair and shook his head haha!! The girls ended up paying and nothing else got said about it but it must have been one of our unluckiest days and one of our funniest.
The next day we geared ourselves up for the kings canyon walk as there was a very steep climb at the start of the walk called 'heart attack hill' it was very well named. It only took us about
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Underground bedroom 10 minutes to do it but it nearly killed us all off. This walk was gorgeous though and it was deffo our favourite walk out of all of them we had done. The walk took you right around the canyons rim and it took us about 3 hours but it was fantastic and we all really enjoyed it. After the walk we headed off for Alice springs and Jenna was doing this part of the driving. Half way there Jenna slammed on as a pack of wild horses were crossing the road, the roads are so dodgy in the outback as there are so many wild animals but we managed to swerve a cow and a pack of horses so i think we done quite well.
We finally got to Alice springs which is the main town in the outback and had a look around the city centre and we decided to have a meal and a drink in the night as chris and the girls were flying out the next day. We found a nice restaraunt and had our meal which was lovely and then went for a drink in an old saloon looking bar. We had been
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Us in a roadhouse sitting there for a while when thsi fella came over and played a joke on Lisa and when she spoke he went "oh my god not a bloody scouser". He was born and bread in croxteth and was made up with us all, a town in the middle of the dessert with a scouser who manages it and we happen to call in haha!! He was a really nice fella and got us a few jugs of beer for free so we had a really good last night.
The next day we all said our goodbyes and me and Ne started our long drive back to Sydney.
There is a few pages of pictures on this blog so dont forget to go over to the next page and i apologise for any spelling mistakes as i cant be botherd reading it all back haha!!!
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jeanette
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HI SAL AND NEIL
JUST BEEN LAUGHING AT YOYR BLOG,GREAT PICTURES LAUGHING AT YOU 2 GOING ON THE BOAT WITH YOUR 6 CANS OF XXXX I BET YOU ALL THE OTHERS HAD WISHED THAT WAS ALL THEY HAD TAKEN WHEN THEY WOKE UP WITH HANGOVERS,SOUNDED LIKE YOU HAD A GREAT LAUGH. WHATS COMEING HOME WITH YOU SAL KOALA,KANGAROO OR MAYBE THE MURPH LOOK-A-LIKEE HA' HA'. HOW MUCH YOU HAVE DONE AND SEEN UP TO NOW. ENJOY YOUR NEXT LEG CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE PICTURES OF NEW ZEALAND ETC. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES MISSING YOU LOADS LOTS OF LOVE MUMXXXXXXXXX