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Published: December 7th 2009
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From Melbourne I travelled overnight to Adelaide where I had a one night stop over before heading into the outback. I'd managed to book a very cheap flight from Adelaide to Alice Springs a few weeks earlier - only 48 Aus dollars. It was noticeably hotter in Adelaide than in either Sydney or Melbourne and then the heat in Alice Springs was just another level, it was like standing in an oven. From Alice Springs I'd booked myself on a 3 day trip which would visit a few different places in the centre of outback including Uluru (aka Ayer's rock), Kata Tjuta and King's Canyon. I stayed one night in Alice Springs prior to the trip and I had a look around the town which is a very bizarre place - it really is just in the middle of no where and it had more shops and stuff than I expected, but I guess a lot of people are passing through there every day.
I was picked up from my hostel at 6am the following morning along with the 20 other people who I'd be spending the next 3 days with. If you look at a map of Australia, it
seems like Uluru is fairly close to Alice Springs but it's a deceivingly long way and it took us about 7 hours to get there in total including a few little stops on the way. It's strange to be driving along on the same straight road for hours and hours with nothingness in every direction - I lost count of the number of dead kangaroos I saw along the way. As well as the 20 other people in the minibus with me, there was also our driver and guide called Sam who wouldn't put the aircon on in the bus because he wanted to 'condition us to the heat'. I don't think the engine of the bus would of been able to handle having the aircon on anyway and breaking down in the middle of no where wouldn't have been fun. We arrived at Uluru in the afternoon and you immediately notice just how huge the rock is - the pictures don't do it justice. While it was still light, we set off on an 8km base walk around Uluru which was good fun and Sam told us a lot of very interesting information about the significance of each part
of the rock to the Aborigines. I think I drank about 7 litres of water in just a few hours as the dry heat dehydrates you so quickly. After the walk we watched the sun set over Uluru whilst enjoying a bit of Chilli Con Carne that was cooked on the stove. We then headed to the campsite where we made a big fire with the firewood we'd collected earlier and set up our swags ready to sleep in. A swag is basically just a big bag, sort of like a flat tent and it gives a surprisingly comfortable nights sleep (although I only got a few hours sleep each night due to most of us staying up late every night and having to get up at 4am each day).
I think I got quite lucky with the temperatures whilst I was there because the previous week it had been around 45C but when I was there it was only high 30s (only!) which was hot but anything over 40 would of been unbearable I think. Still, even though the temperature wasn't as hot as it could of been, it seemed pretty stupid to me when the next day
we set off on a 9km trek around Kata Tjuta into the midday sun! We set off at about 11am and it was tough work, but I enjoyed it as the scenery was pretty impressive. I personally thought the Kata Tjuta area was even more of an amazing sight than Uluru and it's situated only about 30mins drive away from it and most people haven't even heard of it - all the advertising seems to go to Uluru for some reason. After the walk, it was back into the minibus for another long drive to another campsite which was near to a place called King's Canyon. A couple of hours sleep in the swags and then we were up again very early for yet more trekking, this time it was about 8km around King's Canyon. The walk started with a harsh climb up an almost vertical cliff face known as 'heart-attack hill'. Again, it was hard work but it was all good fun. I'm not really that much of a fan of walking normally but I had a great time on those 3 days and it was certainly a different experience to anything I've done before. We spent the rest
of the final day completing the long drive back to Alice Springs before heading out to a crazy wild-west style saloon bar in the town for a few drinks with my buddies from the trip.
I had one more day in Alice Springs which was mainly spent relaxing in the hostel swimming pool and trying to get the red dust out of all of my clothes. The next day it was another flight and this time the destination would be Cairns in the north of the country.
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Dona & Andrew
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Fab piccies
I love Uluru in the different light. I'm guessing you did the decent thing and didn't climb up it. A walk around this area beats any walk in rain at Easter at home eh?