We head from the big city of Sydney, to the polar opposite at the center of Australia.
The Outback
February 17th
We get up early for our flight to Alice Springs, we meet a girl who is en-route to an outback cattle station, only another 8 hours by bus from Alice Springs, she is going there to be a governess (I think that means nanny).
30° Celsius (92° Fahrenheit), Alice Springs is very hot.
The first thing you will notice is the number of flies, they like to fly in my ears, nose and eyes.
The first night we wander downtown (or what you might call town), window shop, and have some dinner. This is the first place that we notice these beautiful Australian Opal watches... hmmm. Back at the hotel, we take a dip in the pool to cool down, and get ready for an early morning. We buy a couple muffins for the morning, as the bus leaves at 7:45 am.
February 18th
We wake up and try to eat the muffins, they are terrible and end up in the 'dustbin'. AAT Kings picks us up and we load onto the heavy duty 4x4 bus... hmmm, big 4x4, what does that mean?
We are off on our first tour, the first stop is Standley Chasm.
The first thing we notice is that the number of flies has increased.
They are on your face, arms, legs... buzzing in your ears, flying in your face, up your nose, into the eyes... terrible.
The walk is quite easy for most of us, some older people had trouble, but it was worth it, it was hot, and the flies were constant but the chasm was beautiful. We returned to the bus, where our driver, Peter, had made everyone some Billy Tea. We buy some mesh head coverings at the snack stand to protect us from the flies. It was very hard to drink through the mesh. You have to get used to them being on your arms and legs, there is nothing you can do, but at least they aren't on our face anymore.
The next stop is Elery Gorge, there is a huge swim hole here, but apparently it is quite risky - recently some people have drowned. The temperature is said to be very cold, and the current is swift... there was a couple people swimming there anyways, we decided to not take the risk. The flies are still relentless.
We move on to the next stop, Ormiston Gorge. We had lunch here,
and attempted to eat an assortment of food without eating flies at the same time.
Norine had enough, and gave up on the lunch... lifting the fly nets to eat was too traumatic.
Glen Helen Gorge was next, the kiosk was closed, and the trail was blocked by a rather large and intimidating bull,
a bull with really big horns. Since Norine and I were first on the trail, the bull tried to scare us by faking a charge, it worked.
We altered our route and walked along the river bank instead. The bull had moved along by the time we came back.
35° celsius, that over 100° for you old-timers.
The trail was scorching hot, maybe the bull was trying to tell us something? Since there was no toilets or drinks, Peter loaded us back on the bus and moved us on to Simpson Gap,
a nicer trail, a little more shaded with unique rock formations, and we see our first rock wallaby,
it stands motionless so he is very hard to pick out amongst the rocks.
Our day of gorges and gaps is over, and we head back to the hotel, we've decided on room service so we can avoid the flies.
February 19th
Daytime high of 39° (110°)
We head out today for our 3 day venture to Ayers Rock.
The First stop along the way is the Virginia Camel Farm... a camel farm...basically a photo opp.
We also get to know some of the other people traveling with us, Peter and Ronda are from Sydney, and Gene and Phylis are from the prairies of Canada.
wee, a camel ride Ronda, Peter, Gene, Phylis, me and my fly hat
We take a brief stop at a lookout to Mt. Connor. It is an amazing photo stop the contrasts of the green grass, red dirt, blue sky, and one distinct white tree, a famous Ghost Gum Tree...
This picture is showcased on my wall at home.
We arrive at the Desert Sands Resort, we get into our room, it is nice, clean, modern, and then I open the window... exposing an amazing view of Ayers Rock.
Our little group heads over to the Olga's, correctly known as Kata Tjuta. The aboriginal name comes from the rock formation that looks like 'many heads'. This is aboriginal sacred ground, maybe the gods don't like us, it starts raining, and we are restricted from most of the trails.
After a short rest we are treated to a BBQ dinner (steak, Sausages, Kangaroo, salads and champagne), kangaroo did not taste like chicken. It was like a very lean beef, almost 0 fat in kangaroo meet. The sun set and a night sky bright with stars is unveiled, and we spend the rest of the night stargazing. It's a whole different set of stars than we see at home, the Southern Cross from the Australian flag is unmistakeable.
February 20th
We are up at 4:30 to watch the sunrise over Ayers Rock, correctly known as Uluru. Uluru has no other meaning in the aboriginal language, and it is more sacred than any other location in Australia. This page would be full if I included all the photos I took as it changed color from black to brown, to orange, to red.
The climb up Uluru doesn't look so bad from the bottom, there is a chain and rope to hang onto as you climb up, but it is very steep and hard on the knees. At the 3/4 mark, I can't go on... Norine does, she enjoys teh unique surface at the top, and the view across the plain to Kata Tjuta. On the way down she drops the lens cap for the camera and it rolls away and down and over the edge. The steep climb back to the bottom was even harder on the knees.
After the climb, a nice level walk seemed like a better option and we did a base tour around the bottom of Uluru... Sunrise, a climb, and a hike, all done before noon.
Daytime high of 40° (112°)
Good thing we went early, since we were finished before the hottest time of the day. They close down the climb once it gets too hot. We are given the afternoon to have lunch, wander around the resort, chill in the pool, and nap tucked away from the sun.
On our way to a Sunset viewing of Uluru we run into our previous driver, Peter, while waiting for a bus. He asks us about the climb, and demands to provide us climbing certificates that we didn't get. It gets dark, and then it's Room service for dinner, as it's going to be another early morning.
February 21st
We are up at 4:15 for the bus to King's Canyon. We slept most of the way to King Street Station, a roadhouse. For breakfast, we had eggs on toast with flies.
Fly nets on, we head on a rocky climb, with our driver as our tour guide. The colors and formations are much like Bryce Canyon in Arizona. (see my 1993 Grand Canyon trip pages)
At the end of 1 hour trail we fin a swimming hole called the Garden of Eden. A little oasis in the middle of a dry and rocky canyon. It is such a nice break from the heat to go for a swim in the idylic location. We dry off in the heat rather quickly, and continue the hike along the canyon walls, eventually back to our bus.
Daytime high of 38° (108°)We stop for Lunch at Kings Canyon Resort... an indoor restaurant with no flies. We are no sooner back on the bus and everyone crashes... apparently the hike and the heat makes you sleepy. At our next tea stop at Mt. Ebenezer, our old driver, Peter Bailey from AAT Kings, is waiting there with two full color climb certificates and a bottle of champagne for us. We decide to have dinner and share the Champagne with our new friends on our last night in Alice Springs... Doug a pilot from Washington, D.C., and of course Peter, Ronda, Gene and Phylis, we close the restaurant down, and continue to chat outside until midnight.
February 22nd
We pack up and head to the airport for our flight to Darwin, it's "the Wet" season in Darwin, much cooler (26°), raining and thankfully no flies. Our room at the travelodge looks out at the ocean but it's grey and raining, so not much of a view. We take a bus into town, the bus drivers are rude here... impatient with me, because I'm paying the exact change. An aboriginal couple get on the bus, he pays then gives her the change to pay herself, they argue about it. The bus driver yells at them to sit down and shut up, "no one cares who paid", and if they don't shut up he's throwing them off the bus. We do some window shopping, and head back. It has been pounding wind and rain all day and all night.
February 23rd
31° 77% Humidity
We check out of our hotel , a cyclone watch has been announced in our area, but not Darwin city... we'll see.
We are on our way to Kakadu... at the rest stop, Norine finds a frog in the toilet. The woman in the stall before her hadn't even noticed it.
Norine tried to help it out, and it sprang out of the bowl, clinging to the wall looking at her.
Due to flooding our planned tours are changing rapidly, we didn't do the Yellow Waters Billabong cruise, and went to a lookout named Nawurlandja.
Wallaroo's are hopping between the rocks.
Our next stop is Nourlangie, where we find an amazing example of aboriginal art painted onto the walls of the canyon, and we see more of the infamous big spiders. We are supposed to go to Cooinda's jungle lodge for lunch but due to floods it has been evacuated. We end up at the Jabiru Cafe, where the Driver informs us that due to flooding our second day has been cancelled, so no Crocodile hotel, no East Alligator river cruise or the scenic flight that we had booked. But for $40 more, we could do a 1 hour flight in a 6-seater Cessna over Kakadu right away.
The timing was great, for the duration of our flight there was some clouds but no rain... The waterfalls were gushing big time, and the flooding was very apparent. The views were amazing, the sounds weren't... over the sound of the plane's engine you could hear a woman puking for 3/4 of the flight. We would later discover that she was pregnant, pregnancy and air sickness are not a good combo in a cessna.
After our flight we are sent back to Darwin, but not before we stop at a collection of huge termite mounds.
We have dinner at the Harley style Hog's Breath Cafe for Dinner, and spend another night in the travelodge where we started. Since there was no tours the next day, we contacted AAT Kings about refunds, and did some shopping. We each ended up buying Autralian Opal watches. The opals are much different than the white opals we are used to seeing.
The other unique find is a Boomerang made and painted by an aboriginal Prison Guard named Bim
With all of our shopping, we need to lighten our loads, so we load up a box and mail it home. After repacking our luggage we spend our last night in the travel lodge before heading to Perth.