I started my 10 day, Melbourne to Alice Springs tour on Nov 18th, the bus picked me up outside the Flinders station at 7.00AM. I paid AUS$915 for this trip, which includes everything.

We got out of Melbourne around 8.30AM after picking up about 10 people. Our first stop was place where brands Quicksilver and Rip Curl got there start, in town of Torquay. Checked out the outlet stores, some nice Ts, didn't buy any. Then we headed out towards the Bells beach, which (supposedly) hosts biggest surfing championship. The beach did not look that impressive, surf was almost non-existent that day. Then we hit the great ocean road, almost like Highway one in California but not nearly as impressive. Then we visited the Otway NP where you can do tree top walk. The tree top walk seems to be very popular thing in Australia, many parks in Australia have it. The park itself has about 1000 year old ferns, according to the guide.

By sunset we made our way to place called Twelve Apostles. It is one of the most visited place in Australia and it is certainly worth it.

Nov 19th. Took a 15 min helicopter flight over the Twekve Apostles, it was certainly worth it, paid AUS$50 for it. We kept going along the great ocean road, visited place called London Bridge. Finally made our way to the Grampians National park. Did couple a really nice hike to the Pinnacle. Lot of nice wildflowers on this hike as this just start of the rainy season in Australia.

We stayed in a hostel at Halls Gap overnight, this is where I saw my first Kangaroo.

Nov 20th. Got an early start and did couple of nice hikes. The drive towards Adelaide was interesting, there were lot of huge farms along the way, massive silos right next to the railway line, which runs parallel to the highway.

Lot of cattle grazing every where but did not see any sheeps. We arrived in Adelaide around 5.30PM.

Nov21st. Walked around Adelaide, the downtown itself looked fairly small. The Adelaide hills is supposed to be The place but did not have time to visit it. Visited the South Australian Aboriginal Museum, it had some interesting videos of Aboriginal people hunting, looking for food & water. Most of the video was shot around 1900-1940. The museum also had interesting collection of Aboriginal art, things used for hunting etc.

Later in the afternoon visited the Don Bradman museum, actually I was able to watch about 20 min video of Bradman batting, watched it two times ;)

Then walked over the Adelaide botanical gardens, all the major cities in Australia and New Zeland seem to have excellent botanical gardens and they are very big, compared to botanical garden in golden gate park for example.
The botanical garden in Adelaide had few other example of interesting architecture in australia.

Nov 22nd. Now we really started our journey towards the outback. We drove through the Care valley, which is supposed to produce the best Risling wine. We stopped at couple of places to see the Aboriginal rock paintings, which was interesting. However the flies in this part of the country are just annoying, you must travel with a fly net in this part of Australia. We made our way to the town of Parachilna, population 5. However there was nice hostel here as well as very expensive outback hotel called Prairie Hotel

This place is located right next to a railway line and around 10.30PM everynight a 3KM long coal tree goes through here taking coal to the power plant in Port Augusta.

Nov 23. We left Parachilna around 8.00AM drove to Wilpena pond and few of us climbed to the top of Mt Ohlseen Bagge for a real nice few of the Filnders ranges. It was about 4 hour walk, on return journey it got really hot, if you do this hike make sure you take plenty of water with you. About 2lt. We stayed at sheep station called Rawnsley Park. We walked about 20 min to a outback bar called Woolshed for just a few cold ones.

Nov 24. We took off from Rawnsley Park around 7.30AM for town of Cobber Pedy. We arrived in Cooer Pedy around 3.30PM. The most of the drive was along the Stuart Highway which is basically a straight line in the outback. Most of the landscape is arid, but few bushes but its not the "Arabian" dessert. You can see some sand flats which were used by US and UK for missle testing as well as some nuclear testing, in 60s, only Aboriginal people live here so who cares huh? Now these sites are being cleaned up...

The Coober Pedy is a opal mining town in the middle of nothing. Most of the houses, motels in Coober Pedy are underground, which helps maintain the temp to aroun 20C. We visited a old Opal mine, which was okay. I really did not see any reason why someone would want to pay AUS$10,000 for essentially what is 2x2 inch of sand. Duniya zucchetti hai zuzana walla chahiye. ( The world is full of fools, just need someone to fool them!).

Nov 25. We got up at 4.00AM, left Coober Pedy around 4.30, we arrived at Uluru (Ayer's Rock) for Sunset. The sky was overcast so the sunset was not that spectacular, but this is what everyone comes to see the outback for...

Certainly the rock is interesting to look at. Overnight we stayed at the Adventure tour bush camp. Next day (Nov 27) we got up around 4.30AM to catch the sunrise. The rock is supposed to have dramatic colour change from before sunrise to after sunrise. It was certainly worh getting up, I am not sure if the digital camera can do justice to this colour change.

Then we went for a quick two hour hike in Kings Canyon and made our way towards Alice Springs where it was hot (40-42C!). I spent most days watching second cricket test between Australia and NewZeland. Went around Alice Spring after 5PM when it cooled just a bit, not much...

I took another trip with Adventure Australia from Alice Spring to Darwin. The first stop we made on Dec 30th was at place called Banke Banke cattle station. This station has about 5000 cows and covers about 2.9 million acres. It is considered a midsized cattle station. There are about 20-25 people working on this cattle station. Where we camped overnight there was pub and house of guy who runs the farm. Mostly through outback we slept out in the open as its too hot in the tents. On the way to Banke Banke stopped at place called Devil's marbles and Battery Hill Gold mine in Tennant creek. The early gold mining in Australia must have been similar to mining in Potosi, Bolivia very inhumane, all in search of some metal that shines!

On Dec 1st we made our way to Daly waters, supposed to be one of the oldest pub in the outback, they do not start serving beer till 10.00AM !! When you visit this place in the summer you will know why some lad would want a beer before 10.00AM, its bloody hot. After early lunch and moderate amount of beer we made our way to Mataranka hot water spring and swimming hole. We camped overnight at Katherine.

I took a boat ride down the Katherine Gorge paid AUS$30. It was okay, but not out of this world as the tour guides explain it. But i was glad did not take canoe option as it was about 40C by 9.00AM. After visiting Katherine Gorge we made our way to Darwin. On the drive to Darwin you will see lot of tall termite mounds these termite mounds are huge some of them as tall as a bus.

I stayed in Darwin for couple of days. Darwin is supposed to be fastest growing city in Australia. They are building a new port in Darwin, mainly for stuff coming over from China! There is also a big gas pipeline that comes into Darwin from Timor Sea. Phillips Petroleum's has Bayu-Undan gasfield in the Timor Sea, they have spent about 1.5Billion building the pipleline. In Darwin we met couple of guys working on this pipeline. It was interesting to hear couple Aussies talking about Aussie govt that suddenly got interested in problems in East Timor AFTER they found gas in Timor sea!! According to local newspaper the house prices have gone up 30% in last 4 years and they expect it to keep climbing for next 10 years... The Darwin city has a nice wharf area, where there are few monuments regarding bombing of Darwin during world war II. The weather in Darwin was extremley humid and hot, but not as many flies. Spent few days in Darwin then decided to fly to Perth.