We’re leaving on a jet plane…….

We flew to Alice Springs on Saturday 9th of December. During the 3 1/2 hour flight (yep the equivalent of flying from the UK to say Cyprus give or take!) we looked out the window and saw red….everywhere below was simply red. Now the redness of the terrain is what one associates with central Australia yet it was still a little surreal as we had only experienced Sydney and its surrounding areas to this point.

We disembarked the plane and it hit us like a forty ton truck. The heat is sooo oppressive but we had to get on with it so we adopted a sensible approach to the sun that us pommies are not exactly renowned for over here – basically trying to stay out of the midday sun , whacking on the factor 30+ and sitting in the shade. Thank god for aircon that is all I can say!

We checked in to our hotel ( and No -I have not missed out the ‘s’) – Nic and Steve had been to the Red Centre the week before and stayed at the Novotel so had kindly paid for us to have a night there too and it was brill – we had a t.v., towels and the little bottles of shampoo and conditioner but better still we had a bathroom to put them in (well not the t.v. – that would be plain silly!). We also had our own pet lizard that made a home for himself in Chris’ backpack and had me nearly wetting myself with laughter when Chris stumbled across him and jumped to the other side of the room!

We spent the day wandering around Alice Springs (population 30,000) and doing a few final minute chores. Once the sun was a little more bearable we wandered up Anzac Hill to take in the views and Chris saw his first Wedged Tailed Eagle (he has really begun to get into birds of prey on this trip – remember the condors in South America? He even asked if we could get a pet Falcon! I dont have to tell you my answer!). We also met Meade, a sixteen year old Aussie lad who would be on the same trip as us for the next six days and proved to be a complete gem!.

That evening we took in a bit of British Culture at the local cinema in the form of Casino Royale as we had to be up for a 5.15 start the next day. My opinion on the new Bond? Daniel Craig Rocks (although he is seriously lacking a top lip which ruins the whole pouty thing at the camera!)

We were picked up by The Adventure Tours Bus the next morning and met Mark our tour guide for the next six days and after picking up the rest of the tour group which consisted of Brits, Irish, Spanish, Swiss, Germans, and French we set of on the long drive to our first stop – Kings Canyon. It was not that hard to find Kings Canyon – basically we got on the correct road and drove straight in a south westardly direction for the next 320km! Not much need for indicator lights in the outback simply because there is not much need for a left or right hand turn in the outback!

After stopping for lunch and a quick dip in a pool at the lunch stop in order to cool off we made our way to Kings Canyon. Kings Canyon is situated within the Watarrka National Park, and is a Australia’s biggest canyon at 270m high. The canyon features in the movie Priscilla Queen of The Dessert and took us up through a formation called Priscilla’s Crack!

The walk around the rim of the canyon could probably be completed in 2 hours yet it took us a good 3-4 hours due to the heat!The views were spectacular and the walk took us pass the tropical pools of the Garden of Eden, and the beehive rock formations called the Lost City.

After the walk we returned to our camp site for the night where we had a barbie courtesy of Meade and then settled down in our swags for the night under the stars. As we were getting into our swags having checked them for spiders we heard a yelp from Martin (a Brit) who claimed he had been bitten – so we offerred him the unsympathetic advice to ‘quit whinging and get some sleep’ only to find him the next day with a massive swollen red lump on his thigh! Fortunatley for us (and I guess Martin too) it did not prove deadly!

Four and a half hours later we rose for day two of the trip which took us to The World heritage Site of Uluru to watch the sun rise. It is said that Uluru changes colour throughout the day and this was brought home as the Rock changed from a dull brown colour into a vibrant orangey-red as the sun got higher. After numerous photos (I am truly sorry dad to put you through so many repeats so soon after the Sydney Opera House!) we set of in the bus to Kata Tjuta (which is also know as ‘The Olgas’ and is aboriginal for ‘many heads’). The Olgas, for us, were every bit as impressive as the Uluru. Kata Tjuta is made up of 36 rounded domes with the tallest (Mt. Olga) being 200m higher than Uluru (that’s 546m). It was still ‘stupid o’clock’ when we started the 9km hike around the impressive domes which enabled us to avoid the scorching midday sun. The walk took us through the impressie ‘Valley of the Winds’ with numerous stops so Mark (the guide) could educate us on the area’s geology.

After a relaxed lunch we headed back to Uluru to visit the Cultural centre and to learn more about Aboriginal culture from Mark. Both Chris and I loved learning more about the aborignals as to date we had no exposure to the indigenous race (a stark contrast to New Zealand where, in comparison, Maoris appear to be far more integrated). We learnt that Australia is separated into hundreds of Aboriginal countries and that certain areas of the Uluru itself are sacred to aboriginal women from the country in which Uluru sits… therefore the men are not allowed in that area. Likewise the men have their own sacred areas. Furthermore the aboriginal have stories about how certain parts of the rock were formed which invariably involve animals such as snakes, kangaroos etc etc.

Uluru is a sacred site to its aboriginal owners and they request that people do not climb the site as they feel a certain responsibility if anyone is harmed during the climb. Given that the climb is very steep and the high temperatures it is not uncommon for deaths to occcur or people needing to be airlifted off. Whilst we had not actually decided whether we would climb Uluru; I believe after learning more about the aborigines we would have respected their wishes and beliefs…however any decision was taken out of our hands as the weather conditions were deemed to severe and the climb was closed. Instead we embarked on the 9km base walk which enabled us to take in the fantastic formations of the rock.

We were then whisked away to a nice little spot where we were served champagne and nibbles with which we enjoyed the sunset over Uluru. The sky was unfortunately rather cloudy which meant we did not experience such vivid colours we have seen on many postcards but nevertheless it was fantastic to soak up the views and relax after an extremely tough day of hiking.

We were both absolotuely knackered from another extremely long day which was fortunate as we practically passed out in our swag bags which meant we could not give the reports from the previous night of Dingo sightings another thought!

Tags: Alice Springs, Australia, Thailand, Uluru

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 28th, 2006 at 3:06 am and is filed under Australia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.