Back in Alice
We’re back in Alice Springs after a fantastic trip to Uluru and other places in the Red Centre. We had another early start (5.30am) last friday and luckily we had Bonnie, who was one of the guides on our trip down from Darwin, driving our bus again. It was a smaller group this time, only 10 of us. A French woman, a couple from Seattle and 3 generations of an Aussie family from the Gold Coast. Our first stop was at a cattle station where they also do camel rides and breakfast. I rather regretted the camel pie I had eaten in Alice Springs the previous evening when I saw them. So Katie and I had a trot round the paddock for $5 a go which was rather fun. Then we proceeded to Yulara which is near Uluru where we camped on the first night. After lunch we went to Kata Tjuta which is a group of huge rounded sandstone hills. We had a walk up a gorge as far as you could go. At the top end of the gorge is an area that is sacred to the Aborigines so you can’t go in. There are lots of sites like that in the area where you aren’t allowed in or you can’t take photos. After that we drove to the spot where you get the best view of Uluru at sunset. This was a bit of a jamboree as lots of tour groups turn up. Some are very up-market and they put out tables with tablecloths and glasses and bottles of wine and they have waiters and waitresses in uniforms. How the other half do carry on! We had a couple of glasses (or plastic mugs actually!) of fizzy white wine which was very pleasant. The sunset was particularly spectacular as it quite cloudy by this time but it was impressive enough. Uluru is very impressive without the sunset anyway. Then off to camp for some dinner and an early night under the stars as we had to be up at 4.50am the next day to be at Uluru for sunrise. All go!
Sunrise was a much more picturesque affair and we got some great photos of the rock turning red as the sun hit it. We walked all the way round the base of Uluru, a distance of about 10km. Again there loads of other groups doing the same thing but we were all spread out so it wasn’t too overcrowded. It was still very early by the time we had finished our walk – although 9am feels like lunch time if you have been up before 5 I find. So we went off to the Culture Centre where I had a much needed coffee before viewing the exhibition which deals with Aboriginal culture and way of life. There was also some incredibly expensive Aboriginal artwork and souvenirs for sale – we didn’t indulge though. It is a bit difficult to get a didgeridoo into your backpack!
After an early lunch we set off for King’s Canyon which was quite a drive away. We arrived late in the afternoon at our campsite which was a much rougher affair than the previous one. But it still had proper plumbing! We had a good dinner cooked over the campfire. Alll the food on the trip was excellent. We slept out in our swags again and we had a visit from a dingo in the night. Katie was the only one who saw it strolling through the sleeping bodies at about 3am. But we up at 4.30am the next day (it will be hardly worth going to bed if it carries on like this!) because we were going for a longish walk at King’s Canyon. And it gets extremely hot after about 10am so we wanted to get the climbing over with while it was still cool(ish). King’s Canyon is quite spectacular and entirely unexpected (by me at any rate). I hadn’t even heard of it before we booked the trip. Again it is sandstone so a lovely red colour and the rock formations are truly amazing. We started off by climbing to the rim of the canyon and then we walked all the way round the rim. About half way round we dropped down to a permanent waterhole in a spot called the Garden of Eden which has lovely green vegetation, a contrast to the red rocks above, and is all cool and shady.
After lunch we headed on to Glen Helen and our last campsite of the trip. We had swapped our bus for a 4 wheel drive vehicle the previous day and were looking forward to getting off road on the last day of the trip. We dropped in to another waterhole at Ormiston Gorge on the way and there were rock wallabies there hopping about. I should also mention that we saw lots of other animals along the way in the bush including lizards, a huge iguana, wild camels, donkeys and horses. And one emu. This morning we had a lie in – we didn’t have to be up until 6.30am! We had done a bit of offroad driving the previous day on our way to Glen Helen but nothing like what we did today. It was incredibly rough and we drove part of the way along a dry river bed to visit Cycad Gorge and Palm Creek. The names of these places are a bit of a give away really but again they were well worth the bone rattling ride. After lunch we returned to Alice Springs and are now waiting to catch the bus back to Darwin – a 20 hour trip.
Thanks very much for your messages, Danny. Glad you had an exciting summer.
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