Survived the outback; now drying out in Brisbane
I’m sure there were plenty of you (okay, 3 or 4) who have been checking back regularly in the past week to see if I survived my adventure tour through the outback. Blame bootsnall, not me, they upgraded the site and in the process, changed the username, and I couldn’t get onto this blog for a week. But here I am, alive and kicking- and dripping. (Read on)
First off, the adventure tour. I have no regrets whatsoever that I did this, but I can assure all of you that my next backpacker/adventure tour will be right after I run the NY Marathon. (For those of you who know me, I am sure you get the subtle sarcasm; for those who don’t- the chance of my ever running the NY Marathon is about 1 in 1,000,000.)
There were 24 of us plus 1 tour guide. I did not win for oldest (there was a German mother-daughter combo and the mother beat me by a few years.) I did win for least able to hike straight uphill, most phobic about walking along cliffs, and most unsuited for sharing bunks in tents without electricity (our last 2 nights).
The group was certainly diverse- English, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Canadian (by way of India), Japanese, Korean, Irish, Swiss, Swedish and German. Some were traveling together but there were quite a few flying solo. Our guide was a 22 year old Aussie, about 6’2″ and 200 lbs. Not only was he a very experienced and fast hiker, I suspect that the length of his legs made it 4 strides of mine for 2 of his. I realized on our very first hike that this did not bode well for me.
The bus/van had seats for exactly all of us. This meant that there was a somewhat unspoken battle for seats- which seats were reserved, who got the front seat by the guide, who got the back seats- away from the overly loud and often annoying music that played nonstop throughout (they passed around IPods and I particularly enjoyed the techno afternoon- and no one had ever heard of the Grateful Dead!) and who had to share seats with whom.
Cliques definitely developed and I didn’t realize until nearly the end of the 6 days that there was a group of people in the back of the van who despised some of the Type As in the front of the van as much as I did. And who also believed that our guide was a bit full of himself and nowhere near as helpful as he might have been.
The food preparation and clean up was, of course, a treat. It was an honors system whereby everyone was supposed to take turns doing the work. Quite a few failed the honors system and didn’t touch a dish all week. I, on the other hand, suffered serious dishpan hands by the end- hey, I don’t wash dishes in NY!
The cooking was all done by our beloved guide and there was almost never enough food. (This was not his fault, but the fault of Adventure Tours.) Not to say that anybody starved, but seconds were rare, and if you didn’t push to the front of the line when the meal call went out, your chance of getting some of everything was definitely diminished.
I insert here a comment that no one will believe. One night we had kangaroo steaks, emu burgers, and camel sausages. Gotta say- I passed on the camel, the emu burgers tasted like turkey or chicken burgers, but I picked up a taste for kangaroo, and even ordered it by choice in a restaurant in Alice Springs. Look, by the time the 500th kangaroo has hopped across the road, they don’t seem a whole lot more exotic than cows.
Having now provided a description which, upon rereading, sounds a whole lot like my experience in Girl Scout Camp (another experience I truly adored!) I still have to say that most of the things we saw were magnificent and you certainly have no sense of the Australian outback until you’ve done something like this.
Even the concept of the monotony of the outback (probably plenty of places in the American west somewhat similar- but I have never driven such long stretches in the American west)- long long sections of road with a lot of nothing stretching as far as the eye can see in all directions, is interesting. (For those following my photos closely- probably not many of you- there is a set of shots which include one of my feet on the dashboard. That was the day I sat in the front passenger seat and I call that series- Boring Road With ………….. )
As to the magnificent scenery we did see, I have to say that I did not see all of it. I started every long hike and finished none. It wasn’t the amount of hiking- I was perfectly content to go at my own pace, about half a mile behind the rest of the group. The problem was that every hike inevitably led to some point where the the mountain rose vertically on one side of the path, and the other side of the path was—absolutely nothing but a long, long dropoff. This was the point where I would take a couple more steps, and then say to myself that if I went any further I would also have to go back down. I would stand there and wait for my heart to stop pounding, and when it refused to do that I turned around and went backto the start (no passing Go, no collecting $200.) By the last day I finally convinced our beloved leader to just let me follow one of the paths that was not marked “difficult- hikers must be in good physical condition.” Actually, without the pressure, I had a great walk.
So I saw all the places, but missed the magnificent views. I’ll live with it.
The good new is that the walk at Ayers Rock is long- but flat. The rock is climbable but the indigineous owners discourage it and it is often closed due to the weather conditions (as it was on the day we were there.) Thus I managed to complete the same walk as everyone else on the trip. And Uluru (Ayers Rock) is magnificent! Truly. Before you actually see it you think, big whoop, it’s a rock, and the only thing that’s cool is that it’s in the middle of the desert. But it’s a lot more than a rock. Every inch, every crevice, every time you turn a corner, it’s so beautiful you think, I must have a picture of that. And if you have looked through the couple of hundred pictures I took, you will see that I indulged myself.
Those then, are the high points. It is the only trip I ever went on where I did not exchange my e-mail address with anyone. I did not get into any rip down drag out fights with anyone, but I have no real interest in keeping in touch with any of them either. And clearly, I will not be bumping into anyone on any future adventure tours which many of them had booked.
As stated above, no regrets for going. And never again.
The tour ended in Alice Springs. Alice was interesting and I want to share, but I am running out of steam here and want to send at least a couple of e-mails, so I will list my completed itinerary and provide further details shortly.
From Alice I flew to Cairns and saw a little bit of the Great Barrier Reef. No, I did not go diving or snorkeling- the weather was not great anyhow, but I went on a glass bottom boat and the semi-submersible. Saw a lot of coral and some fish- but not very many varieties. The main contender was the yellow backed fusilier (at least that’s what I was told).
I then flew to Hamilton Island and spent 3 days at Club Med Lindeman Island. This is in the Whitsundays- which everyone told me is now the Wetsundays. Actually had a lot of fun, but it was monsoon weather- not kidding. The rain varied from drizzle to torrential, but the wind kept up a steady roar. Nobody bothered with umbrellas- they were pointless. I did not even see the beach until the day I left. I did perfect my Texas Hold ’em skills. I’m told this has been the heaviest rain in 90 years.
Flew today to Brisbane which I will look at more tomorrow. Still a little drippy, but not too bad and the heavy rain pattern seems to be easing.
After Brisbane I plan to spend a couple of days in Byron Bay and then a week in Sydney before leaving for Asia on March 1.
There, that should make up for my past two weeks’ delinquency and I will try to say a bit more about Alice Springs, Club Med and Brisbane in my next post.
Miss you all.
Tags: 1, Adventure Tours, Australia, outback, Uluru/Ayers Rock
myra_n
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