Back from the Outback....

Friday night I was home playing around on line wondering where I could go since I had four days off in a row - my last four days off in a row.  Tiger airways had a cheap flight to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory and so off I went.  For those that don't know Alice Springs is the "closest" "city" to the famous Uluru (Ayer's Rock).  While they say it's the closest city, it is actually over 400 kms away and barely registers as a city.  

My flight arrived safely and I checked my self into a local hostel.  Not really  my thing but it was cheap and they helped me book my one day tour to Uluru.  Since the tour wasn't until the following day I decided to walk the city.  I met a girl from Germany in the hostel and together we walked "downtown".  Alice Springs is in the middle of Australia surrounded by pretty much nothing.  The main streets are quiet and there really isn't a lot to do there.  It has a couple of rivers near by but as you can see by the picture below, the water is extremely clear - so clear you can see right to the bottom!

Yes, it's in the desert and the local rivers haven't had any water in them for years.  (The funny thing is I took this picture from the bridge that crosses the river).

While walking in town I discovered that there was another one day tour to Kings Canyon that I could do as well.  Had I known this information before I left Melbourne I could have booked a one night tour that took me one day to Kings Canyon, and the next day to Uluru. But I didn't and since my room was already paid for for three nights I signed up for two tours - one each day.  Now, as I mentioned above, Uluru isn't all that close to Alice Springs, and neither was Kings Canyon.  Both trips involved being picked up at 6 am in the morning and returning at 1 am the following morning.  Yes, two very long days.  But... they were worth it.

Both trips involved a lot of road time through the outback.  As you can see from the photo below there is pretty much nothing in the outback.  Things were greener than I had expected but apparently there was rain in December.  I also learned that while it's a desert, it is actually situated on top of a very large under ground lake.  So while most of Australia is in a drought the desert has more water than it needs!  

On the first day I went to Kings Canyon.  It was really hot that day (high 30s low 40s) but it was a great day.  I met a couple from Germany (there are Germans every where in Australia), a couple from Holland, and a young man from Germany.  The two couples were wise enough to do the tour with a hotel stop two hours away from Alice Springs (so they didn't have to go back all the way) while the young german and I had to go back to our respective hotels in Alice Springs. He and I had the late night followed by the early  morning.  But, it was just fine as we had a lot of time on the bus to catch up with sleep.  Anyhow,  the six of us travelled together  both days and we were disappointed when other people joined us the second day.  Our little group was quite nice.

Anyhow back to the adventure.  Because I was doing two tours the days were switch around and I went to Watarrka National Park (Kings Canyon) the first day.  We did a three hour hike along the peak of the canyon. The views were incredible and the canyon itself was beautiful.  We even stopped at a swimming hole called the Garden of Eve.  I swam in all my clothing and it was so hot everything was dry by the time I returned to the bus.  Below is a picture of the canyon.
While driving back we were able to stop and take photos of the George Gill Mountain range.  While they certainly wouldn't be considered mountains where I come from they were impressive to look at all the same.

The second day I was picked up again at 6 am.  It was another long day on the road (but it allowed for catching up with sleep too). Our first stop was Uluru-Kata Tjuta National stop.  We stopped at Kata Tjuta first (also  know as the Olga's) and did a short canyon walk.  Below is a picture of Kata Tjuta.

Our second stop was at the Uluru-Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre.  It was interesting, but we didn't really enough time to read the information.  Next we moved on to Uluru (Ayer's Rock).  We did two short walks there both times learning about the rock, some of the stories surrounding the rock, and seeing sacred places on the rock.  Both were interesting.  There is a climb on the rock but visitors are asked not to climb it because it is a scared spot for the local aboriginal people.  The climb was closed when I was there because the weather was too hot.  There is also a walk around the rock, but we weren't there long enough to walk around it.  We did drive around it though and heard many stories about it.

As sunset was approaching we stopped the bus.  They set up a champagne bar b que for us as we watched how the sun set changed the colour of the rock.  The human eye doesn't really notice the colour changes that the rock goes through but we were encouraged to take photos every five minutes.  Looking at my photos now I can see that the rock did change colours.  Below is my favourite photo because the rock looks like it's glowing.

That pretty much sums up my trip to Alice Springs.  As it turned out I was joined on my return flight by the three Germans.  The two men are working in Melbourne until the end of February and hopefully we'll all get together before they leave.  It was nice to have a group of friends to spend the weekend with.  I know with work starting tomorrow I'll have my own set of friends soon.  I also still need to connect with the local tri group.  I have contact information I've just had too much going on since I've arrived here.  I think I'm going to get through a bit of school first and then I'll jump in with both feet (at least the swimming part).