Ossie's Backpacker Hostel Alice Springs

... camel trains along this route in the 1800s to open up the area to settlement. Interestingly enough, over 1,000,000 wild camels who descended from these originals live in the Outback now and are the only disease free specimens in the world. Evidently the ones living in the Middle East have contracted syphillis over the years. Yep, syphillis. Now how in the hell does a camel come down with a human venereal disease? Only Allah knows what is going on in ...

... symbols that were carved into solid rock) scattered about the area. Many of them have a meaning that has been lost in time, whilst others depict some of the local wildlife, such as perenties and bush turkeys.

A short climb leads to a rock overhang that the Aboriginal people used as a shelter. Here we found a boulder that had a number of grooves worked into it by thousands of hours of sharpening spears.

Further on was a small gorge with more petroglyphs ...

... Alice’s Secret Traveller Inn. It was a very quirky spot just 5 minutes walk from the town centre and the fellow guests ranged from teenagers no doubt on their first big overseas trip , some like me who were going on other trips and just needed a stopover point and some who were there for work reasons. The room was just off the common kitchen so it was a bit noisy at times when the teenagers were coming and going – or cooking. My roommates before and after the camping ...

... poke your legs through and run along the river bed. The Henley on Todd is an extremely big event. Beforehand there is a parade where lots of funny cars drive down the main street of Alice Springs throwing out lollies and toys, which is a kid's dream. We saw some people with shopping bags stuffed with toys and lollies. We got a big collection of lollies. I also got two stuffed toys: an ...

... right next to Uluru, which apparently is very rare to see. The moon was wicked was just soo big right next to it, so got a few pics of that for you!

The next day we had to chance to either climb Uluru or do the base walk and so i went for the actual climb - luckily it was open to climb as normally 80% of the time it is shut. However i started climing and it was the hardest thing i have ever had to do - Char will understand! It is sooo steep ...

... gorgeous it was. I also met a really nice older couple there that I ended up chatting to for a bit after I had my lunch. They were very sweet, giving me a can of lemonade from their cooler and even asking me to come visit them at their camp for dinner. It was a bit too far out of the way though so unfortunately I had to decline.

Needless to say I was pretty beat by the time I cycled the way back. I stayed in the evening, although ...

... entertainment was provided by a family of western blue winged kookaburras (who know the song of the eastern kookaburra but not the chorus). They are still our favourite birds and never fail to bring a smile to our faces.



Our last few days were spent working our way through the Tanami Desert back to Alice Springs. By now we were used to roughing it - David hadn’t shaved for over a week and had been in the ...

... freezing and the mist and rain came down making it even worse but the service was very moving, especially when they played The Last Post and we were really surprised at how many young people go to the services and are so proud of their grandfathers/relatives war efforts. Thousands of people were there -including the PM Kevin Rudd and the Governor General- and the war memorial itself is ...