Alice Springs

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  Alice Springs, Australia
Sunday, March 16, 2008

Alice Springs here I come! This time I made my flight. A better start than before. :) It was facinating watching the land we flew over ger more and more red and baron. I was quite excited to go see Alice Springs. Not so much for the town itself, but to be litterally in the middle of nowhere, and of course to see Uluru (Ayres Rock). I arrived hungry though as they RAN OUT OF FOOD on my flight, JUST when they got to my row!! Grrr.. this displeased backpacker phill. I then had to wait around for the Cairns flight to come in before I would get my free ride to Alice lodge backpackers. Out of the Cairns flight came team german, 4 big german guys from eastern german, and then off we went. Alice lodge was a cute and friendly lil backpackers and Id recomend it to anyone going to Alice.

The first few hours I had to mission it into town to confirm my "the rock" tour. This was my first glimpse of how backwards Alice is... i mean.. .its just weird!Its a town of about 28,000 people, and has a high Aboriginal community. But most of the people in town you could sum up as.. well.. hill billies... you know... jeans, cowboy boots, and the cowboy hat... and a lil rough round the edges. It also felt a bit strang with all the aboriginies just kinda hanging around. You always felt watchful eyes on you no matter where you went. Apparently a lot of them were ones that were kicked out of the tribe they were in, and kinda had nothing to do but hang around Alice.. Whatever the case it felt weird.

The tour I did was a 3 day, 2 night tour with 20 people with highlights of Uluru (Ayres rock) sun rise viewing, sunset viewing, climb (weather permitting), kings canyon, and the olgas with a stop off at the camel farm on the way home. It all started at 6am in the morn where the bus came and picked us up for the 4 hr drive out to kings canyon. Looking out the window the whole way there revealed nothing but red sand, and small shrubs with the odd gumtree... there was NOTHING out here! It was hot too... about 45 degree, but as its a dry heat it actually very bearable. On the bus I immediately clicked with a lovely couple from Canada, a German girl called Inga, a massive dutch guy called Harry and a guy from Wales called Dougie. Of the tour half of everyone was German! including team Germany who flew in from cairns.

Kings Canyon was our first stop, and this started with a climb called heart attack hill. An appropriate name we all decided once we got to the top.. especially at 45 degrees! Yikes! They recommend that you have 1 litre of water with you for every hour of walking, and at a three hour hike that meant 3 litres.. and they were right! Its amazing how much you can drink sometimes without needing to pee! Kings Canyon is in short a massive canyon made from that typical australian red rock, and its HUGE! It was a 3 hour walk around the canyon, with a very well welcomed swim in a water hole half way through. The water hole was slightly murky green in colour and FULL of dragon flies... and we also managed to find a dead scorpion floating in it too. Im just happy it was a dead one! The Canyon itself was AMAZING! It was huge with sheer cliff faces, and plenty of fascinating rock formations to be seen. At the end of the hike, I didnt see it, but the canadians grabbed a photo of the thermometre which sat at around 49degrees.... yowza~

It was a 4 hour drive to the canyon, and with a 3 hour hike we didnt have too much left in the day so we headed out to nowhere, on the way to nowhere we stopped in the middle of nowhere to collect some firewood, before setting up a fire in the middle of nowhere, and then sleeping.. you guessed it... in the middle of nowhere. Gathering the fire wood was interesting as we just stopped on the side of the road, and with nothing in site for as far as the eye could see we set out into the dessert in search for wood. Now this wasnt a dessert dessert of only sand and thats it.. there were quite a few lil shrubs and small gnarled trees everywhere, half of them dead so it was relatively easy. We all spread out and started to collect wood, and there was a surprising lack of things that could kill you. I was expecting to find poisonous spiders under every stick, a snake in every log, and a scorpion or two here and there... well.. not quite to that extent, but no one saw a thing. I did see a massive dutch guy called harry literally rip a dead tree twice the size of him out of the ground and carry it back to the bus... it was one of the funniest things ive seen in a while! I just head a cracking noise, look to my right to see him tackle this tree, then just rip it out and carry it too the bus! The camp spot was a spot of bear red earth around the fire, and we were to sleep in swags under the starry sky... and once the moon had set the stars were absolutely breathtaking!! It was quite an experience sleeping under the stars in the dessert. It did get a bit cold after about 3 in the morning though.

The next morning we were up at at birds fart, with plenty of time to watch the sunrise over the desert. This is also when we managed to spot a huge spider comparative to the size of my hand! Woohoo! Out first stop for the day was the Olgas, which is another rock formation in the area. These rocks were interesting in the way they were made up.. kinda like giant rocky road.. there were small rocks between the sizes of tennis balls to basket balls, and a bit bigger being held together by softer rock and it looked like rocky road, or a muffin with smarties in it.

After the Olgas it was a base walk around Ayres rock, or Uluru. (incidently the guy who discovered Ayres rock was called *something (im having a mind blank.. it might be james!?)* Ayre and that is why the rock was called Ayres rock. However at some point white man pointed at the rock and asked an aboriginal what the name of "that" was in aborinal. It just happend he was pointing at a sacred site for the aboriginals called uluru. The aboriginal word for the entire rock is actually "rock" in aboriginal.. but once again I have forgotten the word) On the way there we were trying to find ayres rock on the horizon, but couldnt see it as there was a massive painting of ayres rock in the way... ;P Well.. thats probably the best way to describe it as we approached it.. it was unreal! I looked like someone had just but a massive back drop in the desert. No matter which angle you looked at from it was always stunning. The base walk wasnt all that interesting, but it was nice to get up close to the rock.

That evening we went to the sunset viewing position to view the rock as the sun set over it. As we rocked up we saw tables lined with glasses of champagne. It really kicked in we were on a budget backpacker tour now~!! It was a great place chill out and watch the colours change as the sun sunk below the horizon behind us. I also managed to get a few good shots in too.. along with some silly ones of which where I managed to eat Ayres Rock!!

That night we stayed at an actual camp site where there were showers and toilets~! but we were again on the dirt in our swags under the stars. This was a beer night though, and half the bus had formed quite a social group and we had a great time keeping the other tours awake! Maybe not the best idea for us as we were up long before sunrise, but you only live once right? We all climbed in the bus and went to the sunrise viewing position for ayres rock. I was a little disappointed, as were other photographers on the bus, that we didnt stop somewhere to take a photo of the sun rising BEHIND ayres rock. It looked stunning being silhouetted against the sky of changing colour. Instead we viewed the sunrise with the sun behind us, shining on the rock. The colours wernt as spectacular as I had hoped however, I still managed to get a few good pics.

Following the sunrise we completed the rest of the base walk around the rock which took about 2 hours. Quite boring for some, but me being me, I just love being out doors, and the feeling of open ness of the surrounding landscape was refreshing for me, so I loved it. This was essentially the end of the tour tough. It was about midday, and after a quick lunch it was into the bus for a 5 hr trip back to alice. A good time to catch up on that sleep, not to mention that looking out the window at recurring nothingness isnt terribly exciting. We did have a quick stop at a camel farm on the way back where you could have a ride on a camel for a sly fiver, but despite how exciting it seemed, I wasnt sold.

Back at alice it was nice to have a proper shower again, and get all cleaned up. Everything I had ended up with a reddish tinge to it. Then it was out to dinner with the guys from tour and a few last drinks before catching my plane to Cairns the next day.

All in all I loved my tour of the red centre, and it is an expensive place to get to, but I highly recommend it! Also if anyone ever goes there, the flies are ridiculously bad, so make sure you invest in a fly net!! I was lucky enough to meed a lovely girl from London who had just completed the tour and she gave me her one. :)