Hey all!!
Apologies for the delay in updating you all with our adventures...we're having too much fun!! But we will take off from where we left off in our last blog...
Our last day in Sydney began in a very chilled out and civilised way. We spent a good while packing our bags and wondering how we'd accumulated so much uneccesary 'stuff' in a week. We had lunch outside the Town Hall where we met Hannah (Karen's friend who lives in the suburbs), and then we took a walk round the Rocks which is down by the harbour and we stopped off for coffee and a cupcake. Later in the evening,wemet Steph at the hostel for a 'quiet night' before our early flight and we ended up getting involved in safari Petes auction where tours and the like are sold at reduced prices! Goon in hand we joined in for the first 'practice' round and won a bottleof beer and a packet of crisps for $3.20...not bad!! We found out that goon is in fact the aboriginal word for pillow as when the bag is empty you can blow it up and it makes a rather nice pillow!! At the auction money or the bag rounds were played with the firstperson answering a questions right getting to choose if they wanted 10 cents or a prize from the bag! Karen got a questions right and chose the bag winning a tin of tuna and a bar of chocolate!! We met a few people in the hostel who had vouchers for free cocktails at Scubar which was just down the road from our hostel so after the auction and a few more glasses of the lovely goon, we headed there. To Karens delight, kareoke was on. About 20 songs later they decided I'd sung enough and told us that the kareoke was over...even though 2 minutes later other people took to the stage...i'm sure it wasnt THAT bad...!! Our quiet night turned into quite the party night after getting to bed at 330am and having to get up at 6am to get to the airport on time for our flight!! Needless to say,we weren't feeling too fresh when we woke up and had to pack the rest of our stuff and go for the flight!!
We managed to get to Alice Springs no bother where we were greeted with 35degree heat - just what we needed with our horrendous hangovers. We spent some time at the pool at the hostel before retiring to bedfor an afternoon nap! At dinner time we ventured out into Alice to get some food. We both had a really weird feeling walking around as though we shouldnt have been there - we didn't know much about the place though so we weren't really sure what to expect! When we got back to the hostel, a film was being projected onto the wall outside, the hostel used to be an movie theatre so there were seats cinema style outside - pretty cool but the film wasn't that great!! Was great to relax and have a good nights sleep.
The next day we went to the reptile centre - we got free entry through the tour that we had booked. We saw some pretty interesting reptiles and we got to hold some of the lizards...Karen even held a huge snake - was horrible, not going to be doing that again!! Walking back through Alice we came across an art gallery with loads of original aboriginal art which is where we began learning about the culture. The paintings were amazing, really beautiful and would definitly have bought some if we had some room in our cases...!!
As it was St Paddys day, we decided to go for a quick drink in one of the bars, only a couple though as we had a 5am start the next day for the Rock Tour. A recurring theme when we have an early start the next day is that a couple of drinks turns into a couple more. We were with some of the locals of Alice who had some interesting stories to tell - we learnt some more about the aboriginal culture - mainly that they are pretty violent and aggressive due to a lot of alcoholism and that they feel Australia owe them for intruding in their lives...they even have their own laws which allows them to get away with stuff that normal Australian citizens wouldnt. We didn't buy a drink all night and eventually got to bed at about 1am!! Great!
At 550am we were picked up from the hostel to begin what was to be an amazing weekend on the Rock Tour. There were 21 of us on the bus, a right mix of people from England, Brazil, Hungary,France, Holland and Germany and our awesome tour guide Rachelle. Our first stop was Uluru. On the way we all had to introduce ourselves to the bus telling everyone where we came from and a bit about where we live, our best and worst travel experiences, why we were on the tour, what music we liked, what superpower we would choose etc which was a good way to break the ice and get us all chatting to each other. We also got to decorate the bus by drawing all over the windows...our window obviously had the saltire :) The drive was about 3 hours to get to the Rock. When we got there Rachelle told us some stories about how the rock was formed involving two boys playing with mud and stones and forming piles...and she introduced us to some markings on the wall which signified water holes and stuff like that. Pretty interesting. We saw the bit that people climb up and it looked horrific, it was closed when we were there so we didnt get a choice about climbing it but we def wouldnt have climbed it even if we could.The Aboriginals think it's really disrespectful and about 40 people have died when attempting to get to the top so it's not really worth it!! The base walk was good enough although the path was flooded so we ended up off the path and not really knowing where we were going, then we came across some marshy land and we all got stuck and people lost their shoes...Shelley was not a happy bunny and got back on the bus when we found the right track again. Karen continued round the rest of the walk and when we all met up again we drove to the sunset point. Rachelle made us dinner (chicken and noodles) and we sat watching a beautiful sunset over the rock. The sky was amazing and it was really cool seeing the rock 'glow'! We headed to the campsite where we played the box game, when you have a full cereal box that you have to pick up using only your mouth and each round you rip a bit off the box so it gets harder and harder! Loads of people were very impressive and it got all the way down to a flat piece of cardboard in a hole in the ground...being a little bit competitive Karen was determined to stay in for aslong as possible which resulted in a face plant into the red sand - not ideal! That night we slept in swags under the stars which required a fair amount of beer beforehand to get us through the night!
We had a 5am start the next day to get to the rock to watch the sunrise which again was very beautiful!! We trekked round Kata Tjuta which was a lovely walk and had some amazing views.Randomly bumped into a guy Karen knows from Korfball on the way round which was very random, what a small world!! The trek took about 3 hours and we were also learning more about the Aboriginal culture which was very interesting. On the way to the campsite, we were stopped at a garage when it started torrential rain, thunder and lightning. Rachelle shouted us all back on the bus and raced towards the rock, she was VERY excited about something...we didn't really understand why but as we approached the rock it completely disappeared under clouds...as we got within about 100metres of it we could see waterfalls all over the place. It was STUNNING! Rachelle made us all get out in the middle of the storm to go to the gorge. We all got soaked right the way through but the waterfalls were incredible. Never seen anything like it, it was absolutely beautiful!!! A new best travel experience for sure! Because of our detour, we were late to the campsite and all the usual spots had been taken, we ended up in a site that had a random horse tied up in it that neighed alllll night!! We built a fire and played games and made dinner, was lots of fun!! We slept in our swags again under the stars!!
On the last day of the tour we had a 430am start to go watch the sunrise at King's Canyon...the early start is also to avoid the hottest part of the day when trekking for 3 hours or so. 'Heart Attack Hill' starts the trek, a steep walk up and named after the fact quite a few people have heart attacks when climbing it!! It was no bother for us young whippersnappers though....!!! Around King's Canyon the views were again stunning and Rachelle had more stories for us about the history of the place and how it was formed and the Aboriginal culture. We stopped off at the Garden of Eden where we all had a swim, very refreshing!!
On the way back to Alice we stopped at a camel farm where we got to ride a camel which was pretty fun!! Back in Alice the group all met up at the Rock Bar for some drinks and dancing, an excellent way to end an amazing trip!! Met a lot of cool people and had some fantastic experiences over the weekend, we felt very lucky indeed!!
From here, Shelley headed West to Perth and Karen headed South to Adelaide....stories to follow in the near(ish) future.
Right now we are back together in Adelaide which has been great!! We have one more night here before heading along the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne!! Promise to update you all again soon with the next installment of our adventure :)
Lots of love
Karen and Shelley xxxx
No comments:
Post a Comment