Danielle's blog 'n stuff: From Nov. 16th

In Cairns right now, actually only have 1 more day here. Time is starting to go fast. But anyways, back to where I left off…

Darwin Day 3/Alice Springs Day 1
We actually didn’t have a real 3rd day in Darwin, just the morning before we left for the airport around 10ish. Regardless much excitement happened that final day and around the hour of 3 AM. I was woken from a sound sleep by this continuous banging noise. Turns out it is the guy in the room next door trying to get back in, he’d been locked by his girlfriend. He keeps banging and banging on the door until some guy comes out to yell at him. They start arguing and they both sound really drunk. The 2nd guy decides the best way to reason with guy #1 is to demonstrate how stupid it is to bang on the door. This of course ended up turning into a fight. The 2nd guy’s girlfriend tries to tell them both to knock it off because people are sleeping and what not. The 2 guys then start slapping each other. We could hear this all quite clearly since it was right outside our door. Slapping of course turns into punching.

Eventually it ends and someone down the hall called security to help make sure everything stayed settled and to clean up the mess. Once it was clearly over we ventured out into the hall to use the bathroom and you could just smell alcohol everywhere. There was blood everywhere! Darwin is crazy.

Next was airport fun time and then we were in Alice Springs. Had to wait almost an hour to get to our hostel since their shuttle bus had to wait to pickup both flights. Of course this resulted in the shuttle being way overcrowded and I got to enjoy the whole ride being elbowed in the side by some German girl who felt the need to text message the entire way. It took another hour to check in because they like to give a “yay! We’re awesome” speech and tell you about everything. This was combined with tons of questions about what each person checking in was planning on doing and trying to book them on tours. This was quite frustrating when all you want to do is get to your room, shower and find some food.

Once everything was finally finished with check in we found quite the pricey little restaurant considering what we had been spending and finally got to try some kangaroo with a sweet potato mash. Fantastic! Kangaroo tasted kind of like a chicken/steak hybrid. The more cooked it was the more chickeny it tasted. Center pieces which were much pinker had more of a beef taste.

Wayward Bus Tour-Day 1
The easiest and most cost effective way to see Uluru is by tour. I’d been dreading this part of the trip for weeks since I hate awkward and forced socialization. It actually turned out to be the most amazing time and one of the true highlights of the of the trip. Got on the bus at noon and met our guide: Kiwi, aka Simon. We stopped at the store for people who wanted alcohol and at the train station for our final passenger. That gave our bus a total of 9 people if you included Kiwi. Was very nice that it was such a small group as it made the bus quite comfortable. If it had been at its full capacity of 22 it would have horribly crowded. Our group consisted of me and the Yarb of course. The tour guide, Kiwi. A strange guy from Switzerland. Two snotty and aloof guys from France (the Frenchies), who were determined to race around everything as fast as possible. A guy from Italy who got sick and was hence referred to as Fluey. And finally couple from Wales.

The first day was mostly a lot of driving. Did stop at a camel farm and got to take a 30 minute ride. It was really awesome because you were in complete control of the camel. It was just me, the Yarb, our guide and our camels. Its was lots of fun and I wish we could have had time for a longer ride. Camels are difficult though. They are constantly looking for something to eat and if they happen to get a nibble its no easy task to get them walking again. My camel was pretty good, I can only remember one really bad incident with a tree. The Yarb’s camel was a bit of a pain in the butt.

That night we had spaghetti with a touch of vegemite in the sauce. And then we camped in the bush. Seriously, in the bush. We turned off the one light we had at our camp site and everyone was just blown away by the stars. I thought I lived in the middle of no where here in NH and had some pretty good start viewing from my backyard. Yeah. This was phenomenal. Also we could hear a pack of howling dingos quite close by.

This was officially the worst night of the entire 6 week trip. We all had sleeping bags and swags to sleep in. Swags are basically personal tents and are really quite comfy. This 1st night of camping though was it was pretty hot outside and the swags get quite warm. Bugs were terrible so you had to keep your face covered with the flap of the swag making it even hotter. I alternated trying to sleep with the flap over my head to keep the bugs off and keep it off my face to try and keep cool. Neither worked. As soon as I would start to doze off a bug would buzz up my ear or nose or the flap would touch my face and I would kind of panic from some degree of claustrophobia. I didn’t sleep at all. I watched Orion cross from one side of the sky to the other. To make matters worse I had to make multiple trips to the restroom. Normally this is not a big deal but this was scary. No lights made it very hard to see where you were going and 1 wrong turn could seriously get you lost. It was a very long night.

Wayward Bus Tour-Day 2
Breakfast was cereal and then it was off to King’s Canyon for the 4.5 kilo Rim Walk. Not walk wasn’t too bad except for Heart attack Hill, which is the starring point of this walk. Kiwi said it really wasn’t all that bad. Kiwi did this walk at least once every 2 weeks. I didn’t think it was so bad either until I realized what I thought was the end of the hill climb was actually the halfway point. It was agony climbing up that with no sleep. And it was really hot! This was further compounded by the fact that I was still recovering from my nasty burn and had to make sure all skin was covered. Once surviving the hill the rest of the walk was really quite beautiful. The little bits of climbing throughout the walk seriously wore me out.

Once its gets to be about noon in the outback its really to hot to do anything to intense so it was time for lunch and a little down time. Then we did a short half hour walk around King Canyon’s Creek. I forgot to put sunscreen on my neck and the one small area of skin that I left exposed received a nasty sunburn. Again. There was another short walk around Kathleen Springs but I took a nap because I was just too tired from all the walking and not sleeping and the hear was making me nauseous. The Welsh couple sat this walk out too. This was followed by more driving.

We finally got to Uluru just in time for the sunset. The viewing spot was great because you got a clear view of Uluru and KataTjuta. It was really amazing to finally find myself there after years of wanting to be there. Dinner was steaks and sausage on the barbie cooked by the Yarb with lots of salads. It was much cool and way less buggy so I got to sleep this night which was awesome. Yay! But by the end of the night before I even got in my swag I had 22 bug bites on 1 foot.

Wayward Bus Tour- Day 3
Up at 4:30 to see sunrise on KataTjuta. It was very pretty to see the color change on the rocks. Kiwi had the tour guide thing down to an art. Our group was always the last group up every morning and the first to get where we were going. All of the other groups had to go back to camp after sunrise or sunset to get their meals. He got ours ready right at the viewing site so we could eat right in the national park.

After sunrise we did the Valley of the Winds walk at KataTjuta which was about 7 kilos. Not as much climbing as the day before but much hotter. We saw some dingos right before we started the walk that seriously couldn’t have been more than 30 ft away from us. And during the walk I spotted a kangaroo hopping across the bottom of KataTjuta. This was followed by a stop at the Aboriginal Cultural Center and a short walk around a portion of Uluru where Kiwi told us all kinds of Aboriginal history, facts, and stories. We finished the night off with sunset at Uluru and a stir fry dinner followed by few hours of silliness that included: blasting dance hits of the last few decades down the round while switching all the light in the bus on an off, certain members of the bus mooning another bus as we passed it, Kiwi doing the YMCA dancing while driving and a bunch of really corny Aussie jokes. Minus the koala one which was actually quite funny.

Wayward Bus Tour-Day 4
Up at 4:30 again for sunrise at Uluru followed by a bacon and egg breakfast right at the site immediately after. The fancy expensive tour groups were all quite jealous of our Uluru sunrise breakfast. All they got were boxes of muffins or some equivalent.

Next was the walk we’d all been waiting for, the 9.2ish kilos around the base of Uluru. This was fabulous except for the heat. Uluru is amazing. Pictures don’t do it justice. It can’t be explained it seriously just has to be experienced. I never thought I could ever be so amazed by a rock. A giant, gorgeous, stunning rock. It really can’t be described how just amazing it is.

After the walk was lunch and then me, the Yarb, and Fluey were dropped off in town to catch a bus to the airport for our Cairns flight while everyone else headed back to Alice Springs. It was sad to not be going back with everyone. We hung out with Fluey while we waited for our flight.

Selected Pictures

King's Canyon