Adelaide to Alice Springs - 6 days - 4th to 9th June 2008

On the road again, to start with the beginning, here are the people I am travelling with:

UK: Becka

OZ: Megan, Dan & Karen

Scotland: Zoe & Allie

NZ: Margaret

Japan: Hitshko

Honk Kong: Sharon

Ireland: Claire

Holland: Elia

Denmark: Heine, Hendrik, Soarsen

Our tour guide: James is an exentric Aussie, in love with his country and its culture.

We left Adelaide at 6.30am with as the last time 2 hours to nap on the bus before our first breakfast stop.

The first day was mainly driving.. to our destination: Parachilna, we stoped at a few sights to discover some aboriginal workart. This drive was pretty quiet, we got to discover a bit more about each of us with our guide asking the right questions when we had to present each others such as why we decided to come to OZ, what we would bring on a desert island and what we would like to change in the world.
We finally made it to Parachilna, a small village: 9 inhabitants (no no there is no mispelling here it was really nine) where every night of the week apart from Tuesdays they get travellers like us so it can become quite animated at night :D
The most exciting things happening there are the Sunset at 5.20Pm (known as one of the best in Australia) and a train passing by at 10.20pm with its 46 wagons. Oh and they also have a local pub: la prairie.
As we traveled to Wilpena Pound, the vegetation becomes a lot more dry with smaller trees, rocks and sands. The weather isn't great at all as it s actually raining, of course that happens once a year and it has to be when I am there! so we had to cancel our walk through the Flinders range for a shorter walk (so glad I took this raincoat someone left at the hostel in Sydney :))
We are back at our accomodation pretty early, great excuse for a nap and a bit of reading, after dinner we mainly played a few card games as the Danish Boys carried with them a set of Uno cards and a set of Porn Cards (no comment guys!)
The next morning we are up at 4am for our drive to Coober Peddy (600 kms) to be on time to do a Mine Tour and for Sunset.
Coober Peddy is more famous for being the Capital of Opal in Austrlia, during summer the temperature reaches 50 degrees. People live mainly underground.
Before a law came out to stop people digging in town for Opal, they could end up digging in someone's house!
I was really glad to see this city, it is wicked in a way it's so different from anything you would ever see.
The town is mainly populated with Aboriginals.
We did our mine tour, but didn't see any sunset as it was too cloudy.
The next morning we left Coober Peddy for... Uluru. The excitement was rising up (well for me) as in a few hours I will finally get to see Uluru, Ayers Rock, the Red Centre from my own eyes :D.
As usual a long drive (another 600 kms) animated with our tour guide with some quizzes or little games such as Bingo Plates to keep people a little more awake than usual (ah yeah I didn't mention yet but I fell asleep about 10 000 times on my tour bus... for sure from now I can fall asleep anywhere lol).
A quick stop by the campsite to collect Champagne and Crackers.
Sunset at Uluru: celebration time (we made it lol) and it is sunny just a few clouds here and there :D. It was quite impressive as you could see the color of the rock changing as the sun went down, same effect the next day as the sun went up (only a lot more impressive it went from dark orange/red to bright orange: unbelievable).
It is also our first night camping and it s freezing cold so we all went around the fire, James played a bit of didjireedoo (aboriginal music instrument) and we drank to celebrate this great day.. I decided to sleep outside to enjoy the beauty of the stars, a sky like you don't see so frequently.. It s cold but it's woth it and comfi in the swag :D
The next day we walked around the rock for 2 hours, not much to see appart from a few aboriginal paintings. Sorry Ian I didn't get that picture of me on the top of the rock as aboriginal don't really like when people climb up of and also because about 40 people have died since that climb is open...
We then headed to the Olgas: Kata Tjuta, this sight isn't as open to public and what is happening there is still kept very secret. It is as impressive as Uluru only instead of 1 big rock it looks like loads of smaller Ulurus stuck together.
We camped in Kings Canyon this time I decided to sleep in the tent oh yeah it felt even colder outside than the previous night...
We did a 3 hours walk in Kings Canyon which was absolutely amazing!
After this walk we went for lunch and took the road back to Alice Springs another 4 hours drive till we get there... We ended up breaking down due to a lack of fuel but got quickly sorted thanks to another Adventure Tour Bus :D
We got to Alice Springs around 6pm, 1 hour to get ready (well I had fuck all left to wear after those 6 days lol) then we headed to Annie's Place a very well known backpacker Bar and Hostel.
While my group was very laid back / chilled out over the last 6 days. That night was absolutely madness with some of them dancing on the tables (no no not me I was taking pictures instead as for look what you did last night ahahah) and everybody getting way too drunk (well $10 for a jug of beer, $4.50 for a shot that s a winner ;)) including our tour guide. I ended up staying longer than everybody for talking too much with other backpackers or simply not being tired lol and by the time I patiently waited for a taxi to take me home, a police car pulled over and offered me a free lift back to my hostel... Nice one :D

Alice Springs counts 25000 people with a lot of Aboriginals. I didn't feel too secure there walking by myself. The Off License don't open before 2Pm, you can't buy more than 2 litres of Alcohol a day. This law is due from the excess of Aboriginal ppl, apparently they used to receive their Welfare Money every Tuesday and would spend it all in booze so the government had to close all the Liquor Stores on Tuesdays... Not sure if that was in all Northern Territory or in Tenant Creek (we stop there on my next tour).
Anyway there wasn't much to do so I spent my 2 days by the pool as the temperature was reaching 25 degrees and I started preparing my tan :D.