Howdy folks! My final week in Australia was filled with exciting stuff, and the 5-day trip with Mari and Markus to the Red Centre, the true red-hot desert part of Australia, was certainly on top of my waiting list. So long had I hoped to get here, and I knew a year Down Under without a visit to the centre would have been similar to going to Finland without seeing Lapland, and now was the time!
I knew already that the last week was going to be hectic. Five of the seven days I had left was going to be spent traveling, while the last days before leaving would have to suffice for packing a year worth of things and saying goodbye to a year worth of friends. At this time, however, I was so excited about what we were going to see, that I didn't really think about “small” things like “going home” or “little time”.
We were lucky and got some really cheap return flights to Alice Springs, even though it meant we had to stay there a day longer than the initially planned four days. The plan was as follows: Check out the town of Alice Springs, head on a 3-day Rock Tour including the most important sights in the region, head back to Alice for a day and a half before returning to Melbourne. Now this was exactly what we did, so just hang on to your seat and let the trip unfold!
Ahh, Alice Springs. It must be one of those cities that make little sense when you look at where they're located on the map. It's nearly in the dead centre of Australia, and as we know by now that means it's close to absolutely NOTHING. No cities, no towns, no forests, no grass, not even water. Even Alice Springs town map points out the river that flows through the smallish town, but adds a (usually dry) -label after the name. The dry sandy river bed is apparently the ground for a yearly boat-racing event, with the added speciality of people making a hole in their boat to carry it faster to the finish line.
Why, oh why are you here, Alice Springs?
Dropping our bags at our bug and ant-filled hostel room we took a long tiresome walk into the town centre. Long and tiresome because it was probably 40 degrees outside. This must have been the first time my and M&Ms shadows were this short. Trying to ignre the boiling heat we walked across the main shopping street, had a meal and started to work our way up to the Anzac Hill for a better view of the town. Guess what, it was even hotter up there.
The rest of the first day is kind of a blur: We strolled around, M&M bought themselves some essential headwear and we filled up with the compulsory 3 liters of water per head required for the Rock Tour that was going to start early next morning. Escaping the heat we crawled back to our hostel and went early to bed, but did have another meal and some crazy cheap beer at Toddy's Bar.
Next morning looked promising: Clouds had appeared overnight and the sun wasn't shooting flames straight in our faces as soon as it got up. It was still warm, but nothing like yesterday. We had an early brekkie before Dave, our tour guide for the Rock Tour, arrived to pick up 20 eager and mostly rather young, very eager people on board his bus. The 5 hour road trip to our first stop, the Kings Canyon, was quickly over as we all had to introduce ourselves in front of the bus and tell some funny stories about where we are, what useful skills we have, favourite places and superpowers, first kiss/last kiss etc. etc. It was a good way of getting to know people and heaps of fun at the same time! After introductions everyone wrote their names on the windows of the bus to help with remembering the names.
I have to say what was clear to me already after two hours of bus ride: The Australian desert is not what I expected. It's red, alright, and it's dry, but it's also helluva lot of greener than I thought! Dave revealed that my expectations were not entirely a common misconception, this year has been very wet with a lot more rainfall than usual. Even so, he added, the desert really isn't a desert at all, more just a dry bushland with bush densities varying according to yearly rainfall. So, all you expecting a red-hot endless ocean of sand dunes before coming here should know that this is not like Sahara, at least not at the moment. Further proof of this was attained a few minutes before we arrived at the canyon: Rain.
At first it was a bit annoying to have it raining right as we were getting out of the car for a 7km walk, but it soon became clear that here rain is never a bad thing. I quickly started wondering about how tourists even make over the steep hills and climbs to the end if the weather is like it usually is here in summer.
Kings Canyon is Australia's Grand Canyon. It's a beautiful place and the walk was certainly enjoyable despite a few showers every now and then. In the middle of the walk a few of us had a dip in a waterhole located between the cliffs in the canyon itself, and our guide kept telling us about ways the Aboriginals used to survive (and in places still do), and about the local wildlife and bush. Close to the end as we were standing on the highest ground something I've never experienced before happened: The hair on some of the women's head started standing straight up. Now if that isn't a sign of being straight under the static bombardment of an electrically charged thunderstorm, then nothing is! We hurried down the mountains and several lightnings struck uncomfortably close all around us, but luckily none of them hit where it would have hurt. Back down Dave the Tour guide laughed it all off with “Now THAT was a hair-rising experience!”.
Leaving Kings Canyon behind, it started getting late so after a stop to get some beer to put in our esky (= cool bag) we gathered some firewood (yeah this definitely was a hands on -experience) and headed for camp. On the way through the desert in the sunset we all spotted Uluru or Ayers Rock in the horizon and started taking pictures of it until Dave pointed out that that indeed is not Uluru but instead called Fooluru. Apparently the name comes from the fact that some stupid tourists tend to think it's Uluru and start taking pictures of it! How stupid they can be those tourists, ha!
...Waaaait a minute...!
The hands on experience I talked about got to a whole new level as we made camp just by the road in the middle of nowhere, made up a fire so our guide could cook us dinner before heading to sleep around the fire in swags. Swags are basically padded sleeping cockoons that replace a tent, but they don't stop famous Australian insects and snakes from crawling into your sleeping bag underneath. It sure was exciting times and a small shout of fear was heard every now and then. Nothing more then beetles were noted though, except a big hairy spider we spotted in the morning as soon as we'd gotten up for breakfast. No worries, folks!
Hang with me for the next episode!
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