After living it up in Alice Springs for a night, (read: trying not to get jumped by a bunch of hoods outside my hostel,) I signed up for a 5 1/2 day camping trip that would take me farther into the outback and all the way down to Adelaide in the Southern Territory. The first night we camped at a place called Kings Creek Station under the stars. Being the camp person that I was, I picked up my swag, (which is an extra warm sleeping bag with padding,) and hiked about 200m into the bush to sleep by myself that night. There was not a soul around and since there were no lights the stars that night were incredible! The only sound was a curious dingo who kept me company while I fell asleep.
The next morning we headed into Kings Canyon to experience the gorge and try and sweat out all the Bundaberg Rum that we'd drunk the night before.
In all seriousness.....(seriously,) the place was really cool and the hike was definitely worth it!
This is me pretending to be Indiana Jones.
After that it was onto Uluru for sunset. (Those of you that are uneducated might refer to this geographic phenomenon as Ayers Rock but it's not called that.........it's called Uluru.) Chew on that. Funny enough the clouds came out and ruined the whole damn sunset, the best picture I got that day was actually of the outback behind the Rock!
That night it was back to camping underneath the stars, in true Canadian fashion I showed the group how to make smores, which apparently they weren't as excited about as I was.
The next day we headed to Kata Tjuta better known as the Olgas to hike through the Valley of the Winds. This place is also sacred to the Aboriginals.....in fact come to think of it, I'm pretty sure everything in Australia is sacred to the Aboriginals. The amazing thing about this place is that if you stare at the rock formations long enough, they start to look like things. Like a Cheshire cat.
Or a giant vagina!!
Then it was back to Uluru to get yet another picture of the damn rock. I took so many stupid pictures of this thing that I never want to see an Australian postcard ever again. I felt like we were dating. Uluru is expecting pebbles next spring.
Sunrise at the Rock.
Yeah, yeah I know. Ayers Rock is sacred to the Aboriginals. And they get really upset when someone gets hurt or worse, dies (as 35 people have done,) while climbing the Rock. Well I do respect other cultures but let's get realistic for a second. I didn't fly halfway around the world and drive 2700kms to take a bloody picture!!
My parents climbed this thing about 10 years ago and I have to hand it to them this climb is pretty tricky in spots. The first half has a sort of chain railing that you have to hang onto otherwise the wind would blow you off the edge. After that you're on your own!
I raced as quickly as I could up to the summit so as to be the first one that day to conquer the Rock!!! I later found out that this feat is about as prestigious as getting "employee of the month" at McDonald's.
Still it was very peaceful up there, I had the whole place to myself for twenty minutes and it really was beautiful. We also stopped by the cultural center to learn more about the Aboriginals, and as much as I do joke about it, the culture aspect was pretty interesting!!
The next day we headed past the north/south marker and headed down to the mining town of Coober Pedy, the Opal capital of Australia.
This is a picture of the hostel we stayed at. I'm not kidding, it used to be an underground mine!!!
One thing I can say is that the mine was warm, the temperature had been hovering around one degree for the last few days and a real bed was certainly a welcome change!
After an amazing sleep we said goodbye to the Outback and headed off to Adelaide. This trip was incredible and if you're ever in Australia I would highly recommend it!!
