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Well hello everyone we have returned from the desert! What an awesome trip the best part yet by far!!!! We have seen some of the most breathtaking sites ever. We flew into Alice Springs on Saturday. Stayed there for one night and the next day up at 5am (lots of up at crazy times on this part of the tour!!) the tour guide named Kiwi arrived at 6 to pick us up (can anyone guess why his nickname was Kiwi? I will give you a gold star if you can!). We were with a group of 24 people a real mix of folk. We instantly hit it off with a group of Irish and English peeps and we had a right old laugh. It felt like being back at school. The bus journey to the rock was about 7 hours, so when we first arrived at camp we were ready to stretch the pins. When we arrived at the national park we were taken to Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) it was beautiful and quite a tricky hike of about 6 Kms walk. I (Frankie)managed to slip and slide down a bit of a steep hill, clumsy me strikes again! The walk that we did was called the valley of the winds and the name was very app. After the walk we headed down to camp to get sorted for the night. Once we had unpacked at camp we headed to Uluru to see the sunset (the proper name for Ayres Rock!!). The views were unreal the colours and clear skies really did take your breath away. We were given a cup of fizzy stuff (probably lambrini) to toast the sun going down very romantic! After the sunset we headed back to camp to help prepare dinner cooking the meat on the barbie and prepping salad etc we felt like real bushmen!! So after a shower and a beer it was swag time!! For those of you that do not know what a swag is it is like a large wax skin bag with a small foam mattress in it in which you snuggled into under the stars. I (Frankie) was a wee bit unsure at first but I loved it you could see every star in the sky and had a pretty good nights sleep. Well 4 hours as on the next day we were up for sunrise at 4 am!!! Now I am going to swap with Chris now and he will tell you all about the rest of the trip!
Lots of love (especially my mum hope you are on the mend and out of hospital??)
Frankiexxxxxxx
Well howdy folks, what a trip!! As Frankie said - definitely the best part of our trip so far! Sunrise at Uluru was pretty special (although it was freezing!) The colours in the sky and around the rock were amazing as the sun rose and we stood eating toast and drinking tea! After that we did the base walk around the rock which was just over 10km which gives an indication of how big the rock was! As we were walking our tour guide was giving us lots of info on the Aboriginal and geological history of Uluru which was all very interesting (and some of it a little bit shocking!) After the walk (and taking about 200 photos!) we checked out the cultural centre which gave more info about Aboriginal culture and we got to watch aboriginal ladies painting which was cool!
Well then we were back on the bus to continue our journey on to our campsite at Kings Canyon which was about another 4 hour drive! Well it should have been about 4 hours but our erstwhile driver and guide Kiwi decided to do a U turn in the middle of the road to pick up some firewood for our camp fire and managed to get the flippin bus stuck in the sand at the side of the road!!! At this point some people started to panic, as the prospect of being stuck in the middle of nowhere began to sink in.... wolf creek anyone???!!!! Eventually after about half an hour he begrudgingly accepted some help from a passing tourist in a 4x4 who towed us out! When we finally got to Kings Canyon we stopped in at a nearby camp resort for a quick swim which was NICE! Then we were on towards our campsite which was literally in the middle of nowhere, with dingoes roaming around wild! We then built up the campfire, got out our swags and had dinner. One delicacy on the menu was Kangaroo tail... Not many tried this as it looked and smelled absolutely foul although i did try a tiny piece.... never again though! It was pretty rough and tasted a bit like the most fatty rotten mutton I'd ever eaten! After dinner we had a few drinks round the camp fire and us English and Irish managed to annoy everyone else by staying up drinking, playing daft games and generally having a laugh until about midnight... dont think we were very popular but we had fun anyay!
After another beautiful night under the stars we had a bit of a lie in - 6am! Everyone felt pretty refeshed and it was nice to be woken by the sun (although i think a few people were woken by me snoring a couple of hours earlier, oops!). After brekkie it was on to the canyon for another fairly hefty trek (about 7 km this time - but very steep in parts!) which was fantastic - some great views and more interesting history about the place! Towards the end of the walk we were all flagging as the temperature was approaching 40 degrees!!! Back on the bus it was time to head home, well back to Alice Springs anyway, which was another 5 hour drive on a bus which by now had zero air con as our guide had broken it by driving over a bump in the road too fast!! This journey was pretty horrible and halfway along a Swiss lady on the bus had a bit of a dodgy turn as she was really dehydrated! A little bit scary but she was OK and we continued back to Alice.
Back in Alice it was time for a welcome shower, a big plate of fish and chips, a couple of pints then the best part... a real bed! Needless to say sleep came easily that night!!!
Righty Oh, thats about it, we're in Melbourne now staying with our mate Dave for a few days then we're off on our campervan adventure on Monday, WHOOP!
Take care folks, all the best, Chris....
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