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Since I last wrote I have travelled across a continent from the West Coast to the East Coast so there's a fair bit to write... but as this is costing me dollars I'm keeping it high level!!
I last wrote on Tuesday where I was planning to fly to Alice Springs the following afternoon. Well let's just cover Tuesday night first. One word - carnage. Me and my mate Julian got roped into a drinking game at the hostel (I say roped in, I think we volunteered ourselves). Well as I was heading off to pastures new the following day I decided to try and target Julian in this game. Naturally, Julian targeted me back. We were both well and truely battered by the end of it and don't remember a great deal about it, other than a vague recollection of trying to cook some garlic cheese bread, designed to be cooked in an oven, in a toaster. Well, happily I somehow woke in my bed at 6am (how who knows?). Well, as for Julian when I looked across the dorm he was still AWOL! I launched a search, fearing for his welfare when just as I was in the backyard of the hostel he strolls in the gate... where he had been who knows? I'm not convinced he does and sadly due to catching an early shuttle to the airport I was unable to investigate further...
So anyway, on Wednesday I flew to Alice Springs in the middle of Australia. What a dump. The less said about it the better.
Thursday at 6.10am I started my Outback safari. Met a cool girl called Fran, also a Londoner, who would become my friend and moaning buddy for the next few days. Anyway on Thursday the tour took us to Uluru (Ayer's Rock)... what can you say about this other than it's a big rock. The scale was impressive. We walked around the entire perimeter (some 10km) in the searing heat... was fun (is that the right word?)... We then watched the sun set over Uluru and watched as the rock changed colours with the movement of the sun, was cool...
After this it was back to Camp and cooking dinner. Everyone mucked in with chopping, doing the dishes etc considering the cooking took place on a camp fire I was pretty satisfied. Then to bed... not as easy at it might normally be when your sleeping in "swag". For those of you that don't know a swag is like a big sleeping bag with a matress fitted inside it. You can zip it up to your neck and lay the sleeping watching the stars as you drift off (if it rains - yeah right - there is flap you can pull over your head). Now in ordinary circumstances this sounds all very nice... except we are sleeping the outback and anything can, in theory, crawl in. This is Australia remember, the place where there are more things that can kill you than anywhere else in the world... if I was to describe my sleep that night a minimal it would be an understatement...
Friday we arose at 4.30am to watch the sunrise over Uluru and Kata Tjuta (spelt wrong no doubt so from now on it is "KT"). This wasn't as good as sunset and I felt I could have lived without it... After this we started a new walk (about 8km) around KT. Unlike Uluru KT is a serious of large rocks in a formation... to be honest it is probably more impressive and photogenic than Uluru. Anyway it was a cool walk and I got some good pictures.
I can't remember what else we did this day other than eat etc so I'll skip onto swag time. I was determined to conquer my inner demons over bugs/snakes etc and get some much needed sleep... and I succeeded... just one small blip! I was awoken by some noise around the camp around midnight whilst everyone else was sleeping. Something was near the camp and there was more than one of them and they were moving around. "Crap" was the first thought that sprung to mind. Well I lay there deadly still trying to listen for clues as to what it was as I couldn't see with the naked eye (I probably didn't actually want to see as I did have a torch next to me!!). The only thing I could vaguely hear was it sounded like they were eating grass but I couldn't be sure. Well this went on for about an hour when I decided the best thing for it was denial. I convinced myself they were rabbits and hid deep in my swag like a child hiding under his bed covers. Amazingly I could sleep!!
Anyway, come the morning (4.30am again!!) our guide asked us if anyone saw the brumbies (small wild horses) this morning. Ah... wild horses... they eat grass........
Once the group was up we went for a walk around Kings Canyon. This was probably the most impressive scenery of the walk and probably my favourite part. To describe it... well it's a canyon. A big one. You'll have to see the photos!
After this we pretty much made our way back to Alice Springs. Had a quiet night in the hostel and slept in what felt like the luxury of a dorm bed...
Sunday I didn't do much. The flight to Cairns was in the middle of the day so it can't of prevented me doing much of anything really...
Monday - on this day I scuba dived in the great barrier reef twice and I was pretty damn lucky it has to be said. When I went in for my first dive with a group of three other people plus the instructor it was nothing short of a farce. The other three people were useless. Worse than useless. In a nutshell, after hanging around the boat for a good 15 minutes waiting for them to pick up the most basic of things we finally dived about five metres before returning to the boat... it was a disaster. The instructor, sensing I'd been shafted said she would take me out again as long as there was time. There was and got a one on one tour around the great barrier reef - sweet.
For some reason no one else wanted to do a second dive but I did. So again I got a hand guided tour around the reef by a different instructor... this one was really fit - happy days!!!!
We saw all sorts of things down there, numerous strangely coloured fish (although I was gutted not to find Nemo!), a sting ray, loads of stuff. When not diving we could snorkel which was almost as cool as the reef makes the water very shallow so you can see lots of stuff...
On Tuesday I started a organised overnight tour to Cape Tribulation which has one of the world's oldest rain forest (this is also crocodile country by the way). We did various bit and pieces during the day but the highlight of the day was going on a guided night walk through the rain forest followed by crocodile spotting in the creek that flows into the sea. We saw all sorts in the rain forest - lizards, frogs, big spiders (all Huntsman) but sadly no snakes. None the less it was pretty cool. The croc spotting didn't go so well and unfortunately there were none about...
Today we had a free day on the tour and I signed up to do another reef trip, this time on one further out (which everyone says is better). The dive was really good and we saw a reef shark which I guest was maybe close to two metres long, was great!!
There were a few other unexpected sighting during the day too. On the way out to the reef we saw a minke whale. On the way back we saw a spinner dolphin breaching really high out of the water! Great! And then on the way back to Cairns we saw a juvenile Cassowary at the side of the road. This is Australia's most endanged bird. It is big old lump at over a metre tall and it cannot fly. It is really rare to see one so it was incredibly lucky!
Anyway that's all folks. Got something pretty exciting planned for tomorrow, more on that next time....
John x
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