Day 10 - Heading Bush

My last day rolling up my swag....snif!
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So as I had explained in my previous entry, last night during the middle of the night a dingo had made an appearance at our campground. What I didn't really notice at the time was that Heidy, whose swag was right next to me, didn't even stir in the middle of the night when someone yelled out and I also yelled and kicked at the dingo. Well in the morning we got the whole story from Paul, who was the one who had yelled and woke me up. It ends up that Heidy had left her flip flops outside of her swag and Paul saw them taking off with her shoes, which is why he called out, and was what had woken me up. He actually got her shoes back for her but they had been chewed up rather badly and the plastic straps were broken. How funny that she had slept through the dingo right next to her head chewing on her shoes!

The wild horses along the road
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So today is our last day of the tour. With all of the dingo excitement from the previous night I'm able to overlook this, but I feel rather sad that we are coming to an end of what has been a great trip. After rolling up my swag, sans sleeping bag and then rolling up the sleeping bag and packing up we head off to our first stop of the day, a rather long drive as we were not able to make it to our intended campground the previous day due to the rain.

When we got closer to the gorge we start passing some great scenery. The indigenous people have a story about the hills involving a caterpillar and I have to agree that the landscape looks like one scurrying along, granted a really, really big one. Along the way we also spot wild horses and a herd of camels crosses our path as well. Our first stop of the day is at Glen Helen Gorge and resort. The gorge is pretty and for some reason I'm reminded of little house on the prairie. I have no idea why because they didn't have any canyons with red rocks that I can remember from the show. I guess that the place just had a homestead feel to it.

The rolling catipillar hills
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Next we headed down the road for a short drive to another gorge, Osminston Gorge. This was larger and I thought prettier than the previous one. This was a rather brief stop before we headed on our way for lunch, the last one spent eating outdoors. After another rather long drive we reached our final destination, Alice Springs. After making 4 stops to drop off everyone at their respective hotels I ended up at Annie's Place, run by the same people that run the same named place that I stayed at in Adelaide. Heidy, Rachel and I ended up in a room together with 3 others. It was a nice place with a swimming pool and a bathroom for just the 6 of us.

Glen Helen Gorge
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Although the tour had officially ended we had all decided to meet up in the evening for dinner out at Joe's choice, Bojangles. Not only did the place have live snakes but you could get just about any edible animal on the menu. Not eating meat I of course opted for a nice salad. We had a fun night of dining, drinking, drinking even more, dancing, drinking, and then arriving back at the hotel at a very, very late hour.

The next day I was not a happy camper, to put it mildly. My fault! So I didn't get to see too much of what Alice Springs has to offer. All of us who were remaining met up again to walk around the city. There are several art galleries displaying Aborigine art that I would love to revisit when I have an income and I home to put some of the pieces in because they are incredibly beautiful. I managed to climb Anzac Hill in my severely dehydrated state, no small feat, leat me tell you. The day ended with Sara, Stu, David, Heidy, Rachel and I meeting up at the place Joe and Sara were staying for dinner. I was exhausted and headed back early with Heidy and Rachel as the next day we were all flying out, Rachel was leaving early to head off to Perth and Heidy and I ended up being on the same flight to Cairns.