The Red Center

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So the Ghan was fun. I met a girl on the train I had met in my hostel in Darwin, but really I watched the movie they put on (Finding Neverland) and then went to sleep around 9:30. I woke up at 7, had coffee on the train, and we got into Alice around 8:45. The girl I ran into had scheduled a free pickup with the hostel that I wanted to go to, so I jumped in with her - luckily they had a bed available. I ran into a kid from my Kakadu tour there who gave me his fly net (a net you wear over your hat and face... I can't tell you how dumb and necessary they are.) I checked in and booked myself on a two day tour of Uluru, Kings Canyon, and something else (I cant remember) because apparently it's impossible to do on your own. So I get picked up at 5:15am tomorrow. Ouch. I went into the town, did some necessary shopping (a hat) and had lunch. My friend Claudia who I ran into signed up to go on a camel ride with me, which was lots of fun! Our camel was named Annie and we rode for about an hour. It is much easier to ride than an elephant, except when they stand up and youre on the front... feels like you're going to fall onto their necks. When we finished the ride we got to help feed them... and they chew so funny! (Chris it sort of reminds me of you with that pita bread in T&L one night... I still think you'd make a good cartoon camel!) Anyway, when we got back to our hostel (Annie's Place... to go with Annie the camel and Desperate Annies. weird.) we went for the $5 backpacker dinner. They had camel lasagne. I couldn't do it, I had veggie instead. For five dollars though it was a damn good dinner. I repacked all my shit to go out into the outback and went to bed nice and early.

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Getting picked up at 5:15 was rather painful. No one should be awake at that ungodly hour. The tour group was interesting. There was an American girl who spoke southernese (from Tenessee) who was adamant about defending the use of sororities as social networking groups... and I just had to bring up the term "sorostitute" (sorry to those of you out there who are genuinely nice sorority girls. I know you exist. I just like the word!) She was nice enough, but quite dumb. There was a Swedish girl who was an opere but quit because the family sucked, there were two girls from Melbourne who were very nice, and a German girl whose english wasnt great but was a wonderful person. Then there was the group of six Swiss people. There was one couple in their mid twenties with both sets of their parents. None of the parents spoke english, and none of them made any effort to communicate with any of the rest of us, including our poor guide. Anyway, that first morning we drove 5 hours to Kings Canyon. When we got there we went to a campsite first, where we had chicken burgers on the barbie (that would be the technical term for bbq here) before setting off for the canyon. When we got there we couldn't go on the walk on the top of the canyon because it was 112 degrees (43ish C) at the base in the shade. At the top in the sun it would have been the temperature that your insides start to cook. So we walked up the middle of the canyon which I didn't think was impressive at all. The top would have been gorgeous. After that 40 minute walk we got back in the bus and drove another 4 hours or so to Yulara, or Ayers Rock Resort. On the way we stopped to see Mount Connor in the distance (the worlds largest toothbrush - a big rock part with a long shorter part attached. its funny.) We got there in time for sunset over Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) which from that particular angle look like Homer Simpson lying down. We had a very yummy dinner and then slept under the stars. We had to hide our shoes because apparently dingoes have a bad habit of running away with them.

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The next morning our wakeup was at 4:30. OW. There were still stars. And I had to get out of bed. That was unfortunate. So we had breakfast and then went out to Uluru (Ayers rock) for sunrise. The aboriginal owners request that people don't climb the rock, although it's still open for climbing (probably to close next year) but two people in our group still had the drive to do it against traditional wishes, which I think was wrong. Five of us did the full 10km walk around the base of Uluru. Pardon my language, but it's a big fucking rock. It is something like 380m above the ground, but there is about 12km of rock below the surface of the earth. It's huge. By the time we finished the 10km (at 8:30am. disgustingly early) we headed for Kata Tjuta (the Olgas). Again we couldn't do the long walk there because of the heat, which was too bad. We walked up between two of the 36 enormous rock domes... again - big fucking rocks (BFRs katherine?) After we finished the walk we headed back to Alice Springs.. another lovely 5 hours in the bus. If I was to do it again, I would do it on my own and camp near each thing so I could do the cool walks at 6am, because that's the only time you can do them... or perhaps come at a different time of year... that might work too. We got back to Alice and got dropped off at our hostels. I went and found my friend Claudia (after a much needed shower - my legs were red from the dust) and we headed to another hostel for dinner where she was meeting a friend and I was meeting our guide. He had a group dinner planned for us and I was afraid no one else would go. So I went, and I was the only one. But he's funny and we had a good time. And clearly I passed out at aruond 10:30 because I had gotten up at 4:30.

i dont understand
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The next morning I got up, had breakfast and packed (somewhat quietly - there was a girl who had been in bed since I had gotten there the night before at 6pm...) and then dealt with some booking crap before heading into the town for lunch. I had the best salad I've ever had with wonderful greenery, sundried tomatoes, cucumbers, camembert, and hot roast beef with some delicious kind of dressing. So it was more of a sandwich minus the bread but it was damn tasty. And then against my fathers wishes, I bought a digeridoo. I'm so excited. Don't worry dad, he's not actually shipping it until after I'm home so I'll be there to deal with it. I took a shuttle to the airport way too early but it was the only option, and sat there and wrote postcards until my 4:20 flight to Melbourne.