Ayres Rock

The Desert! Camel ride at 7am!!! Our group Me at Ayres Rock at sunrise The Witchetty grubs we ate!!! Good afternoon everyone. Well I left the city on Wednesday and just about made it on my flight! I went out for my last night the night before and only woke up wehn the taxi driver was outside repeatedly ringing the door bell! Luckily he did, otherwise I would ahve slept right through my flight! Made it to the sirpot ok and went on the 3 1/2 hour flight to Alice Springs. It was amazing as we came through the clouds to land and all you could see was red desert everywhere. Thought it was a little too soon to be landing as there was nothing in sight other than little track roads and desert. but apprently we were!! Managed to find the teeny tiny airpot and made my way to the hostel. I met up with a Scottish girl who had done a lot of reading on Alice Springs so tagged along with her to various tourist attractions in the extreme heat!!! We went to the first school here, climbed Anzac Hill to get a view of the town, strange not having sky scrapers in the way! CXhecked out a couple of local pubs as you do and went to a Joey rescue centre. There are so many kangeroo road kills around here that lots of Joey's are left without mothers. They man who runs the place told us that if you ever see a dead kangeroo on the road your to check its puch as chances are the Joey will still be alive in there. So you take it to this centre and him and his girlfriend mother them until they are well enough to go into the wild again. They live at their house and sleep in their beds. I think kangeroos are a bit like dogs out here!! So on Thurdya morning we set off at 6am for our trip to Ayres Rock, Kins Canyon and The Olgas. We were really luck as there were only 9 of us in our our group (8 girls and 1 old guy!!) so instead of going in the normal 24 seater bus we got to go in a 4WD (they call it a Troupe) and do lots of off roading that we wouldn't normally get to do- fine by me! The first day consisted of 7 hours of driving through the desert to the area of Ayres Rock stopping on the way to ride a camel at 7am, various road houses, lots of dead kangeroos on the roads and even a dead camel by the side of the road!!! Shawn our leader managed to spot a little reptile in the road while were travelling along at 120km/h called a Thorny Devil which was reall cool. We eventually made it to the area we needed to be with very sore bums and got a glimpse of Ayres Rock, but we wouldn't really be seeing it until the next day. Instead we were going to The Olgas (several rock formations) which I personally think were more interesting than Ayres Rock. We went for a nice, not too strenuous walk around these, which was very hot and so many silly flies around! Stiull managed to enjoy it though! After that it was time for dinner and sunset at Ayres Rock. Shawn cooked us a very nice meal in the car park, while the other more expensive tours sat drinking champagne!!! We didn't care! Unfortunatly there was no sunset though as it was a bit too cloudy. Oh well, the postcards show it all so who needs to see it!! We then headed into the middle of nowhere to set up our camp for the evening. We basically drove out into the desert and then just turned off the road down a little track and there we were, a little scary at first but was ok once we got the camp fire going and started toasting marshmallows! Our beds were what Aussie's call swags- a big sleeping bag with matress inside and so comf, better than a tent. I suggest everyone invest in one and noy just for camping purposes!!! Woke up at 5am to a sky full of stars and I mean millions of the things, which was good cos it meant it would be a good sunrise at Ayres Rock, which it was, veyr beautiful!! Then it was time for the walk around the base of the rock, not forgetting stopping at the cultural centre on the way to find out all about it! One girl was crazy enough to climb the rock, althoug she only made it half way. But that was still good going at its very very steep and only a little chain to help you along! Didn't really fancy it in the heat and also the Aborigines find it veyr disrespectful, so a little walk was fine by me, seeing some aborignal art on the way. We then spent the afternoon going along dirt tracks upto Kings Canyon. On the way we stopped to see a camels skeleton and collect part of our bush tucker dinner that evening- some bugs called Witchetty grubs (pic above). We cooked these on the camp fire and muched them, they tasted like peanut butter!! We also had camel for dinner too and I had Kangeroo a few days before- very adventurous!!! On our final day we visited Kings Canyon and by 9am we had completed the 2 1/2 hour walk around the rim of it which was pretty spectacular. After this we had the rest of the day to travel back to Alice Springs, going off road pretty much all the way which was laods of fun. Stopping at a creek in the afternoon for a well deserved swim after not showering for 3 days and being covered from head to toe in red dust, we were pretty gross!! So, it's been a great 3 days and I'm not in Alice Springs recovering from lots of early mornings and long walks. I got on my next trip in a couple of days, a 6 day tour from Alice Springs upto Darwin, so will provide you with plenty more reading material soon you lucky things!!!