Adrian's Excellent Adventure: Adventures in the Outback

As you already know (well, if you've actually been reading my blog), my first five weeks in Australia were spent on a tour of the East Coast. While I had a great time hiking, exploring the beaches, etc, I couldn't help but feel like I could just as easily have been in California or Florida (well, except for the Kangaroos and Koalas). After reading some enthusiastic facebook status updates from travelers I met in New Zealand who arrived in Australia before me, I decided to travel into Australia's center. There I would be able to experience the "real" Australia (the outback) and visit the Australian icon Uluru (also known as Ayer's Rock), along with Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) and King's Canyon.

Immediately after stepping off the plane in Alice Springs I noticed some significant differences from my last destination, Cairns: first off, the cloudy sky was replaced by a clear blue, and while it was hot there was no humidity! After arriving at my hostel, I spent the entire rest of the day exploring the bustling metropolis that is Alice Springs. Hah, I jest: Alice Springs is a tiny town, and it's only real claim to fame (and reason for its continued existence) is that it's the closest city to Uluru (even though it's about a 5 hour drive away). My tour of the city took a whole 55 minutes, and much of that was spent browsing in a souvenir shop.

With that out of the way, I was able to return to the hostel, go for a run, and then spend a chill evening catching up on emails and my blog. The next morning I woke up at the crack of dawn (that's a lie, it wasn't even dawn yet) aka 5:30 AM, groggily ate breakfast, and then shuffled onto the bus and quickly fell asleep. When I wasn't sleeping or reading, I happily stared out the window at the Australian outback - the dirt was a deep red, and was dotted with green grass and shrubs. Gorgeous, and very peaceful: I could have stared out the window for hours - oh wait, I did! After 5 1/2 hours of traveling, includiing a stop for camel rides, a stop at a gas station with pet Emus, and a stop at a liquor store which charged exporbitant prices because it knew it was the only beer option within 100km, we made it to our campsite.

After a quick lunch, we headed to Kata Tjuta, also known as the Olgas. I dozed off, and then woke up just as we pulled up, so I was suddenly confronted with a huge mass of domes rising from the desert into the sky. Very cool. After an enjoyable but sweaty hike we hustled back to the bus to go to the official "Uluru sunset viewing spot", a parking lot where the sun set behind us, and cast its rays onto Uluru, which was in front of us. As the sun set, it turned Uluru a bright red, which was great to watch.

We then returned to our campsite, cooked dinner, and then sat around the campfire and watched as the stars came out. Since this was a "Bush Experience" (aka "budget") tour, we slept under the stars in Swags, which are a combination between a sleeping pad and a coccoon, which you put a sleeping bag into. It was very cool to spend the night under the stars like this, even if my back let me know it was less than pleased the next day.

The next morning we slept in until 10 AM and had a leisurely breakfast of bacon, eggs, and hash browns. Hah, once again I jest: we actually got up at 5 AM so we could eat a quick breakgfast of toast and ceral, then hit the road to make it to Uluru in time for sunrise. Next we hiked Uluru. While there was the option to hike up Uluru (and you know how I like climbing things), the Aboriginal people request that you do not do this because it is a sacred area for them (only their elders hike up Uluru, and then only in special ceremonies), so I decided to respect their wishes and hiked around Uluru's base instead. This hike was very cool, as we were able to see some areas where the Aborigines had ceremonies and left some cave paintings, and also because I could observe the different textures of Uluru: rather than being uniform, in some places it was smooth, other places it was wavy, and in others it was pitted with holes, one set of which I was convinced looked like Darth Vader.

After the hike we hopped back into the bus, and promptly fell asleep while our bus driver Cara took us to our next destination, King's Canyon. We arrived at our campsite, had dinner, built another fire, chatted over beers, and toasted some marshmallows (where I attempted futilely to convince my fellow travelers that there was a better method for toasting a marshmallow than simply sticking it into the flames and setting it on fire). Once again we slept under the stars. This time I was woken up several time to the howling of dingoes. It was an incredibly beautiful sound and I really enjoyed hearing it, especially because I could tell that the howling dingoes were quite far away.

This day we were allowed to sleep in a full half hour, and didn't have to wake up until 5:30. Whooo! We went on a hike through King's canyon which was also gorgeous, culminating in a quick dip in a watering hole at the top of the hike. Well, actually, I was the only one willing to brave the waters at first, and then was followed by one other person on my tour - the rest of the people, including several other tour groups, simply weren't willing to go for a swim at 9AM (when it was still quite chilly out). Luckily, I'd been trained in the cold waters of Maine in the summer, and the even colder waters of Occom pond for the Polar Bear Swim every winter in college, so I didn't have any problems with this water.

And sadly, and much to quickly, it was time for the trip to come to an end. We had a fun bus ride back, punctuated by a bus-wide participation in the "Weet-Bix challenge" (The Australian equivalent of the Saltine challenge), and then got dropped back to Alice Springs. While it was far too quick, I had a blast on the trip, and really enjoyed my visit to Australia's center. It was definitely well worth it to make the trip down to the center.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for: picture time!