THAT rock and marvelous sea mammals

Well g'day again!

So we got to Alice Springs and it turned out that a few of the guys from the last coach were on the same bus as me out of there. Namely Paul, Charlotte, her boyfriend Simon and Rowland. Hi guys! I also met Kate in my dorm room. Lovely lady from London-way who was on career break too and had just finished exploring Western Australia and had been to Thailand before that.

We explored Alice Springs the next morning (which really didn't take long) and caught up on chores (ie laundry) - I declared war on my live-in bug and we left Alice Springs at the ridiculous hour of 05.15am two nights later. That was the morning we met Marie - who was with me for the next 3 buses. She is a travel agent from Skipton! Lovely girl (as are the rest of the bunch). She had just finished Western Australia too so had a lot of reminscing with Kate.

On the first afternoon it got a little warm. Well, hot. Ok, muggy at 40 degrees C!!!! But that was just at the start of our King's Canyon walk. By the end of the 2 hours, the strategically placed thermometer (complete with cowboy hat?! Why?) declared it was a staggering 50 degrees!!! There was one part of the canyon called the Garden of Eden - well, if it was that hot there no wonder Adam and Eve walked around starkers!! ;)

But that was just the beginning of the early starts. For the following two days we had to be up at 4am - yes, 4AM!!!! That is not a natural time to be up in the morning - not for a human anyway! I didn't mind it the first day as we had a good reason: to see sunrise at Uluru. But by the second day we'd seen that and the excuse it was to get travelling across the miles to get to Coober Pedy just didn't wash with me. We could easily have been up 3 hours later and just arrived a bit later (ie early evening instead of late afternoon). I think our guide Laura just liked to see us suffer! ;)

What can I say about Uluru? Well WOW would be the first word that comes to mind. This was by far my fave location in Oz (apart from Cape Trib). Despite the fact that it was so dry my eyeballs dried up (painful let me tell you - I was fine first thing in the morning but by mid-afternoon I couldn't read or look at much), I really enjoyed the day. We raced to see the sunrise (see bottom photo above and middle photo on previous entry) and were flabbergasted to find row upon row of people defending their strategic viewing spots at 05.45! Still, we got a good view. Then it was a 2.5 hour walk around the base, on which I was accompanied by Marie and we had a wonderful chinwag all about holistic remedies and spirituality - a fitting topic for such a sacred place. Parts of it are so sacred that they don't allow photography in these areas: even though if you took a photo from afar and that part was included they don't seem to mind?! Ok.

You can climb it if you so desire, however, the aborigines prefer you not to because it is a sacred site - and also because it's dangerous and some people have died trying. There's only a metal guide rail to half-way up. Some people on the bus did want to climb it but thankfully it was closed due to high winds. How disrepectful! Really, if they don't want people climbing it, they should take the rail down!

We also visited the rock formation called The Olgas, or Kata Tjuja which were also pretty impressive, before venturing on to the Aborignal Cultural Centre which told some of the creation stories of Uluru. Fascinating - would have been even more interesting if I could have read any of it without weeping - and no I wasn't over-emotional, just in pain from my eyes! Thankfully Paul gave me some of his saline solution for his contact lenses when we got back to camp. Thanks Paul, you're a lifesaver!

We slept in 'swags' - basically a huge canvas sleeping bag with a surprisingly comfy mattress inside. You place a normal sleeping bag inside this. I was dubious at first - particularly as so many of Australia's native insect population can kill you, however, my fears were unfounded and I had 2 wonderful nights of slumber. Apart from Kate waking me up and telling me to turn over. I spent 10 mins wondering why she did that and then realised I must have been snoring. It became a running joke. Well my sinuses were playing up again - I couldn't help it!

Other highlights of that journey included Coober Pedy - the opal mining town where most building are built under the ground. Many films have been filmed there including 'Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome' and 'Pitch Black' - mainly because the desert landscape outside the town looks like an alien moonscape. We even spotted a derelict spaceship from the 'Pitch Black' set in someone's front yard! We had a tour round an opal mine and stayed in dorms that were built into the side of rock. At least it was cool. We also stopped off at a salt lake en-route too - a vast expanse of white: another alien landscape. Didn't see any UFOs though...

Our last stop was Parachilna which had a guest house and pub. It was where they filmed part of 'The Rabbit-Proof Fence' - and it was a small part too: the bit where one of the sisters gets re-captured. The pub owner was nice and leant me a cowboy hat for the evening - the creepy thing was that he knew my name!! I don't like that.... he seemed like a nice bloke though. Still, he knew my name!!?

There was one Swiss guy on the bus whom all the girls fancied called Julian - he was drop-dead gorgeous though. Had a girlfriend back home. The other Swiss Julien was a top guy too. He liked Reggae and got the entire bus singing to 'I Can See Clearly Now the Rain Has Gone' - it was so uplifting! The funny thing was, he lives near Morges near Lake Geneva - that is close to where Audrey Hepburn lived. :) He's only 19 but likes to do a lot of volunteer work re-planting rainforests and is very free thinking. I liked him a lot. He plays digeridoo extremely well too. A man of many talents. Top lad.

Then we hit Adelaide and one of the nicest hostels so far: the YHA. Fabulous kitchen, clean, spacious 6-bed dorm (large spaces between top and bottom bunks too - bliss!) and FREE pancakes for breakfast on Friday mornings. What more could a girl want?! You could go up for second helpings and there was even free icing sugar, Nutella or maple syrup too. Yum. I could quite hapilly have stayed in that hostel. They also had the Super Buzz Global phone cards too - the ones that give you 17 hours of calling time to the UK!! So naturally I bought another one.

Highlights of Adelaide included the amazing sand sculpture that took 5 artists and several weeks to construct (see middle photo), meeting a lovely English girl called Helen in my dorm who enlightened me to the lucrative world of Reiki for horses (apparently it's BIG business - something to think about when I get home), seeing the new James Bond film 'Casino Royale' with new Bond Daniel Craig (and yes, I'm ashamed to say he does a very good job, although I still don't think his face quite fits) and going swimming with dolphins off the coast of Adelaide beach suburb Glenelg. Well, I didn't actually make it into the water but I'm glad I didn't as I got much better views from the side of the boat (see top photo).

I must say a big hello to my good Canadian friend Justin too - I promise I will learn the flags of the world's countries before we meet again! ;) You put me to shame. I hope you're onward travels are going well.

Anyway, back to the dolphins. It was snorkelling again and you know my track record with that. Needless to say I got kitted in my wetsuit and was ready (even though snorkelling mask still too big for my tiny mush) and was told to hang back last so I was closest to the boat. The first 2 times the dolphins came near I got nowhere near the water as the closer they get, the crew stop you going in so as not to disturb them. The third time I dipped my legs in but the same thing happened so I took that as a sign. As it was, the view from the front of the boat was just amazing and the rest of the swimmers didn't get to see any of that as they were dangling off the back of the boat.

What amazing creatures. I thought that whales had overtaken dolphins as my fave sea creatures after Byron Bay and Kaikoura but I was sorely mistaken. Wow. They are so graceful and beautiful. They played with the boat and some of them flapped their flippers further away as if to say come over here and play! I got some fantastic film footage, which sadly you can't upload to a blog, but I'll show you all when I get home.

I liked Adelaide. Many travellers don't like it but I thought it was lovely and small and homely. I even had some reflexology too in a bid to clear my sinuses - just $25 for an hour and a half! Bargain. It was at a college though. Still good though. I ended up buying antihistimine tablets after Sudafed failed. Didn't do a whole lot of good though. Reflexology worked for a day or so.

Anyway, it was time to hit the road Jack on the next leg: Adelaide to Melbourne.

Tatty-bye for now.

x