So it has been pointed out by a few people now that we have been a bit lazy with our blog writing, as it is raining here I have decided to update as much as possible to fill you all in with our oz adventures. Arriving in Brisbane on the 5th December we were greeted with rain which we trekked through, as for some reason we decided to ignore the advice of the train lady as to where our hostel was! We soon settled in our room and were excited to meet our new roomies...who did their best to make us feel UNwelcome by pretty much ignoring us even when we tried to make conversation - not the welcoming we were expected. Anyways we were looking forward to exploring Brisbane, but the rain seemed to have different ideas making us hostel bound for awhile. At this point Lou and I were getting a tad depressed and both got teary to our mums via skype (sorry mums) as oz wasn't what we expected (it was cold and rainy people!) In the end we cheered ourselves up by booking a tour to the center. We did spend some of our time wandering around seeing the sights but to be honest our hearts weren't really in it. One highlight though was ladies night at our hostel which included free cocktails, strippers and men dressed in dresses - a funny night that lifted our spirits for a while. All in all Brisbane was not the place for us, maybe in summery climates we might of liked it a tad more but who knows!
We flew out of Brisbane to Alice Springs and the sunshine with 40 degree heat and immediately our mood perked up! Alice is an odd little place with a town that you can explore in 10 minutes, we however felt the need to hire bikes to cycle along the 'river' and when we saw there was a tandem we thought why not! We took the tandem for a practise ride around the hostel car bike (unknown to us being watched and laughed at by the aussies!) but Lou hated it at the front of the bike so we swapped around with her at the back, this was worse though as in her words 'I don't like looking at your back and with you in control of the brakes and steering.' So after faffing some more we got our own bike each and proceeded to cycle along the river path. Now I know I said river but after about 10minutes we realised this was a loose term for a river that once ran through the town and has now been dried up for ages - so not really alot to see. Also hiring bikes in 40degree heat has not been our wisest decision as we both couldn't cope and had to stop alot to drink water. All in all a funny trip out but not alot seen or done!
The next day we went on a day trip out with two aussie guys we had met a the hostel (Lou had agreed to this trip when I was in bed - they seemed normal enough...) We drove to Tephina Gorge but on the way we had to abandon the car as the rivers had flooded, so we waded through and continued the drive on foot. Along the way we met some locals who had their caravan stuck in one of the many rivers, so the guys helped to dig them out whilst Lou and I took pictures and tried not to talk about horror movies. We continued our walk and then came across another man stuck so we all had to give him a push start. Finally we reached the gorge trail and began our hike. Once at the top we could see the amazing views and had our picnic lunch overlooking the gorge which was spectacular. We survived our day trip out and yet again done something we didn't think we would of done on our own.
We were picked up for the tour in the wee hours of the morning and begun the next part of the journey from Alice to Adelaide...
Going to be writing the next part very soon, but need to go and get Lou's diary as I have sort of stopped doing mine and my memory is not that great.
Lots of love
Steph and Lou x x x
