Waking up at 4am is not fun. Fact. By this time Lou and I had realised it is best if we don't try and communicate with words when we first wake up and favour nods of acknowledgment and the occasional point instead. Apparently according to Lou (who is now the keeper of time and therefore the alarm) waking me up is not too fun as I usually look at her with utter confusion and the occasional frown and the morning of the tour was no different - sorry Lou! But we managed to get our stuff together in time and by 4.45am we were sitting on our bus with 20 other people in silent respect of the time of day.
We were thrown into the deep end by starting the day with a 6km hike/trek/pulling ourselves up by our arms walk around Kings Canyon which was spectacular. The first part of the climb was the worst as there was no shade and was constantly climbing upwards but we managed to make it to the top and by this time glowing slightly and a tad red in the face (me rather than Lou!) Walking along the top of the canyon was fun, though my heart did skip a few beats when Lou and I posed for photos on a jutting rock waaay above the gorge and then skipped a few more beats when lou clambered higher to get better photos. We continued our walk through to 'The Garden of Eden' and Lou and some of the others swam in the crystal clear water to cool off - simply paradise! After our day walk we were back on the bus and onwards to watch sunset whilst looking at Mount Connor (which we all mistook for Uluru). We finally arrived at our camp after a long day and was treated to a BBQ of camel and Kangaroo which was surprisingly tasty. That night we spent in swags, a massive sleeping bag with a mattress inside it, under the stars. The sky was so clear and I have never seen so many stars before in my life, I even saw some shooting stars which topped off a brilliant start to the trip.
Waking up at 3.40am is not too fun either and especially not for Lou as she had been bitten on the forehead in the night! We were off to see the rock in the center of Australia at sunrise. After watching sunrise we walked around the base of Uluru which was 11km, everyone was glad to do the walk in the (relative) cool of the morning before it got too hot. Uluru is breathtaking. By this time it was only 9am, but felt alot later and we headed off to Kata Tjuta to walk through another rock formation that looked like two domes. The walk on Walpa Gorge was about 2.6km - Lou and I have realised that we were really enjoying the walking and climbing which surprised us both! After lunch some of the group left as they were just doing Uluru and we were left with 3 girls and 11 guys. We got on really well as a group and it was fun to met people from different parts of the world. We spent a couple of hours chilling out in the pool at the campsite before heading back to Kata Tjuta viewing point where we could take in the 360degree view of Uluru and Kata Tjuta. We then headed back to Uluru for champagne aka sparkling fizz and sunset. We proceeded to spend the next hour taking funny photos with the rock, it was especially funny trying to get lou to look like she was lying down on the top. The best we could do was for Simon and I to hold her up which got a few stares from the other tourists!! Again the day ended with sleeping under the stars in our swags whilst trying to tune out Stonnes (a Canadian) snoring!
Another early morning greeted us but today was spent sleeping on the bus as we travelled to Coober Pedy. We stopped off at the Northern territory/southern border for photos ops and had to put our clocks an hour earlier. After our mini stop it was back in the bus for another long drive which was spent listening to Aussie Hip Hop (which we both loved!) and some questionable boy music. Barabra Streisland also became our group song and pepped us all up throughout the journey. We arrived at Coober Pedy at around 3ish and it was 40degrees with no wind. Coober Pedy is an opal mining town that is basically built underground with home and shop fronts on the surface and then everything else built downwards as it is cooler. We went on a tour of a disused opal mine. Whilst the lady was talking to us (and repeatedly telling us how deep we were) I noticed that Lou and gone a lovely shade of grey. She felt really claustrophobic, sick and dizzy so had to leave the tour half way to go back up to ground level :( Once the tour was finished and lou went back to her normal colour we went to a kangaroo sanctuary where we both got to hold a joey that was sooo cute. That night we went to the local underground bar and proceeded to get our group up and dancing. That night was spent sleeping in an underground bunker. Lou was alright with her claustrophobic as it was cut into a mountain rather than built downwards - phew!
The next day was another long day spent on the bus with a stop off at Glendambo Roadhouse which had a population of 30 people! We really were in the outback. We finally arrived at Quorn, a sleepy little town, in the Flinders Rangers and chilled out till dinner. Someone had the great idea of watching wolf creek as we were at the place where it was filmed. It was so scary to be watching the film in the middle of no where and both me and lou managed to scare ourselves silly whilst trying not to look to girly in front of the guys! The rest of the evening was spent chatting and listening to music - a very chilled out day.
We got to lie in till 8am this morning which felt like luxury! We still had to wake Ben our guide up though, but no one was fussed as he was a relaxed guy and made our tour really enjoyable. We took the bus to Flinders Rangers National Park and on route we stopped off Kanyaka Homestead Historical Site which was apparently famous for it's sheep shearing!? Our next stop was at an Aboriginal site called Yourabulla Caves where we saw some original aboriginal paintings. We were back on the bus for a drive to Wilpena pound resort which was the site of a meteorite hit (we think!) We were let loose into the wilderness by Ben and were told 'it's easy to find the lookout, just walk up there'. 45mins later we realised we were lost and quite literally wandering around in the outback. At this point some people in the group were like let's go this way and others wanting to go another way - again me and lou made references to the horror movie formula where the group splits up. Eventually we all decided to stick together and found the lookout point path. We had all simply walked past it! Once we reached the top we were a little disappointed as we were smack bang in the middle of the site and couldn't really get a real perspective on what we were looking back. That evening we had a random game of lawn bowls which was fun. Though Lou and I were rubbish at it! The old man in charge took a shine to Lou and creeped her out a bit, which I found funny. After our disastrous game we had a chilled out evening drinking our goon.mmm yummy!
Our last day of tour didn't start to well with the bus refusing to start up. It was funny as the guys pushed the bus onto the main street to try and give it a jump start but it failed miserably. Eventually the bus was fixed and we were on our way to our last hike 'Devil's Peak.' Climbing the mountain was one of the best experiences we had, the group was great and we all kept motivating each other and the views were spectacular. When we got to the top there was this massive crag we had to climb up, luckily as I had longer legs I managed to get a good foot hold and scramble up. Lou on the other hand couldn't pull or climb up and had to be hauled onto the top rock by Rudi and Marcel, which was funny to watch! We reached the peak and everyone chilled out and sat in silence just taking in our surroundings (and trying to get our breath back!) Was truly a memorable experience! The way down was just as fun and probably a little harder - my tactic was to slide down most of the mountain on my bum - a slow but successful solution. Lou on the other hand was far faster and was one of the first down the mountain. Unluckily for her she was waiting at the bottom with millions of biting ants who took a shining to her red trainers. It was funny seeing her trying to shake them off her shoes whilst in the bus!
That night we arrived in Adelaide and went out for a last group drink together. Lou and I were staying by the beach so had to get the tram into the city. We thought we would take some drink on the tram with us but later found out this is illegal - we were lucky we weren't caught as they are quite strict about this - oops! Once out we had fun dancing the night away and even going on a bucking bronco in a deserted club! A fun end to an amazing 6 days! We are glad we got to see a different part of Australia that some people leave out altogether, and met some great people along the way.
Going to be continuing the writing soon as I am sooo far behind with this blog. Next installment will be Adelaide to Sydney part of the trip....
Hope you are all ok at home and a tad warmer now!
Lot's of love
Steph and Lou
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