Alice Springs and the Outback

Thursday morning I flew from Adelaide to Alice Springs. On the plane leaving Adelaide, I had a very good view of the city and was very surprised at how big it actually is. I think the suburbs around Adelaide are very big, and the downtown area is just small. Alice Springs is tiny. It's in the Northern Territory, and is about in the middle of the country. The airport is also tiny, probably the smallest I've been in. It's a little outside the city, and coming in, I couldn't see the city at all. I walked around Alice a bit that night, but there wasn't much to see. They do have a lot of art galleries filled with aboriginal art.

Friday morning I was up bright and early, to go on a 3 day Outback Safari that left at 6 am. There were 23 people on the tour, from all over the world. I was the only American on the trip. We left Alice Springs and drove to the National Park where Ayer's Rock is. Before going to Ayer's Rock, we first went to Kata Tjuta, or The Olgas. Kata Tjuta is a rock formation, and is an important spiritual location for the aboriginal people. We hiked around and in Kata Tjuta, a 4 km hike. We then went to Uluru, or Ayer's Rock to watch the sunset. The rock is an orangy color but changes color as the sun sets. After watching the sun set, we went to our camp site for the night. We slept outside in what's called swag. Swag are like big sleeping bags made of canvas that have a matress inside, and you put your sleeping bag inside and then zip it up. There's a flap that covers your head if needed, and they are actually pretty warm, which is good as it got pretty cold during the nights.

Saturday morning we woke up very early again to watch the sunrise at Uluru. The rock again changes color with the sunrise. After that, we walked around the whole base, which is 10 km. Uluru is actually one solid rock, and it's huge. It's a very spiritual place for the aboriginal people, and there are even places that you aren't allowed to take pictures of, because it's so important and sacred to them. After the walk, we went to a cultural center to learn more about the aboriginal people. We spent the rest of the day driving to our next campsite, where we again slept in swag.

Sunday morning we hiked Kings Canyon. It was a 7 km hike, and was very steep in places, as we hiked to the top of the mountain and then around the outside of the canyon. It was a very very hard hike, but the views of the canyon were great. It's a very deep canyon, and some of the walls were completely smooth. After the hike, we had a 5 hour drive back to Alice Springs. That night, the whole group went out to dinner in Alice Springs as a last goodbye.

On Monday, my plan was to see Alice Springs, but I saw the majority of it on Thursday, and as it was in the mid 90's, it was too hot to walk around for a long time, so I hung out in the hostel with some of the new friends I made on the tour.

Today, Tuesday, I flew back to Melbourne, and immediately started washing clothes, as all my clothes were covered in red dust, and smelled like campfire smoke from the fires we had both nights. Tomorrow, I head to Tasmania for a week!