Within a few minutes of landing the Red Centre turned into the Upgrade Centre. Our rental car was upgraded from 'the cheapest model you have that fits 2 people' to a cool 4WD with cruise control. Later our free room at the Crowne Plaza (booked with points - thank you ClickSoftware) was upgraded to a suite. A few days later our backpacker's room in Uluru was converted into a pool-side hotel room. Yep, good things were happening.Alice Springs was also the first place we saw many Aboriginal people. It was quite interesting and disturbing at the same time. Looking from the outside it seemed they co-exist in the same place as the other Aussies, but are somehow invisible to them. We wondered around the many art galleries searching for dot paintings. It was quite confusing because there were so many interesting pieces (some of them waaaayyyy out of our price range).
While exploring the MacDonnell range we were introduced to another feature of the Red Centre (in this time of the year).
Big annoying flies that like to sit on your face. We bought some strange 'jungle' nets for the rest of the trip so they won't annoy us. On the way back we encountered the huge Perentie lizzard, the biggest in Australia. It was more than 2 meters long and was hanging out in the middle of the road. We took the world's worst video of it (the sounds in the background is Anita screaming when the Perentie turned around and started running towards the car).After Alice Springs we drove to Kings Canyon. Only by driving, can one really understand the meaning of 'middle of nowhere'. The roads go on and on. There are no towns and the petrol stops are spread out so far we practically had to stop at each one.
It was surprising to see how green some parts are, it's not really a desert out here. The rains of the last few days flooded some roads, but most have already dried up. Unfortunately, a dirt road short-cut we wanted to take was closed so our 4WD was not put to the test. We had a nice view of the Canyon at sunset and went to bed early.
We woke up early the next day and set out to walk around the rim of the canyon. We started before the sun rose as temperatures on the top can reach 45 degrees easily. The colours of the rocks changed as the sun rose. We broke the hike in the Garden of Eden - a small waterhole in the canyon and Oren took a nice swim inside.
After the walk we drove (around 300km) in the direction of Uluru. On route, we saw Fooluru, Mount Conner, which is often confused with Uluru and hence the name.
After we arrived in the tiny 'town/resort' we went on a short camel trip to see the natural phenomena from a distance. The camels were brought to Australia in 1840. They were used to transport goods accross the land and when the goverment did not need them anymore they were supposed to be 'terminated'. Instead, their owners released them and they have now become a pest - around one million wild camels live in Australia (we saw a couple from the road one day).
The next day, at 5:15 sharp, we headed for a walk around the rock. Our guide was really good and gave us loads of information about the culture and customs of the Aboriginals. We finally felt we were able to learn a bit about them. The rock exceeded our expectations - every angle provided something new and the strong red patterns kept changing as we walked the 10km trail.
No comments:
Post a Comment