On the road again - Central and North East Australia

Palya! (Said: 'Pal-e-a' - means hello in the Aboriginal language!)

Day 221: Work is finished; all packed up ready for room inspection and said goodbyes to some forever friends. To avoid things all weather hazardous, we decided to go to the middle of Australia – guaranteed sunshine! We booked to go with The Rock Tour company, 5 days on total. On the 1st Feb, we flew directly into Ayers Rock to miss out a 6 hour drive from Alice Springs. We chose correctly, the flight in and over Ayers Rock was amazing, like a private tour. Ayers Rock has a purpose built resort in the middle of the desert. It has 4 hotels, a few shops and one supermarket. A wierd place.

It was in the high 30 degrees to start and continued at around 40 degrees for the most of the trip. On walks, the shade brought a cooler relief at around 32. It was perfect weather to camp and that’s what we did! Our tour guide is a rustic fella and made us, every night, camp under the stars in swags huddled together. No complaint, it was a great experience.

The 1^st day we head out to Kata Kjuta. A gorge walk through a sacred part of the national park. Here we saw zebra finches, a good sign (to the Aboriginal people) that there is water nearby. We know a few tips how to survive in the Northern Territory desert including bush tucker. I wouldn’t count my chickens though. The air gets trapped in the gorge making the temperature nearly 50 degrees (no lie!) in the sun. It was the hottest we have been in our life, ever!! Slow movements made the sweat pour out – a lovely image. The tour guide made sure we carried 3 liters of water on walks. We then head to the magnificent Uluru (Ayers Rock) for the sunset and dinner.

Next morning we were awoken at 5am. Quick toilet break, brush teeth and head to Uluru for sunrise - yawn! The sunrise was much more spectacular making green, yellow and orange colours. We had a camp breakfast then off to explore Uluru. It was a 7km walk around the base, very flat and so quite easy. Half of the rock is scared so no pics. There is an Aboriginal tribe that still uses Uluru for ceremonies and meetings. There are cave paintings which the adults use to teach the young about the religion and stories. In the evening we had a camp fire (made of the wood we had to scavenge in the desert earlier), had bush bread, played games and gazed at the Southern Hemisphere constellations.

Day 3 we started early to take on the Kings Canyon. I understand now why it is named King, it was huge! We both agreed it was the most spectacular experience. I nearly fainted on the way up the mammoth canyon but Jon (with his dedicated sport mentality) just kept saying "positive mental attitude" and it got me up! We walked around the edge and made our way to the Garden of Eden. Wow. It was strange to see the oasis in the desert. An experience we will treasure forever.

We had to take a quick overnight pit stop in Sydney before making our way up the North East Coast.

On the 6th Feb we flew to Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays. This was just like flying over Fiji again. Crystal clear blue waters, dotted islands and sands banks. Beautiful. Upon arriving into Hamilton we had the most bizarre greeting. Hamilton is a luxury island, everyone drives golf buggies. A lady with microphone welcomed us and directed the small crowd to the luggage area and ferry terminal. A service we are not used to! The ferry trip to the mainland (Airlie Beach) took an hour. We settled into our hostels for a few days. In the North East waters there are box jellyfish, deadly creatures! So there is a purpose built lagoon next to the beach. No one goes on the beach or in the sea.
We were excited for our 2 night Whitsunday boat trip. We had pre-booked this 3 week trip through my work in Sydney so everything had been relaxing so far. Until the Whitsunday boat company called and cancelled our trip because cyclone Yasi had happened the week before and most roads were closed = no backpackers. There was no enough people on the boat to run the trip. So we called work and got a refund. Luckily (when in a internet cafe close to our hostel) the lady behind the counter shouted that she had a great deal. It turned out to be really great. Cheap and a bigger boat. We had to pack up and check-in within the hour!
It was called the SV Whithaven.
We helped with the masts and relaxed a lot. Snorkelling, eating and drinking was the itinerary, bliss. We visited many islands over the 2 days and visited the famous Whithaven Beach. White pure sands, bush walk and stingrays. It hurt our eyes because the sun reflected off the white sand. Saw a couple of huge spiders too. The crew were great and made our trip loads of fun. 2 days after the boat trip we still had land sickness with the feeling we were still at sea.

Out of Airlie Beach we caught the Greyhound Bus, this was our first experience. It was actually not bad. I wasn't expecting very much but the seats were comfy and a movie was played for us too! We headed to Townsville to visit Magnetic Island.

More on Magnetic Island and the rest of our 3 week holiday coming up soon! .....


xx