The red center

So we're back in alice springs, we were here once already, but we left and now we've returned! The drive from Townsville to Alice was immense. We worked out that in 6 days we covered over 2000 km, and it felt like it too. We had a couple of days off to try and recover from the driving, but ended up clocking up more K's heading out to the east and west Mcdonnels ranges to see some gorges and supossedly learn a little about aboriginal culture. We saw some rock drawings of catapillers that are thousands of years old, but got very little explanation of the storys behind them. Apparently some of the aboriginal dreamtime stories are so complicated that its not even worth trying to explain them (which we thought was a bit of a cop out).

On a more serious note for a change, since coming away from the east coast we've seen a lot more aboriginal people, they have communities that your not allowed to enter without permission (out in the middle of the bush), which is a shame, because by all accounts the aboriginies that you see in the towns are sometimes the more outcasts of the communities, and they have a lot of social problems, alcohol abuse and petrol sniffing are major problems, so much so that the government has just started introducing unsniffable petrol into the gas stations. The aboriginies that you see in the towns generally amble around seemingly with little or nothing to do (except get drunk or high) and look really deshelved, not quite the nomadic image that we had in our minds before arrival. It goes to show the damage that you can do to a community by trying to force them to live in a way they are not accustomed to.

That said there are many with regular jobs living in the towns with no problems at all, the one family that we have had any real contact with were nothing but nice. A car had broken down on the highway about 60k out of alice and we stopped to see if they needed any help. They basically had a flat tire, but the guy's spare did not fit onto the car. As such he'd removed the innertube from his spare and put it into his flat, and was then proceeding to pump the thing up by hand! We helped pump for a little while, but as the guy said he'd done it many times we eventually left them to it!

Anyhow, back to our travels. From Alice we headed onto Uluru (ayers rock) another 500k's to look at the big rock and the olgas. From the highway our first glimpse of the rock looked awsome (until we realised that we were looking at mount conner (a mistake that we think everyone must make). When we saw the actual Ayers Rock, it was much more impressive. The giant red rock makes you feel a little ant in comparison. We had a three day permit to explore the enormous national park and on our first day we drove out to watch our first sunset. On our second day, after watching a very cold and early sunrise, we went on a free guided ranger tour which was really good, as it explained the spiritual stories behind the sacred sites and also pointed out proper bush tucker grub (but hopefully we will never get that desperate!) After our tour we then walked around the base of ayers rock (about 3 hours) before driving onto Kata Tjuta (the olgas). The Olgas are quite different toi the giant rock, as they are 36 steep sided domes that have been eroded over millions of years, which Ad thought looked very similiar to a giant chocolate rice krispie cake! Bless him!

After our threes days exploring the park we drove onto Kings Canyon, which was absolutely brilliant, our best outdoor walk so far in Oz. It took us about 3.5 hrs to complete in the constant pouring rain, but to be hinest the crap weather just made it even more fun. During the walk we hid in caves for shelter and splashed through puddles along the way, enjoying all the waterfalls that most people never get the chance to see , as it rarely ever rains here. The walk took us around the rim (about 100m high) looking down at the Garden of Eden and Kings creek, it all looked stunning. The best bit of all though was when we walked around the last corner and suddenly realised that the only way back to old Brucie was to walk through a river! The river is always dry and the previous nights rain had caused tha walkway to completely flood. But hey- it was all good wet fun!

The drive back was a gallery of roadkill, on top of the usual, roo's and wallabies, we saw, dogs, cows and even a couple of horses! all good eating for the local eagles!

So, we're back in Alice and back for a special reason....The annual Camel Cup! Yep that's right- the biggest camel races in the whole of Oz. So excited! Watch this space to hear how we get on! (we're not racing, only watching)