May 18, 2001 - Friday - Alice Springs
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| View from the air - The Outback - Northern Territory, Australia |
It was a groggy morning when I boarded the shuttle to the airport. After going to the counter to change my tickets and such, I finally got everything straightened out and was only way to Alice Springs.
I didn't know what to expect in the Outback. The only exposure I had was from the movie - Precilla, Queen of the Desert. My first impression while glancing out of the plane was just vast and dry. Endless flat land with sparse vegetation and virtually no water. We landed in a surpringsly chilly Alice Springs. The area surrounded Alice was very desert-like with dry scrub bushes and high bare mountains. Not much vegetation was around and the riverbed was mostly dry. The clear blue skies with this backdrop reminded me of Arizona.
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| View from the air - The Outback - Northern Territory, Australia |
I checked into Melanka's Backpackers and went off to take a look around town. There weren't much here except for a small collection of shops and stores. I went to the 6:00 meeting for the Northern Adventure tour and then went back to the hostel and met up with Brett, an Aussie roommate of mine and Jim, a Korean. We chatted for a while, mostly just Brett and I and we went out to the pub after that and hung out for a while.
Brett explained the Aussie Ruled Footy to me and it was fairly interesting. We headed back to the hostel after that and turned in.
May 19, 2001 - Saturday - King's Canyon
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| Camel farm outside Alice Springs, Australia |
We headed off early this morning - I was in bus #3 and when I got on the bus, all I could see were old people and I wasn't too impressed. We were told to be at the bus by 6:15 but due to congested check out and a slight lack of organization, we didn't get out until 7:00. We soon got on our way in complete darkness and most people went to sleep.
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| Gathering wood on the way to King's Canyon, Australia |
I woke up in time to see a beautiful sunrise and two hot air balloons flying majestically into the chilly morning air. The landscape was pretty much the same through out the whole trip. It was just plain desert-like landscape with scrubs and sparse trees and rocks. I fell back asleep again after that and woke up when we got to a camel farm.
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| Pink chested parrots - King's Canyon, Australia |
Some people went on and rode the camel for A$4, which wasn't too bad. We left after fueling up and continued on to King's Canyon. On the way there, we stopped in the middle of nowhere and gathered firewood for our camp. I wonder if nature replenishes enough for all the tours gathering wood everyday. Eventually, it will run out like all other natural resources if the consumption is left unchecked.
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| King's Canyon, Australia |
We stopped by a resort outside the canyon and they had huge picnic areas for people to use so we stopped at one to grilled some chicken patties for lunch. There were some parrots with pink chest grazing on the grounds there. After lunch, which we actually had to prepare ourselves as a group and clean up as a group, we went to the canyon.
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| Flowering succulent - King's Canyon, Australia |
The canyon was impressive, but it still can't compare to the Grand Canyon. There were impressive rock formations with every shades of red to tan to brown covering the rocks. I even saw a lizard but it wasn't the Thorny Devil. There were also some cold weather succulents blooming in the cold chilly air.
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| A Lizard - King's Canyon, Australia |
The whole hike took us a few hours to complete and we got back in the bus after that and headed to our camp. Back at the camp, we started a nice campfire in a pit area and other people chopped food and cooked food. The food was eventually cooked on top of the campfire with the coal and it turned out pretty good.
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| Garden of Eden - King's Canyon, Australia |
We sat around the campfire and played a few games and toasted some marshmallows before heading to sleep. It was COLD there - bone chilling actually with the temperature dipping down to the single digits Celsius.
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| Bon fire at the camp - Alex cooking with it - King's Canyon, Australia |
We soon rolled out our "Swag", which is pretty much a canvas bag with a small foam mattress inside and put our sleeping bags inside and slept under the stars. It was quit a cold night and I only have the small portion around my eyes open to the elements. The fire crackled and I soon fell asleep.
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