Outback Adventures Australia, wiiiii!!!

[ by Stian ]

It's time for the serious business of our Australia adventure and for what I have been looking the most forward to for this part of the world tour – namely The Australian Outback:) The expectations were high. You see, when I go to a new country I always want to experience the parts that I feel are the genuine experience of that particular country – and as Tangoriro National Park would have been that experience in New Zealand, the Outback is its Australian equivalent. A lot of people have questioned why we don't do more beaches while in Australia, but beaches we find everywhere in the world – but only Australia has this kind of outback so the priority this time was an easy one;)

ADELAIDE

Adelaide is the 5th largest city of Australia with a population of 1,23 million people according to the 2011 census. The city was founded in 1836 as the planned capital for a freely settled British province in Australia. It is the gateway to the Australian outback and most outback-travelleres do pass this city at one point. So naturally you would kinda expect something of a city like this, right?

We arrived Adelaide Saturday afternoon. First impression was not of the better kind to be honest. The driver of the bus from airport was rude when I tried to pay with a 50 AUD-bill, lecturing me that they don't accept bills of that denomination. It turned out that it was a regular city-bus and not an airport shuttle which had been the case every single previous time we have traveled back and forth to an airport. He could have just asked me for something smaller instead of being an ass – well at least it was a very Norwegian welcome to Adelaide (I'm not impressed with busdrivers in Norway either to say). 

When in Adelaide we got the impression of it being a very gray and quiet city, and Victoria square, which is the main square, is really nothing to write about. It reminded me of a deserted city and we realized that we were really glad that we didn't do our original plan of actually staying in Adelaide for a few days. I bet there are nice parts in this town as well – but whereabout? They did have a food market, but it closed 5 minutes after we got there... so we only had a pretty ok dinner at Sushi Train close to Chinatown before we found our way to the bus. Later we talked to several other people that had stayed in Adelaide for a few days and they did inform us that there is really nothing to see or to do there (other than going to Kangaroo Island). Even though, days like that are sometimes necessary to be able to catch up on life back home or to just relax, without having the feeling that you really should have done something instead of being lazy;)  

Greyhound Busride 

Greyhound does not have a very good reputation, so I was not looking forward to a 20-something hours busride. We would be traveling a total distance of 1532 km - thats like Trondheim-Oslo THREE times, and we are doing it all in ONE day! Hopefully I would be able to get some sleep on the bus since I only slept for very few hours the night before. A Greyhound bus is just like an ordinary Norwegian long-distance bus, but worse – even Lavprisekspressen in Norway feels like a better option. So you can imagine traveling for that many hours in a worse bus than the Norwegian couches... not ideal. At least we got each our double seat by ourselves, not having to share with anyone. We later got to learn that they do keep buses in business for 25 years before they are removed from the roads.

At the very beginning of the ride, I got in touch with two Danish girls – and then a third Danish girl, Lea from Copenhagen:) I only talked very shortly with the first two girls – and they had a stopover at Coober Peedy as well, that is the underground mining town right in between Adelaide and Alice Springs, a stopover we could have had as well hadn't it been for the other tour we wanted to go on was fully booked. Well well. So they left us in the middle of the night, but I connected really well with Lea and chance would have it so that we actually had booked the same hostel in Alice Springs as well. So we would be getting to see a lot of each other. Lea had even booked the same Rock-tour, with the same company, as well – only that her tour departed on Wednesday, while ours departed on Monday, but bookings are like itineraries – made for changing;)  

I and Kenneth had actually originally planned to rent a car – one of those with beds that you can sleep in you know – and drive by ourselves from Adelaide to Alice Springs and then on to Darwin. We were though told on almost every hold, both by Aussies we met in New Zealand, Norwegians back home in Norway, and people in Sydney and Melbourne, that we were CRAZY to do that. People claimed that the roads are horrible, so we would definitely need a 4WD. If anything would happend to us it might not be another car passing by for the next 3 days, and we would definitely not have cellphone-reception, and there would be like almost no gas-stations on the road. The heat would also be unbearable and so many foreigners have died doing this trip:-/  

Well I don't know, but I had a completely different experience. With the busride we had stops and breaks ALL THE FUCKING TIME! It was pretty annoying actually. It seemed to be gas stations and small cafés all over the place. The road was pretty ok and we were told they put asphalt on it only a few years back, and at some of the stops we did we even had mobile reception even with our lousy Vodaphone subscriptions. There were plenty of cars and road trains passing us all the time. So the scare-stories didn't have roots in reality to say it in an awkward Norwegian way. But it was nice to just slack on the bus as well, not having to think of the roads – cause the roads are BOOOOOOOOOOOOORING!!!! They go straight forward and NEVER seem to end for many many hours. The only change in scenery is the amount of dead kangaroos along the road. Dead kangaroos were pretty much the only wildlife we did see as well – except for some wild camels, alive ones. During daytime nowdays its so hot that the animals stay put in the shade and do not move. So I was kinda a disappointed cause I had hoped to see flocks of kangaroos jumping along the road – you know like you see in the movies, but movies are never reflecting how reality is though, but I had a slight hope anyways;) haha.

ALICE SPRINGS

Alice Springs is a small city located right in the center of Australia's outback. The small city is the only city in Australia of any significance that is named after a woman. There is a population of about 25 200 in the city and it is located almost exactly equidistantly between Adelaide and Darwin. The city is commonly referred to as The Alice, or just Alice, though the place is known as Mparntwe, by the indigenous people originating from this area.

When arriving in Alice Springs it was easy to find our hostel – but WOW it was hot!!!! The 15 minutes it took us to walk from where we were dropped off until we got to the hostel felt like forever almost. We booked into Toddy's in Alice, which was supposed to have been awarded the best hostel in the Northern Territory, according to their online webpage. By now we have learned that we should not take this kind of information very seriously because this hostel was by far not very good at all. Only positive thing is that the staff was very friendly. Otherwise the reception closed at 7:30pm, so I didn't get wi-fi when i wanted too :( The kitchen closed at 10:30 pm as well – and we also had to pay a deposit to be able to use kitchenware. The toilets and showers were to far away from some of the rooms as well, and it didn't help that the last two nights we stayed there we shared a 8 bed dorm with two pretty crazy guys that obviously must have been mentally damaged by some kind of chemicals, probably related to their works as glas-cutters or whatever they now did again... The temper of the one worried me a bit, but it was only his mate that he argued with though...

As a city I liked Alice Springs alot! The first impression of Alice was the complete opposite of the one we had of Adelaide. Even though the temperature was around 34°C in the shade we went for a walk to get the feeling of the city. First of all we had to drop by the tour-company to «check-in» for our pre-booked Rock-tour the following day. Lea joined us and after having had a chat with the lovely Dutch tour-operator, Diane, Lea got her tour changed so she could join ours instead. Wiiiiiii, both I and Kenneth were very pleased with that choice, cause we had gotten to like Lea a lot already by now:) I am sure faith wanted us to meet Lea so getting her on our tour as well was just perfect:)

Then we continued on to the main pedestrian street in Alice Springs, Todd Mall, which is a very cute street with heeps of galleries and shops with Aboriginal art. I think I managed to drop by almost all of them while I was in Alice – but I still could not find a piece of art that matched the one I fell for while in Melbourne, so now I REALLY DO regret that I did not purchase that painting. I did notice that the gallery I unfortunately did not get to drop by had a much larger painting in the front display by the same artist, Tarissa King, but this one cost around $6000 AUD. This gallery was only open by request it said on the front door, but what would the point be really, cause I could never afford to buy paintings that expensive anyways. 

We then headed for the Anzac Hill, which is a small hill with a lookout on the top where we would be able to get a good view of the city. Next we headed for the supermarket and to finish off the evening we had a great, though expensive, dinner at The Overlander Steakhouse. I just really wanted to taste well prepared kangaroo and other typical Australian cuisine so thats why we decided to go there, even though the prices was a bit stiff. Then again – It was also Kenneth's birthday the day after so it was a nice occasion to treat oneself to a bit more expensive and finer meal;) Of course they didn't have a proper combination plate, so I ended up having a crocodile pastry for entrée and medium done kangaroo filet for main course. It turned out that the entrée would have been enough – and the crocodilemeat tasted really really good:) The kangaroo filet was very nicely done and tender – much better than the steak I once had in Berlin at least:) We also got a free glass of wine since we had a voucher from Toddy's hostel. Well free wine or not – it did turn out to be the most expensive dinner I have had on my journey so far - $62 AUD, which is about 350 NOK. Though when I switch back to Norwegian brain, then it doesn't seem so expensive anyways, haha;) Btw, the waiter was a really cute young guy as well. Just adorable, and he had even studied in Denmark for 10 months so he spoke Danish with Lea easily, but he didn't understand Norwegian very well though;) 

PRESENTING THE ROCK-TOUR TEAM!!!

We headed home early since we had to get to bed «early» and since we had to pack for the next day. We were to be picked up at 06:10 in the morning... well at least I got to bed at a decent time so I had at least gotten to rest somewhat before our departure:) After being picked up we met the rest of the group we were to spend the following 3 days with, and also the tour guide. The tour guide, Myles, instantly seemed like a very very likeable guy – and I also found him a bit cute as well – haha, though he was obviously not playing on my team unfortunately;) Our group consisted of 20 people. 2 Norwegians (that would be us), 4 Danish girls (Lea, Sandie, Kirsten and Maria), 2 Italians (Laura & Nick, married couple), 1 French-Portugese guy (Nelson), 1 German guy (Christian), 2 Chinese (Shirley and Hongda, traveled separately), 2 Canadian girls (Taylor and Kala, schoolmates), 2 French girls (Cindie and Corinne, traveled separately) and 4 South-Koreans (2 couples). So it was a nice variety of people. I was probably one of the oldest though – but thats ok. They all believed I was 23 anyways:) Even the tourguide was younger than me, only 26... well well;)

AYERS ROCK = YULARA = ULURU

The Rock-Tour is basically a tour were we visit all the major rocks close to Alice Springs. The first one we would be visiting was Ayers Rock, which now is called by it's Aboriginal name: Yulara OR Uluru :) After driving for more than 5 hours and 450 km we finally arrived at Uluru which is located in the aboriginal lands of Pitjantatara and Yankuntatara but was the home of the Aboriginal clan of the Anungi-people. Within Australia there is more than 200 different aboriginal lands, and they all have their small differences, which one can see through their artwork. All together there are more than 300 different groups of people and dialects spread out through these lands. Uluru is though the most important place for the whole of the aboriginal group and it has great spiritual and symbolic value and many of the sites around the rock are sacred to the aboriginal people. 

Uluru is an amazing and strange rockformation, which seemed much smaller up close than I had expected it to be. We first dropped by the Educational center which is a nice building with lots of information about the aboriginal culture. Afterwards we went for the shortest of the walks, the Mala-walk, were Myles joined us and guided us with information throughout the walk. When completing this short walk, we got the option of either doing the whole base-walk around the Uluru, or just the half-base walk. Of course I chose the full base-walk with Lea and some of the others – which would take about 2 hours or something, even though it was only a little more than 10 km long. I even think we spent longer than 2 hours walking it, which surprised me alot. I guess it's the heat that makes people spend longer time walking a certain distance. Also, of course I had to take photos – I actually took loads of photos – and every time I stop for a photo I actually kinda loose a minute, especially if I every time have to change settings on my very advanced camera;)

Beside the horrible heat, which made it a very very hot walk, the flies was very annoying – but it was a very nice walk because it gave us a chance to get to know the rest of the group better. Especially I, Lea, Sandie, Nelson and Chris got to know each other better during this walk. Hongda was also hanging with us for some of the distance, but his English wasn't perfect so it was a bit harder for him to communicate and understand I guess.

So what does make Uluru so special? Well, it is a single huge rock laying there all by itself and it is completely stripped of any vegetation. Also it's look is completely different from others rock-formations since it is completely made up of compressed sand, and it's the only rock where the striped layers are visibly vertically, as compared to the Olgas which we would see the next day the striped layers was just of an 15 degrees angle – so almost horizontally in other words. It also contains caves of different shapes that the aboriginal thought to have sacred meanings – for example one of the caves reminds of a Mala's pouch and since the Mala keeps it's baby in the pouch this cave was used by women for giving birth. To me it though looked like a vagina so it did make sense why they chose it for this purpose – but unfortunately we could not take photos here since this was one of the sacred places and fines would apply if a park-ranger caught us taking photos. Also, Uluru is ONE huge single rock, and not a part of a underground mountain range. It is about 300 meters something tall, but under the ground it is additional 6000 meters long. It's like an iceberg in the desert.

We found the Uluru very entertaining though since there are so many small caves making up all these funny formations that reminded us of something completely different. We did actually see an elephant, a baboon, a koala, several hearts and smileyfaces – and even Darth Vader was to be found at Uluru! I DO have photos to prove it!!! Pretty funny. It's almost like an amusement park – but the poor Aboriginal kids would not have known anything about these things back in the days, that is very sad to think about today :( Well well.

After Uluru we then headed for the Uluru sunset viewing place where Myles served us a well prepared home cooked meal cooked by himself at the same time as we could enjoy Uluru in the sunset, of course along with a few beers. Well, the meal he had cooked wasn't very advanced, but it tasted very well so I was very pleased:) After dinner we then headed for our camping ground for the night were we would be sleeping under the stars – in my case this would be the first time sleeping under the stars ever, and by the time it was bedtime I didn't really want to close my eyes at all, cause I'd rather just gaze at the stars all night! It was amazingly beautiful:)

Introducing clumsy Stian in the sunrise

The next morning we had to get up at 04:15 in the morning. We were going to catch the sunrise behind Uluru which is said to be most beautiful. We got our swags and stuff packed and got off to the same spot as last night and waited for the sun to rise, while Myles was preparing for breakfast. Well at this point another side of me was introduced to the group – and to be honest, he hasn't been around for a while really – but now he was back. Determined to go from spot A to spot B – a distance of maybe a total of 5 meters I headed straight forward in the pitch black morning. I blame that it was early, my brain was obviously switched off for a moment – cause I could not remember that straight in front of me there was a ca 40 cm high and ca 25 cm wide and curved concrete wall used for seating. Determined I rushed forward and of course I tripped in this concrete wall and fell flat on my face like if a fucking bear fell from the sky, making loads of noise, some swearing along with it and turning everybody's attention towards myself. It hurt yes, but I got up and pretended as nothing had happened. Someone was worried and of course as they didn't know me they showed some kind of concern at first – but I just knew that what they really wanted was to just burst into laughter, so I just told them that I was alright and these things happens often anyways and they were free to laugh – and then they couldn't hold it in anymore. Well I am glad I can bring people to smile – I probably prolonged their lives with a few years as well, haha;)

Anyways – back to the sunrise – which was amazing :) I got some nice photos of it and event hough my knee was bleeding I had no problem enjoying the morning:)

KATA TJUTA – The Olgas

We then next headed for the Kata Tjuta, or the Olgas, which is a small mountainious area consisting of loads of single huge rocks that through time with the help of compressed sand have turned into a mountain like area. Kata Tjuta means «many heads» in the aboriginal language and thats how they see this area. Myles gave us a pretty nice introduction to geology and how both Uluru and Kata Tjuta came to be and the difference between the two. This is when we got to know that Uluru is one single rock that consist of several layers of compressed sand only, while Kata Tjuta consist of many rocks – and that; At one point Uluru, while under the ground several millions years ago, probably during some major nature changing event, had twisted in a 90 degree angle – and thats why the compressed lines are vertical, while the compressed lines of Kata Tjuta only is about 15 degrees and almost horizontal.  

Kata Tjuta is also a sacred place for the aboriginals, but the major difference is that the adult female aboriginals are NOT allowed to enter Kata Tjuta – it is sacred and only aboriginal small children and men are allowed to enter this area. This rule is still upheld even today. As we, who are non-aboriginals, are not seen as equal (not initiated in the aboriginal culture) we are perceived as children, so non-aboriginal females are therefore allowed to enter the area. Myles told us that a guide once told his group that the reason for this rule of not letting aboriginal women in was that the rocks reminded the aboriginal men of boobs so the men wanted the area for themselves. The men in the group had totally seen the resemblance and agreed on this decision, haha. It was of course just a joke – but I didn't really get why it is sacred only for men, other than that this area is used for teaching of hunting, but the fake reason is way more fun than the real one probably, so thats the one I then remember ;)

We did a walk through the «Valley of the Winds» which was a very nice and easy walk. We did have a lovely wind that helped keep the flies a way a bit at least, as well as it wasn't too hot either. We even got to see some wildlife, a pretty large lizard of some kind that was hiding in the shade of a resting place, wiiiii:-) We finished earlier than expected though. According to Myles we were the fittest group he's ever had. Scandinavia rules hikes so thats not very shocking though;)  

Moving along...

We then had another long ride ahead of us. I cannot say that I liked the rides very much. The couch was pretty old, and the airconditioning was not optimal – and I was sitting along the isle and could not find a comfortable position neither for my head or my feet or anything – so I think I was the only one that was «forced» to stay awake during most of the driving. At least Myles was a really funny and entertaining guy so he helped to make the ride feel shorter than what it could have felt. We stopped along the way to get a nice view of Mount Connor, which alot of people think is Uluru on first seeing – so it's called Fooluru for fun by the locals – haha. We also dropped by a another viewing point over a dried out lake where the sand was all white, compared to the red sand that one sees other places in the desert. It was pretty amazing view and it did look like a lake of milk more than white sand. When we eventually arrived to the next camping place we had the option of going for a swim in a pool, which most of us did, while Myles again was preparing dinner. After dinner we then headed for a viewing spot for another sunset-viewing before we had some beers and did some crazy jumps over the fire, having general fun before we had another nights sleep under the stars:-)

The best for last: KINGS CANYON

The third and last day of the Rock-Tour we headed for the famous Kings Canyon which is located in the Aboriginal land of Luritja. Kings Canyon are an amazing mountain range and the hike was really beautiful. We also got to learn that this is an actual canyon, and not a «fake» like the Grand Canyons, which actually is a gorge. The difference between a canyon and a gorge is that while a gorge is carved out through time with the help of water (rivers), a canyon is created when continental plates collide and then elevates the plates making ranges and empty spaces in between, or by when mountain ranges suddenly split / are torn apart. Ok, that was way hard to explain for me, so please bare with me;) Myles had told us that this hike was very hard and that the first hill was commonly known as heart-attack-hill since its so steep. He calculated people to spend about 20 minutes getting up there but we got up in like... 3 minutes, or well, less than 10 minutes at least... but then again, we are used to hills like this. Even Blussvollsbakken in Trondheim is harder to walk – haha;)

We also got to se wildlife on this tour. Even though they were not so big we spotted to different kinds of lizards, and we also got to see flocks of green parrots that made a great impression when flying inside the canyons with the red background. Unfortunately you just have to imagine how beautiful it was since I did not get a very good photo of this natural beauty. It was also forecasted to be very very hot this day, but I was surprised that it wasn't hotter, but we did manage to start the hike pretty early in the morning. We even reached the sunrise on top of heart-attack-hill. I think we spent about 3 hours walking, but it felt way shorter than the shorter walk around the Uluru-base. I guess temperature do have a lot to say when it comes to perceiving time.

Funny sidenote: Camels in Australia 

On our way back to Alice Sprins we had to drive for another 5 and a half hours. We did make a stop at a Camel Farm were we could do an optional Camel-ride but no one felt like it. It was too hot, and it cost $ 7 AUD for 2 minutes ride anyways. Funny information: Australia is the continent that have the most wild camels in the wild. Approximately 1,2 million camels live in the wild in the Australian outback. The authorities keep a strict control of the population since they tend to double in number every year. That is – IF there were no regulations of the population one year there would be 2,4 millions the next year. Camels are though an imported species and does not belong to the Australian fauna – but they are commonly accepted today. They were imported because horses did not manage to survive the heat in the desert when they were developing this area of Australia, but the camels did. So the camels have since played an important role both for the settling of the Europeans and also for the aboriginals, since it made it so much easier to bring equipment over distances.

I have though not tried camel-meat yet though, event hough many restaurants serve it here. They say it is very very hard to eat if its not prepared well, and I guess we will eat camel when we go to Africa anyways.

Clumsy Stian, part 2

Here we go again.... Also on the way back home to Alice Springs we did a stop at a resting spot were we all could by ice-cream, slushes or whatever. I had purchased a slushie and I had just made a comment on that even the small size one was too big and that they should've made them smaller. I also came to think of the time at a restaurant back in Norway when I got a whole milkshake in my face since I was trying to drink of the glass and tapped the glasses bottom when the creamy milkshake didn't move and that the whole thing then just flushed over my face. So when I was telling this story I had just removed the lid of the slushie and tried to drink of the cup instead of using the straw and I told that I had the tendency to do the tap on the bottom if the content wouldn't slide by itself, but I wasn't going to do the same mistake this time:) So just before I got to the point were I was to tell that I got the whole milkshake in my face I put the cup with the slushie down on the rest-stop table. What I didn't notice is that this kind of tables are made of wood and have space in between each wooden board. So when I put it down, I put it on the each of one of the boards not crossing it over another, so that when I let go of it the slushie fell over and of course into my lap! Oh, the group laughed and laughed and laughed and thought that was so funny, especially since the timing could not have been better at all since it happen just when I was going to tell that I got all the milkshake in my face that one time. So by now I was really become known as the clumsy Norwegian;)  

PARTY at the Rock Bar

Back in Alice Springs the first thing we did was to go for a swim in the pool at the hostel – and just a bit later we headed for the Rock Bar to meet up with the rest of the fantastic group for one last group meal, and a whole lot of alcohol of course. Well, at least some of us drank more than the others;) I didn't have that much, but Kenneth, who did a belated birthday celebration, consumed loads of alcohol, and he seemed to have loads of fun as well, haha;) It was really fun, At the end I was though more an observer at the party since I was getting tired – and there was obviously a whole deal of flirting going on between certain people – and it's always fun to be a fly on the wall, especially since you know that there will be drama in the end, haha;) 

It was though really nice to get back to the hostel for a long nights sleep afterwards, and the following day we had really nothing on the agenda so we could sleep in! Wonderful:)

So all in all – I had an fantastic experience while in Alice and during the Rock-Tour. We will definitely keep in touch with Lea who we shared hostel with and got to know the best:) I think everyone should go to the outback and experience this at least once: Did you get that my fellow Aussie friends? Haha;)

On the bus towards Alice Springs

ALICE SPRINGS

ROCK TOUR to ULURU!!!!!

 The FAMOUS Sunrise at ULURU

 Rock Tour to Kata Tjuta - The OLGAS

 Rock Tour - KINGS CANYON

 Party at the Rock Bar

BTW: Kenneth is the one with the most party photos, so you have to ask him to publish those if you like to see them;)