The Red Centre

Have I got a lot to talk to you about....

We are going to pretend this is Tuesday the 3rd and I am still fresh from The Outback. Okay? Okay.

So last Monday Craig and I went to Whitewater Park, a water park in the Gold Coast. Since it was a Monday, we nearly had the whole park to ourselves. We only had to wait in line for one ride and were able to walk right on to all the rest. Then on Friday, a bunch of us went to Warner Brother's Dreamland (a smaller Universal Studios style amusement park). They had a few good roller coasters and rides to keep us busy throughout the day. Friday night came around and I realized it would be a good time to pack because I had to leave at 3:15AM the next morning. I ended up not sleeping because I had laundry to do and I figured I would be able to make up for my sleep in the car/plane. Wrong.

At 3:15 I met up with Zach Mirsky, A Lowe, and Maxine in the lobby of our apartment and got in our shuttle van thing to take us an hour away to the Brisbane Airport. I had to go on a different flight connecting in Cairns while they connected in Sydney because I was late to book the plane tickets. I flew into Cairns and during our descent I was able to see the Great Barrier Reef from the sky. The different shades of water looked so nice and I got excited for a future trip to the reef. The beaches were everywhere and on the land were big green mountains of trees. 

I connected flights, saw the nice reef and mountains again, and read some of my book. Next thing I know it is about an hour and a half later and when I look out the window I see nothing but a flat red desert as far as the eye can see. 

What was I thinking going to The Outback where there was absolutely nothing around. We got close to Uluru and I was then able to see the BFR (Big F*... Rock). 

Ayers Rock looked massive from the air and it would be even bigger in person. I also was able to get a quick shot of the Olgas which we would later hike through. My plane landed and we had to walk on the runway to get into the airport. This would be my first fly infestation experience. Between the plane and the airport a couple of flies found my face and made themselves at home. Annoying I thought, but I would soon realize that these 5 or so flies would be a light snack compared to the dinner feasts of flies I would later experience. 

I met up with Mirsky, Max, and A Lowe in the airport and played some card games as we waited for our ride. Daniel the Wayoutback tour guide came soon and took us to our campsite  near Ayers Rock. The campsite was surprisingly nice with a stove, refrigerators, sinks and a large eating area. We had lunch with the other people on the trip, chatted a little and got ready for our first adventure of the weekend. We changed into bathing suites and went swimming at the campsite's pool for a little and bought our very needed fly nets. 

After our short swim, Daniel drove us to the actual Ayers Rock and took us for a walk through the cultural center. We learned a little about the aboriginal's spiritual beliefs regarding the rock and then took a long walk around a portion of the rock (a walk around the entire thing would take 3-4 hours - BFR indeed). There isn't much to say about Ayers Rock besides the fact that it is pretty massive and intense. The four of us walked around for about an hour taking photos and climbing a few of the boulders near the base. A bunch of the areas are off limits to photos  because they are sacred male or female places so the other aboriginal gender can not see what it looks like and don't want to be surprised in a magazine or random brochure. It was about this time when the flies became overwhelming. The 105 degree dry heat didn't make us sweat as much as we expected, but the combination of walking and the pounding sun made us sweat just enough for the flies to become attached to us. They came by the dozen and at one point I lost track counting some 60+ just on Zach's camelback backpack.

After the walk, we excitedly got back into our 4 WD-Van-Safari car-truck and drove back to the campsite. Some swimming and relaxing until around 8:00. The flies would now disappear (with the sun) and we could take our nets off our heads. Dinner was not ready until around 10:00PM at which point I was exhausted (still hadn't slept). The meal was very good - rice, vegetables, pasta - and after we were shown our "beds" a.k.a. Swags. These swags are just padded sleeping bags which are placed on the ground with no tent or cover. Bugs would crawl in and out throughout the night and wake you up, but the irritation would vanish when you opened your eyes to the clouds of stars in the sky. Stars as far as the eye could see and shooting stars pretty often. 

Daniel woke us up at 4:30AM so we could drive to a viewpoint where we could see the sun rise beside The Beast and shine on the Olgas as it rose.

 The flies came out as soon as the smallest of light emerged and then the nets came on again. The sunrise was quite nice, and the Olgas were impressive from where we were standing. 

 Following the sunrise, we drove to the Olgas and went on a 7+ kilometer hike (~4 miles) through these boulder mountains. The Olgas are made up of thousands of smaller rocks and form several enormous "boulder mountains." Olgas means Heads in the aboriginal language, so each of these boulders is a different person's head. To me, they just looked like big red balls of clay.  The hike took nearly 3.5 hours and by the time we had finished we were hot, annoyed (flies), and tired.  It 

was just after 11:00AM and it felt like 11:00PM. The walk was a little hilly most of the time, but perfectly bearable until the very end. At many points the rocks made a perfect backdrop for pictures and I was able to take about 30 or so throughout the walk. 

Now it was lunchtime so we went back to the campsite, had lunch and a swimming sesh and got ready to go on our second part of the adventure. We ran into a slight logistical problem because we realized that the trip was ending 6 hours from where our plane departs. Oops. We had to book a bus to take us from the end of of our hike the following day back to our current location at Ayers Rock. 

Now that that was all figured out and we were running behind schedule, we had to drive 3-4 hours west to Kings Canyon. We packed up our stuff and got in the monster truck and started driving. We stopped at the only rest stop on the only road to take us to the only place there was to go. It was a trashy bar with hick-type people and probably the only 5 people that live within any sort of distance as regular customers. The one guy had like 7 teeth and a pet dog that we were not allowed to touch and he almost slapped Maxine's hand with a grimy fly swatter when she went to pet it. We bought some wine to celebrate with at an overpriced sum of money and then finished the drive to Kings Canyon. On our final lag to our campsite we had to stop in order to let a group of wild horses cross the street. How cool. 

Finally, we arrived at this campsite again in the middle of nowhere. At least this place had kangaroos though. We went swimming, checked out the kangers and made some food with everyone's help. We drank a box of wine which was nice after our intense past 2 days and set up our swags under the cloudless sky. I again woke up quite often but the stars here were even more overwhelming than the night before so did not mind the bugs bothering me. I was able to see shooting stars, satellites, and the entire milky way galaxy. 

The next day would proceed to be the greatest day of my life. I will write a detailed blog about that as soon as I get the time.