The Outback and back!

Sunday 29th March
What a nice evening we had... we ate at one of Brighton's bistro cafes, called Nino's, where they did good food at reasonable prices. Then we had a sharp half (or 2) in the local pub, where Chris won back the price of a round on the pokies. Back at the house we played Quiddler, which was a good laugh. This morning Peter dropped us off at the station and we are now on the Ghan, headed for Alice Springs. We were welcomed aboard by the uniformed staff and checked in our luggage before finding our seats, which reclined for sleeping. The train wasn't dissimilar to any other train, with loos at one end of the carriage and showers at the other. We took enough food onboard for breakfast and lunch and then bought dinner in the buffet car. Over dinner got talking to a nice Oz couple...she was a teacher and they were taking time out to travel within Oz. Nice people. Later on we met a lady travelling alone. She was born in the UK but had been living near Syndey for over 20 years. She was very interesting and was enjoying her travels and meeting lots of younger people. “Did we get a good night's sleep?” we hear you asking. Well it was a bit fitful. I (Lin) finally found a comfortable position by putting my legs up on Brent's meal tray!! Then snuggled into my sleeping bag and was away. For the return trip we'll remember to bring out pillows along, which should make a difference. So what was the best thing about the journey?
Well without a doubt it was the stunning landscape outside the windows. The clear blue sky ahead with scrub land of green, brown and yellow below was unlike anything we've every experienced and quite beautiful.

Monday 30th April
Today we got off the train in Alice Springs just after lunchtime. I called Mike, my second cousin and he came out of work to pick us up and deliver us to his home, where he'd made up a double room for us, which proved very comfortable. On the way he'd done a whistle-stop tour of the town, showing us the highlights. We were amazed when he gave us the keys to his new Ute, and told us to use it to get into town for a look around during the afternoon and to use it to visit Ayers Rock! We spent a nice afternoon looking around the town and drove up Anzac hill to get some photos of the town from above. We also bought provisions for the next day , when we would be heading off to Ayers Rock. When we got back to the house Mike's housemate, Veng, was in. He was a nice guy and, like Mike, made us feel at home. Later we went out for a nice meal with Mike and then back at the house the 3 men got playing pool, in the purpose built 'shed' out the back of the house. I enjoyed watching over a few beers.

Tuesday 31st March
Mike said good morning to us before leaving for work at about 7am this morning. We got up and piled up the Ute, leaving at 8am for our 440k drive to Ularu ( the indiginous name for Ayers Rock – named after the water hole found at the base of the Rock). We took it in turns to drive the Ute, which was a real highliight of the trip. The long dusty roads made Cruise control an essential and Mike's CD collection were a welcome entertainment and had us singing along in no time. We stuck to the speed limit of 130kph and 110kph and stopped at various watering holes before arriving at the Ayers Rock resort around 1.30. We were chuffed to discover that the $31 camping fee entitled us to use all the facilities of the resort! Once we 'd set up the tent we visited the hotels and had a good old nosey at what you got for the $200 + a night there. We ended up having a luxurious 2 hours at the outside swimming pool of one of the hotels, lying around on loungers and reading....fabulous. Near to sunset we drove to the Ularu lookout and took some photos of the rock. A family group had set up with their chairs to watch the sun go down, but we decided to head back to the Outback bar / eatery area, where we enjoyed dinner and some free entertainment – a singer/guitarist, who was quite good. Then it was back to the tent, where we met a lad from Cumbria, who'd been at Nottm uni for the last 5 years! Small world eh? The stars were absolutely amazing as were the beetles and ants,which we just about managed to keep out of the tent. We set the alarm for 5am ready to get to see the sunrise over the rock and got off to sleep nice and early.

Wednesday 1st April
Managed to get up and out of the site by 5.30am, along with a few others and got to the entrance to the National Park dead on 6am as it opened...brilliant. Watching the sun rise proved to be quite an interesting experience...on the one hand the rock was really beautiful: the colour constantly changed from black to reddy brown, red, to dark orange and finally almost yellow... breathtakingly beautiful... on the other we found the whole tourist thing almost bizarre: coachloads of people arrrived and were given breakfast. Lots of folk were setting up tripods to get 'that shot.' One chap set his up on top of his 4wheel drive, whilst another couple in matching outdoor style clothing (possible purchased from Katmandu) overtook us on the road in order to get their tripod in the key position...have to say I was really tempted to 'accidentally' knock it over!!! Then once the sun rose they were all hurried back into their vehicles, like scurrying packs of mice and driven around the base of the rock with a final stop at the cultural centre before leaving. At around $100 dollars per person per trip it was a prime example of tourism as we know it. We really appreciated having the Ute...thanks so much to Mike! We were able to sit and have our breakfast after sunrise and then took our time driving part way round the rock getting lots of photos before doing part of the base walk, the Mala section,which we thought was very worthwhile. There are ground level caves of mystical shapes which can't be seen from a distance. At close range the rock is quite special and it is easy to understand why the Aboriginal people consider it a sacred site and have so many dream stories about it. At the waterhole itself we felt a real sense of peace and serenity. We were quite surprised to see that despite the signs everywhere asking tourists not to climb the sacred rock, there was a clear climbing area, which was closed due to the high winds today. We couldn't understand why climbing was allowed but later were told that the Japanese tourist brochures all included climbing the rock as an attraction! Around 9am we headed for the cultural centre for a coffee and then visited the display area, which we were somewhat puzzled by: it was managed by a mixed team of Western Australians and Aboriginal indigenous people, but there was no sign of any Aboriginal folk...in fact we only saw one woman leading a base rock walk. A short film was shown, which had clips of various aboriginal customs including some dancing. Unfortunately there was no commentary so that we didn't really get what was happening. Rather than being an informative experience we felt that it was an as if amateur had been given the go ahead to produce the film, which might even have been seen as confirming some of the negative stereotyping of the indigenous population. We felt this was a real pity and found ourselves questioning the whole operation: did the Aboriginal people get benefits from the tourist developments of the area? Later in the day we visited an aboriginal art centre. Here a group of Aboriginal women were clearly producing work but looked to be supervised by a white australian woman.... all a bit bizarre. We continued our return journey and were delighted to get chatting to 2 60+ Lancashire women, who were on a coach tour but 'doing their own thing' whenever they could. One of them even had a go on a camel at the cattle station stop- Stuart's Well. We got back to Alice around 4.30 and enjoyed another pleasant evening with Mike, stopping off to have a look at the local sports club, where Mike and Veng enjoy playing pool. There were some really good players and Coopers pale on tap, which went down a treat!

Thursday 2nd April
Had a slow start to the day. Packed our bags together and got a lift from Mike to the Ghan. Said another goodbye and a big thank you to Mike for all his hospitality. It was strange getting back on knowing the sort of journey we had ahead of us.Fortunately we had a seat opposite two young people who had studied and met in Birmingham and had a lot in common with us. Greg had been a teacher in Citizenship and had even taught in schools I knew from Leicester. Steph had done a doctorate in Immunology and was looking to get into teaching when she got back to the UK. More interestingly they had just travelled through South East Asia so we picked their brains on different places and ways of getting there. Time flew by and was soon time for lights out ( warned by an officious train guard who treated passengers as little children ).

Friday 3rd April / Saturday 4th
Arrived back in Adelaide and were met by Pete and taken back to their comfortable home. Chris had prepared a lovely roast beef dinner for us, which we thoroughly enjoyed. After a good night's sleep Pete took us to pick up our 11th hire car and after a good fry up lunch we headed down to the Fleurieu peninsula. The drive was another beautiful run. We stopped for a cuppa in a pretty little place then headed on to Normanville, where we found a brill campsite with a lovely walk down to the beach.

Sunday 5th April/Saturday 11th April
Thought we'd had a lie-in on Sunday until we put the TV on as we were getting breakfast in the camp kitchen and discovered the clocks had turned back and it was only 8.45!

During this week we had a good look at the Peninsula, which has a beauty all of it's own. We decided not to go over to Kangaroo Island, as we'd found out that the crossing was the most expensive in the world at around Aus$320 ( about £160) for a crossing of about 10 miles!!! Ridiculous. Instead we explored Cape Jervis, where we had a good chat with a Liverpudlian couple who ran the cafe from a caravan. They were very interesting to talk to: had been in the country for around 30 years and owned a lot of land, house with swimming pool and were intending to build a cafe in place of the van. After chatting with them we decided to go on to Victor Harbour, which we liked a lot. We walked over the causeway to visit Granite Island. This was lovely: a 3k walk goes all the way around it with fabulous views of some fascinating rocks...hugely awesome. We decided not to do the Penguin viewing, as we'd experienced one already in Phillips island. However if you are reading this and thinking of coming to Oz, we'd definitely recommend Granite Island over Phillip island to see the penguins, although Phillip island is much prettier overall and definitely worth a visit for it's beautiful beaches.We spent some time around McClaren Vale before heading in to see Mount Barker, Hohndorf and the Bel Air National Park. One day we explored further North around the coast and enjoyed the beach at Adelaide Shores. Hohndorf was a quaint,touristy village with lots of cafes and gifty shops. It was very pretty. We particularly enjoyed staying in the NP. Here we met a lovely Oz family: Mark, June and their twin lads, Ryan and Luke and younger son, Dylan. We ended up giving the lads our little 2 man tent... feeling sure they'll make good use of it. We did 2 lovely walks here and saw koalas, wallabies and kangaroos as well as some quite beautiful parrots.