.: Cath’s Blog:.

First of all, Mum & Dad, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! Sorry I am not able to call…you know you are in my thoughts. I love you both…very much!!

I checked out the YHA in Alice Springs this morning at 7:30am and went to the Elks to collect Tanja and Matthias.

We loaded up our gear and got on the open road again, this time heading south towards our next destination. I was very confused whilst driving between Alice and Erlunda (the exit we had taken before to Yulara)…the road just seemed to look totally different. The roads look so similar, bare with little to see, but are so different all the same. Not far after Erlunda, we stopped at the border of South Australia and the Northern Territory to take some photos…bye bye NT…it’s been lots of fun!!

Our destination was Coober Pedy and I had been excited about seeing this place for a long long time. The Aboriginal words kupa peti loosely translates as “white fellow’s underground burrow”. Of course the reason I am so familiar with this location is that it was used in the movie ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert’…remember, Guy Pearce asking in the Video store if they had the ‘Texas Chainsaw Mascara’…too funny.

When we arrived in CP we found a backpackers called ‘Radeka’s’. This was an underground motel which was painted white and blue and had greek owners…bizarre! Since I had previously been warned by my friend Carmel that she had stayed somewhere in Coober Pedy which was filthy and had no hot water I decided to ask the owner “Do you have hot water in your showers?”…he answered “Of course we do”, I replied “Good, so I’ll come and find you in the morning if there is none”. We then asked “How many people are in the room?”, “None” he replied “the room is all yours, we won’t put anyone else in there”. We were quite excited about this! When we got downstairs our jaws dropped!! There was no door!! It was basically rooms dug out (6m under the ground) with bunk beds and no doors…for one night we could make do, but if someone wanted privacy this would not be a place I would recommend.

We took a look around the backpackers and went for a look around Coober Pedy. Now, to give you some history about this place, basically, this is the world’s largest opal field (white opals) and because of the relentless hot climate the inhabitants (all 3,500 of them) live underground.

The town is a pretty ugly looking place. It consists of hundreds of mounds of upturned earth, abandoned mines and scrap metal yards. To think that this has been the location for over 15 movies is quite astonishing. These movies included Mad Max and Pitch Black.

We decided that there was nothing to see and went to the bottle shop to get drunk…it seemed to be the most exciting thing to do in this town.

I tried to have a lie in this morning, but it seemed my whole room was up at the crack of dawn for tours, so I was woken up too. Will I ever get a lie in?

I went down to my favourite place (Internet Café) and Tanja met up with me. She said she could not get the bus or the train at all for 2 weeks to Darwin, as they were all booked up and she was thinking about coming down to Melbourne with me.

Of course I was quite excited about this, as I really enjoyed traveling with her so far, so I tried to talk her into it. After discussing my plans and the places I wanted to see, she said she would like to do this as she could get this part of Australia out of the way and just focus on doing the West Coast afterwards.

We went into a travel shop and she enquired about flights…it seemed it would only be $20 more to fly home from Melbourne. She said she would think about it and let me know. While we were in the shop my mobile went off and it was a guy called Matthias asking about the lift offer to Adelaide.

I met up with Matthias (along with Tanja) about half an hour later. He seemed very nice, from Germany and wanted to see the same things I was interested in seeing. Tanja mentioned she was also thinking about joining me but would get back to me…we decided no matter what, we would go tomorrow.

I followed my Dad’s advice and took my car down to Bridgestone to have it checked out. Since it was Saturday, they were shut, but I used my charm and begged them to check out the car. They advised me I needed two new front tyres (which I already knew, as they were really looking bald) and told me that they had tightened up something else and it should be fine to drive. I told them about the clicking, but they said they didn’t hear anything…if it continued I should have it checked out when I got to Melbourne.

The rest of my day was pretty relaxing…I just got my things ready for tomorrow. Tanja called me back, she is coming to Melbourne….YIPPEE!!

The three of us decided that we were in no major hurry to leave Yulara, so we decided to set off at about 9am. Our drive was pretty uneventful. We saw that lots of the highway signs had been defaced. This one we found the funniest.

We got into Alice at 2pm. Tanja decided she wanted to stay at a cheaper backpackers than the YHA and I was left with Christine. I kind of lost my temper with her at the YHA and booked myself in a different dorm…I didn’t think I could be nice to her if I shared a room with her…maybe we spent too much time together.

After I checked in I went for a walk down to the internet café to update my blog. I caught up again with Tanja in the evening.

We decided since we had missed the Royal Flying Doctors last time we should go and see the tour. We got there just in the nick of time (4pm) to see the tour and when we got inside I asked the woman behind reception “Will Peter O’Brian be doing the tour?” The woman looked at me with a look that said “You Idiot”…I thought it was funny. The tour was interesting, but nothing special. One thing is for certain, they do a wonderful service for Australia and I think it would certainly be an exciting job to do.

After our tour we went back to the YHA and I drove Tanja back to her hostel. I decided to leave a message on the board there offering a lift to Adelaide.

My evening was pretty boring, I had a shower and called home…everything is cool. It was good talking to you Mum & Dad.

Today was a very exciting day for me as we were going to Watarrka National Park (Kings Canyon). We got up early and met by the car at 7am to start the 300km drive to Kings Canyon.

When we got there, we got prepared and looked at the maps of the trails. There were two to choose from. The first was a short (one hour) hike called the Kings Creek Walk and the second was a long (four hour) hike called the Canyon Walk…this was the one I was interested in.

It started out with quite a strenuous uphill hike which was a bit of a killer…but we were able to take our time which was nice.

Once we got to the top of the Canyon the walk was pretty easy. The 350 million-year-old canyon shelters a permanent rock pool, aptly named the Garden of Eden and lots of the visitors were going for a swim in there.

OUR PRISCILLA POSE

Watch my video for Steph & Jo

When the walk ended, we just drove back to the Lodge…we were truly exhausted…but it was worth it.

Today I was feeling pretty poorly (bad stomach cramps) so I wasn’t really all that excited about visiting Katja Tjuta National Park (The Olgas). Kata Tjuta means “many heads”, which refers to the 36 domes.

I did however plod along and we went straight to the Walpa Gorge Walk. The walk took us about one hour and then we drove round to the Valley of the Winds Walk. I decided to find myself a nice shaded seat and sleep for an hour while the other two walked through to the 1st lookout (Karu).

We decided not to stay for the sunset, but we did get some really great photos. The Olgas was impressive…not as impressive as Uluru…but what is?

We were up this morning very early again…and for the first time in a long time totally freezing. It was only 5 degrees outside and it was a chore to even put one leg out of bed.

The three of us loaded up the car and headed on our way to Yulara (Ayers Rock Resort). I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t excited about seeing Uluru…and we were all pretty hyped up about going to the Red Center.

Our first stop was at the petrol station and I ran inside to ask for information going to Ayers Rock…if I should take the Stuart Hwy to the Lasseter Hwy etc? The woman replied “I don’t know…I’ve never been there”? Now picture Muriel’s Wedding where she meets her future husband and she says “Are you black?” and he says “What?”…well that’s how I replied to her. I couldn’t believe this woman had never been there, never mind worked in a petrol station in the center of Alice Springs…BIZARRE! And she looked in her late forties.

Anyway, we took the Stuart Hwy all the way to the Lasseter Hwy and I was surprised that the roads were so quiet. After Curtain Springs we saw (what we thought) was Uluru. This monolith was absolutely huge and was domination the horizon. The three of us got extremely excited and started taking lots of pictures etc. It was, we later found out Mount Conner. Conner, at 700 million years old, is 150 million years older than Uluru and Kata Tjuta and, amazingly, just 13 ft lower than Uluru. We embarrassingly came across Uluru about half an hour later driving to Yulara and all were very confused.

We arrived at Yulara (Ayers Rock Resort) at about noon time and we checked into our dorms at the Pioneer Outback Lodge. I have to say I was very impressed by the facilities…hotel style check in, full serviced eating and bar area outside with lots of barbecue’s. I had the choice of a 4 bed dorm for $37 or a 20 bed dorm for $30…guess which one I picked? The room was spacious and I was the first one in the room, so I got a nice bottom bunk.

The three of us had lunch and we got our gear together to head up to Uluru. We were only a few miles away from the entrance to Uluru and in no time we were at the entrance waiting to pay the fee. The fee was $25 and it gave us a pass for 3 days to go into Uluru or Katja Tjuta.

Uluru’s National Park was World Heritage listed for it’s natural significance only in 1987, and for it’s cultural significance in 1994. It was first sighted by a European in 1872 when explorer Ernest Giles noted a prominent hill in the distance. The following year, William Gosse discovered that the “hill” was in fact “one immense rock rising abruptly from the plain”.

Uluru means “meeting place”, and many Aboriginal Dreaming tracks or “songlines” intersect here. Uluru is the world’s largest monolith. It stands 1,142 ft tall and it’s circumference at the base is almost 9kms.

When we arrived at Uluru we parked up and walked over to Climb. I actually was going to do the climb but there is signs everywhere from the Aborigines asking people not to climb because it’s a sacred place and it’s dangerous. I decided not to climb…honestly, it looked dangerous.

So, the three of us decided to do the base walk around the rock. There were lots of areas where people were asked not to take pictures…fair enough. When we finished the base walk we drove around the rock again (this time videoing it) and then we went to take pictures of the sunset.

Watch a video of me at Uluru

Watch a video of Tanja at Uluru

Watch a video of Christine at Uluru

Watch second video of Tanja at Uluru

Watch special video for Sam, Jake & George

This place is really magical and honestly I think this has been the best day of my life.

I also picked up rocks from Uluru for everyone and have since found out that taking rocks gives you a lifetime worth of bad luck…I am therefore taking them back…sorry! 

We were up again this morning early and we headed out on the road at about 8:15am.

Our first stop was “Devil’s Marbles” and it was totally awesome. There was a tour bus and a couple of small cars like mine and I was blown away there wasn’t hundred’s of people there. I read about the place in Steph’s ‘Lonely Planet’ and stupidly thought it was 2 big boulders…well, marbles was the right name for the place because these huge rocks were everywhere the eye could see…totally amazing place.

We got back on the road and after a small town called ‘Aileron’, which bizarrely had it’s town name like the Hollywood sign on the side of a cliff face, I saw some camels walking next to the Highway. I screeched to a halt and we all ran to photograph these Camels…Where in the world would you see Camels next to a Highway…no-where, I tell you!

Out next random stop was at the ‘Tropic of Capricorn’…it was only a structure with a plaque saying “Latitude 23 - 442028 & Longitude 153 – 833111. If you don’t know what the ‘Tropic of Capricorn’ is…neither do I…look at a map!

We finally got to Alice Springs and I have to say already I really like this town. We managed to get a room at the Pioneer YHA and after dumping our gear we managed to head on down to a place I wanted to see for a long time “The School of Air”.

We parked up and went in to be told the tour had already started…but we were allowed in and we listened to the guide as he told us about the school. It really is an amazing place and it provides education to 112 children over an area the size of central Europe by VHF radio and the internet…just in the NT. These children have a class three times a week for up to an hour and are then tutored at home for the rest of the time during the day. These children are living on cattle stations, roadhouses, police families and aboriginal children (which they total just 20%). I asked lots of questions and I thought I was maybe asking too many…but it was so interesting. We saw pictures of dignitaries who had visited…Charles & Diana (when they were first married), The Queen (who visited in 2000 with a special list of questions the kids could ask) and even John Howard visited quite recently (but without a list…these clever buggers asked him how much he made…$240,000). (They played the video again for us, so we could see the kids in action. After the video, we went out to the lobby where I got chatting to the guide…the conversation went something like this…

Me: How much qualification do the tutors need to help the children?
Guide: None, pretty much their year 12 certificate…why?
Me: Oh, I am just interested…I have just quit my job working for a cruise line…I used to be a corporate trainer.
Guide: Oh, what cruise line did you work for?
Me: Carnival Cruise Lines.
Guide: No way, I used to work for Carnival Cruise Lines too!
Me: As what?
Guide: I was a Purser.
Me: No way, I was a Purser too…I started in 1999…when were you there?
Guide: I was on the Ecstasy…maybe 1998 sometime.
Me: Were you there for the fire in 1998?
Guide: Yes I was.
Me: God, it’s a small world.

The conversation went on for a good 30 minutes naming people who we both knew and it was amazing that I had never saw him on the ships…his name was Peter Thom and he was the Visitors Center Manager. He gave me his card and told me to keep in touch. It really was nice to chat about people we both knew.

We went on to the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia…BUMMER, it was closed! Who can forget Peter O’ Brian (Shane Ramsay) leaving Neighbours to go on the Flying Doctors…I’ll have to try and catch it next time.

I didn’t have very much sleep last night…so I was exhausted. I collected Christine Hafner (German) from the Melaleuca and then I collected Tanja Hofer (Italian/German) up from the Stuart Highway, near where she was living.

We got some petrol and hit the road. The girls both seem very nice and I am sure we are all going to get one fine over the next few days. Even though it was early, it was really nice to see the sun come up over the highway and the bush…the colors were amazing.

Our first stop was at Edith Falls…I didn’t know what to expect at all, but I was thinking the waterfall would be something like the one in the film ‘Moonraker”…big, beautiful etc. Infact, it was a piddly little one and for me, quite disappointing, but whatever, it was only a detour off the Highway of 40kms.

We got back on the road, filled up the car with petrol a couple more times and we arrived in Daly Waters at about 2pm. I had read all about Daly Waters in Bill Bryson’s book and was quite excited about going there. We stopped off at first at the Stuart Tree…it was basically a tree stump with a plaque which said “THE EXPLORER JOHN MCDOUALL STUART IS PRESUMED TO HAVE CARVED THE INITIALS ‘S’ ON THE TREE ON 23RD MAY 1862 DURING HIS SUCCESSFUL JOURNEY FROM ADELAIDE TO DARWIN 1861-2”…we couldn’t see an ‘S’ anywhere. We continued onto the Pub, and I have to say, it was as fantastic as Bill Bryson described. Inside the pub walls were full of all sorts of rubbish…underwear, bras, Drivers Licenses, stickers and pictures of different people. After taking a look around the pub we got our food and made sandwiches outside on a step. A man came over with a broad northern accent who I found out was from Burnley. He had been in Australia for 40 years and was on vacation seeing Ayers Rock from Queensland…he discovered that we were sat on the step on a toilet…how delicious my sandwich was after I heard this.

Our last stop was Tennant Creek…which was such a dreadful place, I felt sorry for the poor bastards who live there. The best thing about the place was the room only cost us $14…bargain!! We stayed at the Safari Lodge YHA and this has to be by far the dirtiest YHA I have seen so far. It really could have used a good scrub…but I kept saying in my mind “What can you expect for $14!”

Tennant Creek really reminded me of Kununurra…but Kununurra was a much friendlier place. When we went to bed, we could hear the Abos screaming in the street…it was like a blast from the past!

My friend Dallas was going back to work for Pasquale Pearls today and I had promised her last night I would drive her down to the Pier at Darwin Warf. Dallas is a cook and we had become friends while I was staying at the Melaleuca, we were sharing rooms. The boat I have to say was very impressive…a luxury cruiser which was one of the best in the fleet. We had gone out for drinks last night to Shennanigans and one drink ended up being ten drinks, pizza at the nice Pizzaria on Mitchell St and me staggering back to the YHA.

I had said to Dallas last night that I was really fed up with Darwin and finding a decent job seemed quite difficult. I told her I could hear my father saying “You’re going to blow all your money” and I told her I really felt like every day I was staying in Darwin I was wasting my money…she said I should just go to Melbourne if that was what I really wanted to do.

So, I put up a sign in all of the backpackers and I swear…my phone did not stop ringing until I went and took the signs down. I made arrangements to meet up with two girls to discuss driving down to Alice Springs and after talking for an hour or so, we made arrangements to go tomorrow.

P.S. – Rourke’s Drift have not paid me…I think I need to call Environmental Health…then they will know what being inconvenienced is all about.

My top ten reasons why I HATE the Melaleuca on Mitchell…

1. They are tight bastards and only turn on the AC at 8pm and then off again at 8am…so we sweat all day.
2. There is no TV room (never mind the excuses about the TV being crap in Darwin).
3. The receptionists have NO hospitality skills and are total BITCHES.
4. They give discounts to people they like and then try to lie and say they don’t usually give discounts…don’t lie to me, there are people paying extremely low rates.
5. Everything is extortionate.
6. Last night we had to beg the guy on reception to turn on the big TV so we could see the news about the 2nd London bombing…he then came and told us he had to turn it off at 11:30pm and we could watch the TV in the reception…WANKER!
7. There is only 2 plugs in a room for 6 people!
8. We are not allowed to hang clothes out to dry even though it is over 30 degrees…we have to use a tumble dryer.
9. To get an iron you have to leave a $30 deposit with the reception.
10. The doors are so heavy, they close like doors would, I presume in a prison…I keep waiting to see the ’Costa Cons’ walk in.

People, I checked out this morning and am now staying at the YHA Darwin.