.: Cath’s Blog:.

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.

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.