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Outback australia
After a three hour flight we arrived in Alice Springs to start our exploration of the australian outback. We hired a 4-wheel-drive bushcamper, bought enough food for 5 days (24 cokes, 20 liter springwater, 180 liter diesel etc.) and set off. After a walk to "Standley Chasm" we bought a permit (to drive through aborininal land) in Hermannsburg and left the paved road into Finkers Ntl. park.
We tested the 4WD on our car on the track to Palm Valley were we camped the first night and saw a wild kangaroo. It was hopping around 10 meters away so we tried to approache it carefully not to scare it away. But when it saw us it hopped straight towards us expecting a cuddle (or some dinner?).
We discovererd that the 4WD world is big but there are not many people there. You run into the same people all the time. So in the evening we joined the campfire of the 3 guys we met on our afternoon walk. We met them again at the sunset at Ayers rock and then a few times more, so in the end we didn't say goodbye anymore, just "see you later".
Next day early in the morning we walked around in Palm Valley, the only place in central Australia were you can find palms (thanks to underground water). It surprised us that in the puddles we found many small frogfishes swimming around. What are they doing in the desert?
In the afternoon we walked around Kings Canyon, a huge canyon with a green waterhole called "Garden of Eden" at the bottom. We almost stepped on a big snake (!). At first we thought it was dead, and Bart wanted to touch it with his feet, but then he saw a little tounge moving around and jumped back.
We used day 3 to see the aboriginal centre at Yuluru (not as good as we expected), walk around the Olga's (very impressive rockformations made of big and little round rocks glued together) and watch the sunset at Ayers Rock (it was cloudy but just on time the sun broke through and there was even a rainbow seen, just as we predicted).
We skipped the sunrise at 5.55 but walked around the rock instead (at 12.00). The climb was closed because of the weather, so Bart didn't have to decide if he should climb or not (aboriginal law prohibits it).
On the way back to Alice we stopped to see some meteorite craters and we missed the unsignposted turnof to Rainbow Valley. We were sorry to return our little snail (car) so now we are backpackers again. Tomorrow at 6.20 we're picked up for our tour to Adelaide.
We'll write about that later.
No worries
Hana & Bart
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