eitch's blog

Day 15, Thursday, February 18 2010
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We took a walk around the Cape Tribulation beach. This was really nice as the beach is long and the rain forest really comes right down to the beach and there were many crabs and nice scenes to enjoy.

We got driven back to Cairns with the Cape Trib Connection by our driver Matty who is a kiwi and a pretty funny bloke. He also told us about another one of the Cape Trib trips. This was a one day trip to the Tablelands whice would be a lot more cruisy and have a few nice places to see, we were contemplating on doing this trip.

Day 14, Wednesday, February 17 2010
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Cape Trib Connection brought us to Cape Tribulation for a night at the Beach House. Our driver was Barry and is a rather weird fella. On the way to Cape Tribulation we made a stop every now and then and walked in the rain forest, where Barry told us interesting facts.

To really enjoy our Cape Tribulation experience we went for a night walk in the rain forest. This was really fascinating as we saw nocturnal King Crickets, Forest Dragons, vicious red centipedes and most wonderfuly of all: glowing mushrooms and glowing funghi. Just a couple of weeks ago I had seen Avatar was still remembering the lovely nocturnal world in which the Na’vi lived. In this night I was having my own such feeling but in the real world! Interestingly one of the guides told us that many ideas of the plant life in Avatar are actually just exagerations of things found in the Daintree rain forest and in the marine life of the Great Barrier Reef. I was totally in awe…

Day 13, Tuesday, February 16 2010
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We went to Tjapukai Cultural Park where we saw aboriginal dances, didgeridoos performances and got to know more about the history of the aborigines in the north eastern area of Australia. We could also throw the traditional spears with a spear thrower and also throw boomerangs. While throwing the boomerangs one had to stand in a small fenced in enclosure so as not to be hit by a flying boomerang. Somehow a boomerang still found its way into the enclosure and just managed to strife Iris on her arm. Due to this, the aboriginal guy who guided the boomerang throwing gave her one of the boomerangs as a sorry. Such luck she has.

When we went back inside and looked at some paintings Iris then even got the boomerang painted by an aboriginal girl! Wasn’t that just nice. Now she has a very personal souvenir.

In the evening we had a free meal at The Woolshed and stayed there a bit to see how everyone started to dance, sadly my companions Iris and Pia had no desire to go onto the floor with me, so we left and went back home for the night.

Day 12, Monday, February 15 2010
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We Checked-out in the morning and then we sat around Alice Lodge writing a bit in our diaries, paging through our Lonely Planets and lost in thought. Around midday we got a taxi which we shared with a couple of Germans who also took the same plane as us to Cairns. At the airport we checked our luggage and then purused through souvenir shops and I read my book, waiting for boarding time. The flight was uneventful, and once in Cairns we took a free bus to our hostel, where we would be staying for the next couple of days.

Once settles in, we walked along the Cairns promenade and had a short swim in the Cairns public pool as the beach is closed because of stingers and possible crocodiles.

Dinner we had at a nice but quite pricy restaurant called Perotta’s and then enjoyed a good nights sleep.

Day 11, Sunday, February 14 2010
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In the morning, after eating breakfast, rolling up the swags and putting everything back onto the trailer we drove again to Uluru. This time we did the base walk which is nearly 11km long, but we did the Mala walk the day before, so we skipped that and also skipped a part which was on the road. Although it is really undesired and totally frowned upon by the tour guides, there is also the possibility of climbing Uluru. Our tour guide tried his best, but two still went up while the rest of us did the walk. The climb was inviting, but I would certainly not go against the wished of the aborigines so I enjoyed the lengthy walk around Uluru. Uluru has many beautiful nooks and crannies which made it a nice view and I enjoyed the walk thourougly.

As this was our last day, we then started the lengthy trip back to Alice Springs. We stopped every now and then where the guide knew there were worthwhile look outs and this also shortened our trip a bit. There was a nice look out from which we could get a last view of both Uluru and Kata Tjuta in the distance.

Our last stop before getting back to Alice Springs was at a camael farm. Some went for a camel ride and others enjoyed a cold drink and looked around the farm at the young camels, emus and other animals. I liked reading up on the history of camels in Australia.

Sometime in the afternoon Jason drops us off at our respective hostels and we then check-in for our last night in Alice Springs. The day is ended with the whole group meeting at The Rock Bar where we have dinner together and then have a few beers together before saying good-bye to everyone.

Day 10, Saturday, February 13 2010
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We got up rather early, early enough to not be bothered by the really bad flies which don’t come out before dawn. This allowed us to have our breakfast in peace. Afterwards we cleaned up the camp site, packed the swags onto the trailer and started the drive to Kata Tjuta.

Once at Kata Tjuta we did a very lengthy walk around the hills. Because of the rain that had fallen in the last couple of months, it was fascinating to see the desert so green. Every now and then one could see what the desert should have looked like, yet still it was so lush and green. Kata Tjuta was for me reallyl stunning and I loved the different views one could get from the different look outs. Our guide also told us how the aborigines thought the Kata Tjuta hills had come about. THe dreamtime stories of the aborigines are really fascinating.

Our guide also showed us how one could make the paint from the stones which was how the aborigines painted. The paint comes from the different colored stones around Kata Tjuta and of course other places in Australia. THe stones have minerals in them which have different colors and when crushed one can add a bit of water to create paste which can be used as paint.

After the nice time in the hills, everyone feels sticky, hot and hungry so we drove to the Yulara resort, which is very near Uluru. At the resort there were showers, we had wraps for lunch and we could even enjoy a short swim in the pool.

We then drove off to Uluru, where we did the Mala walk and had our first glimpse of the shear masiveness of the rock. It is actually even more huge, though, as it is scientifically thought that we only see the tip of the rock and that it actually goes down about 6km into the ground. Kata Tjuta and Uluru are thought to be massive earth plates, which were pushed up because of geological events many years ago. So the two sides of Uluru are actually very different in age as the one side is the top, and the other the bottom and were formed once through many layers of sediment and pressure which came from times when the whole desert was one big ocean.

The afternoon was rounded off with us driving to a bus park whice was specifically placed so that one could enjoy the sunset over Uluru. There our guide and a couple of people cooked dinner and stayed for a couple of hours, enjoying the sunset and each others company. The sunset was really just beautiful, yet I would have loved to have seen the sunset over Kata Tjuta too.

We then drove back to the resort, where we enjoyed our last night out in the swags with the Milky Way once again over us. I even counted two shooting stars and fell asleep with a smile on my face.

Day 9, Friday, February 12 2010
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Because the tour was going to leave by 6:30 in the morning we had to get up quite early. There were a couple of others leaving with us as well, so there were a few other people up as well. We dumped our stuff outside, checked out and then had a small breakfast. Shortly after six-thirty the bus arrived and we got to know our tour guide. He was called Jason and was a quiet fella.

The start of the tour was a rather lengthy drive in the toyota bus to Kings Canyon. Kings Canyon is actually quite close to Alice Springs, but because the road straight there is only open for 4WD we had to go the long way around which took us many hours.

Once we got to Kings Canyon we took our water bottles, and did the laborious climb up to the top of Kings Canyon. The walk is up some rather steep steps and in the blazing heat it was quite a work out, but I was just loving it, finally giving my legs something to do, after so many hours of sitting in cars, planes and busses…

At the top we were greeted by a beautiful view over Kings Canyon and on over to Uluru and the rest of the desert. It was really stunning. We then walked on around the rim of the canyon while our guide stopped every now and then to tell us the one or other thing about a plant, or about the aborigines and so on. It was really wonderful.

Halfway through the canyon we saw that there were quite some heavy clouds coming in. I thought this is the desert, they will probably just clear up. The guide didn’t say too much, but after walking on for another half and hour he said the rain will probably come and so we should decide what to do. There was another Rock Tour bus out there and we then met with their group. Our swags (rolled up mattress and sleeping bag mix) were on top of the trailer of the busses, so to make sure they wouldn’t get wet our tour guide decided to run back, while we would carry on to the water hole, which was about a quarter of an hour away. We were given the decision either walk back, or go for the risk and the resulting adventure. It was nearly unanimously clear that we went for the adventure, so we walked on to the water hole.

Just as we got to the water hole the first drops came down, but that didn’t stop us from taking off our clothes and jumping into the water. It was a nice water hole, which was surrounded on three sides by steep cliff faces and on the last side a little creek mounded into the hole and fed it with water. Along the creek there were many plants which were nice protected by the canyon. It was really a stunning place to be.

The rain didn’t come down to hard, but we still decided to go back the way we came, as if we would continue on around the canyon and it did come down hard, then we would be needing ropes to get through the quickly flooded creeks. And as we didn’t have ropes with us, the situation was clear.

Back at the bus we got back in and then drove to a cattle station, while picking up a lot of wood for our camp fire, on the way. The drive was very adventurous as we had to drive through a couple of rain falls and many of the roads were really badly flooded, but thankfully never to high for the bus, although Jason did have to walk the one or rather to test the depth of the water.

At the camp site which is on a cattle station nearly the size of holland, we had a camp fire and cooked chilli con carne also vegetarian style and slept under the stars. It was so amazing to see the Milky Way just about our heads and being to fall asleep under it. Thankfully the camp site was dry and we could enjoy the outdoors with out rain on our heads.

Day 8, Thursday, February 11 2010
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Before we left for the airport we put a shelf together for Magda. She has been wanting this shelf to be put up for over 4

years, but sadly her sons never did it. Since we wanted to repay Magda for everything she had been doing for us over the last

couple of days we decided to put the shelf together and bring it into the house so that she could then use it.

Afterwards we packed our suitcased into the car and then left with Magda and John for the domestic airport. There we checked

ourselves in with a computer terminal which was really easy and we could even choose our own seats! After a short snack and

drink together it was time for Iris and me to leave through the security gates where we had to say goodbye to Magda and John.

After a couple of minutes of waiting at the gate, we could board our plane and we were set to leave for Alice Springs.

When we arrived in Alice Springs we were hoping everything was going to work out, as we had not received an e-mail

confirmation for all the bookings from our hostel, but were soon lucky to be collected by the bus driver.

After we checked-in in the Alice Lodge where we were going to stay for the night, we then went to The Rock Tours office where

we received last details about our trip like the things we needed to take with us, and pick up time at the hostel.

We then went to the supermarket where we bought a lot of water so that we would have enough for the trip and I desperatley

needed suncream lotion.

We turned in early and I hardly slept being unable to shut my mind off.

Day 7, Wednesday, February 10 2010
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The next day we saw that there was really nothing that could be done and thankfully our hostel wasn’t a problem to change our

booked days to a day earlier, so we did that, and after about an hour on the phone our flights were also changed to a day

earlier costing each of us an added $220. This meant we would already be leaving on the 11th of February to do the Uluru trip

on the 12th of February.

The Uluru trip we booked via our hostel and this worked perfectly. They even asked if I there were any dietary needs and so I

could say I was vegan. Sounded cool and we were looking forward to our trip!

After all this trouble we then took the bus and train into Perth City. There we met Kevin who came out of his office and

showed us a nice view from one of their rooms overlooking the city and then we had lunch together. Lunch we had in a nice

little side street called London Street or so and was made to look like old London. Many little souvenir shops and little

cafés were everywhere in this street.

After lunch Kevin showed us an interesting feat of Perth; in Perth you can take a 4 way crossing diagonally as a pedestrian.

This is something really funny, but in this situation all the pedestrian lights are green in all 4 directions so one can go

through the middle of the road. Afterwards Kevin left us to go back to work and Iris and I went on sightseeing the city.

Our walk took us all along up to Kings Park where there was a beautiful view over Perth City itself. Perth is quite a nice

looking city. It is small enough to still somehow stay personal, yet is still a real city and has a nice sky line.

After a nice long walk through Perth we went back home where we immediately jumped into the pool and had a nice cool down.

Keving and Brian came home with some nice pizzas which really were delicious!

After dinner we packed everything so that in the morning we would not have to rush this. The evening was soon over and we

turned in and had a good nights sleep.

Day 6, Tuesday, February 9 2010
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In the morning we went to Caversham Wildlife Park which is situated just north east of Perth. The wildlife park is not just a

simple zoo, it is actually in the midle of a national park and thus also serves as a sanctuary and a nursery for animals.

There were lots of beautiful birds, marsupials and other australian animals to look at.

In the afternoon we took the bus from Magda and Kevin’s place to Fremantle, where Iris and I spent a couple of hours of sight

seeing and enjoying a good beer at the local brewery in Fremantles Cappucino Strip.

When we got back home and checked our e-mail, we got the bitter notice that our Uluru trip was unavailable for the days we

had booked it. This was quite bad since we already had booked our hostel and flights. What was really unnerving was the fact

that booking the tour online was with a special tool which didn’t allow us to book all days, so we thought that the booking

would be connected to their accounting. That was a bad thought and we were going to pay bitter for it. We wrote back hoping

that there was anything else we could do, hoping for a positive answer.