Australia 2005 part 2

On the second leg of our journey we embarked on a bus tour of the red center starting in Alice Springs. How the tour worked is we stayed at a hotel for a night and the mini-bus would come to pick us up in the morning. Well we stayed at a backpacker's "resort". Resort was a stretch because it was disgusting. The beds were so gross we slept on top of the covers with our pants tucked into our socks, there was a 2 inch crack under the door the window wouldn't shut, the shower leaked... at least there was pressure. The barbecue was delicious but we had to clean the dishes and the uncleaned dishes would just get scrapped clean by the gunky hands of a biker guy.

We were happy to get on the bus in the morning. The plan was to visit the whole center followed by our awesome guide... I think his name is Mike. Either way we visited all the great sites there are to see in this province. We visited the Olgas the rock formation across for the famous Ayer rock, also known as Uluru. We got to see the sunset on the mountain, which is unbelievable. If you turn around and turn back every few minutes you get to see a magnificent change of colour on the originally orange rock. During the sunset we got to see it go from deep red to a dark purple and everything in between it was glorious. The following day we climbed Ayers rock. Many people in the group didn't because of religious reasons on the side of the aboriginals who find the rock sacred. The climb took us less time than the climb down because of the incline of the hill we had to be very careful because the only "safely measure" is this knee high chain. It was an accomplishment to get to the top and we were so proud.

The tour was one where we slept in pre-made tents, we also had to help with supper and clean up but it worked out great because we got to talk to the people in the group who were from all around the world. There were americans, germans, aussies, and kiwis.

We visited this gorgeous oasis called the garden of Eden, which was hidden within this canyon. I can't remember exactly where we went but we did a lot of hiking and we were very lucky that we went on this adventure in the aussie winter because it was perfect weather for hiking. Their summer would have reached 40degres which would have been way too hot for a good time of climbing.

While in the center we got to visit an aboriginal village and got to learn about their culture as well as their crafts.

I recommend to anyone who is planning to visit Australia at anytime to take one of these tours, you can do one like we did where you're on a mini-bus or you can be on a big greyhound/coach style bus while staying in lush hotels the whole way.

Until the last leg and until the next adventure!

The picture I posted: 1. my sister and I in front of Uluru, 2. climbing down Uluru, 3. our mini-bus. 4. do you see the crocodile? one of the rock formations we saw while on our hikes, 4. the changes of colour of Uluru it gets even darker but I can only fit 4 pictures here