.: December 2006

Sunday, December 31, 2006

The Rock

It has to be said that Uluru and the surrounding sights were really impressive. For a big rock, it's pretty cool. We watched sunrise and sunset at the rock and spent a morning walking around it on a 9Km track. We were given the option of walking up to the top even though the local Aboriginals class the rock as sacred and ask you not to. In the end Gez was the only one of us who went up but said it was really worth it.

We also went to Kings Canyon and Kata Tjuta which were cracking. The last few days on this tour saw us doing more exercise that I think we'd done on our whole trip so far which was a welcome change.

Ozfest at King's Canyon

Wee Tam

The rare Pygmy Koala

Big Rock up ahead

Danny at Uluru

The rock nearing sunset

Gez is the fifth from the left

Kangaroo crossing

Sleeping in style under the stars

Danny, Sarah from London and Shad taking a wee rest at the rock (sorry, but we sat on it!)

Out of the tropics and into the desert

So against all the odds we finally made it out of Cairns to continue our travels through the Australian outback. We booked a few adventure tours which would take us south through the 'Red Center' via Alice Springs and Uluru to Adelaide then on to Melbourne.

The first part of our journey, with the Desert Adventurer was a really good laugh. Three days of driving through the desert to Alice Springs, stopping at sights and random wee towns along the way. The rainforests of the tropics soon gave way to sandy soil and nothing much else! We were driving on dirt roads for most of the journey and it was over 40 degrees outside. Good thing we had air con eh? Well.. I'll talk about that later.

Swim in the river anyone? I think Scotland should start donating water to these guys.

Ah, there it is.

Desert Kangaroo

I almost expected to see a giraffe or a zebra from here. Wrong continent though. Ah well, we'll just have to settle for tiny, stoned bears.

Our first drink in the Ozzie Desert! Cold beer is a godsend!

The Desert Venturer makes a pit stop

The BBQ pork was delicious!

5 star accomodation!

And our 5 star lunch in the desert. Sandwiches! They were class actuall. Damn, I'm hungry

"Just let me hold your hand!" "No, p**s off skippie!"

This little town was apparently famous for it's Dinosaurs.. which they chopped and used as bins and the like.

Country and Western ers

Look at the size of those termites!

Steve and Scruffy

Sunrise on the ranch

You would pee yourself too if this lad was touching you!!

Welcome to Nature Terrrrrrritory

Oh crap! About four hours outside Alice Springs the bus breaks down, in 40+ heat!!

Luckily Super Gez comes to the rescue and fixes the bus!

To Shad's delight!

Only in Alice Springs!

For our last night with the crew from the Desert Venturer we all went for dinner and then played drinking games well into the night.

The lovely Irish girls. T'be shure, t'be shure!

DRINK!!

As Gez confirmed, yes, three is the magic number.

Friday, December 15, 2006

A final wrap up - the good times in Cairns

We obviously can't show you all the photos from Cairns. We probably took about a thousand pics while there so here's a round up of some of the best times and some of the many great people that we met while here.