Central Australia

My last and best trip was to Central Australia also known as the Red Centre. I flew to Yulara, which is right next to Uluru (Aboriginal name) or Ayers Rock or The Rock. I think you know what I am talking about. It’s the largest monolith rock in the world! It was amazing to see it from the plane window and then the next day to walk about 7 km around it (even if it started to rain on our walk). The first day we went to the rock at sunset. Both the rock and the Olgas were so pretty at sunset. Our tour guide didn’t think we would see much because it was cloudy but then the sun peaked through the clouds while it was setting and lit up the rock and sky. The next day after watching the sunrise we did the walk around it. That's when it started raining. Our tour guide said he'd never seen water pouring off of all sides of the rock.















I took a tour with Adventure Tours and part of the deal was to sleep in a swag under the stars! I really enjoyed it. There were hardly any bugs and only pesky flies during the day while we were hiking. After the rain, we asked to use a campsite with shelters, which we got, but it stopped raining so I just slept in my swag again under the stars.









We first visited the Olgas or Kata Tjuta (Aboriginal name) which is made up of a conglomerate of little rocks or stones where as Uluru is a type of sandstone. We did a little hike through part of the Olgas which is a mountain range not just one rock.













The third day we visited Kings Canyon which is one of the biggest canyons in the world. The Grand Canyon actually isn’t a canyon (rock or earth’s crust splitting) but a gorge (formed by a river).

The night before when we were at Kings Station, I paid to get a helicopter ride of the area and got to see wild camels and horses running as well as see a unique rock formation or hill where an Aboriginal community has their death ceremonial spot.








The tour ended in Alice Springs. The weather was beautiful when I was in Alice Springs, I think it was about 30 degrees. I stayed in another hostel there, visited the Royal Flying Doctor's Service museum and visited a Baby Kangaroo Rehabilitation centre. They are trying to educate people about the need to check the pouches of kangaroos killed on the road to see if there is a joey inside. They want to see them rescued from a slow, cruel death. The reason so many kangaroo are killed on the road is due to grass that grows in the ditches next to the road. The greater the drought the less grass there is else where.


So that pretty much summarizes my time in Australia. I know it’s a bit long, but it was really hard to choose what to leave out because I had such as great time in Melbourne and Australia. I also did my best to leave people’s names and photos out and such to respect people’s privacy unless I was given permission to post their pictures. Please e-mail me or post comments if you have any.