The Red Centre

Hi folks,
Well, I created the web album of pictures below, so I guess its time to create a new blog post to go with it. After a mere 4 days of recovery time in Melbourne after our whirlwind trip to the US it was off again, this time for a week in the 'Red Centre', aka central Australia. Our trip began with a 2.5 hour flight from Melbourne to Alice Springs on tickets that only cost $40 a piece roundtrip - a super deal that we snagged when Tiger Airlines first began offering flights in Australia. We were only in Alice Springs long enough to get our rental car, a bite to eat, and camping supplies for a week, then it was off into the desert....

The first night we headed out east of town to an area called Trephina Gorge, and the thing that was most immediately obvious was how quiet it was. We stopped about 15 miles out of town to see our first rock formation/canyon and it seemed like we were already 500 miles from civilization. Imagine one town of about 26,000 people in the geographical center of a country the size of the US that is over 900 miles from any other town and you'll have a sense of how isolated it is. Anyways, the camping at Trephina Gorge was nice and quiet with warm weather and clear starry skies.

Camping on night #2 of our trip was basically the complete opposite, at least the 'nice and quiet' part. The 'towns' in the Red Centre are nothing more than cattle stations with a few hotel rooms, a pub, a convience store, and a campground. In the campround of one such place, known as Curtin Springs, we were greeted by a large group of very rowdy workers from Ayers Rock and eventually one of them (who, by the way, had very few teeth) came over to introduce himself and invite us over to his campsite. Never being ones to pass up on meeting some locals, we spent some quality time around their campfire and thoroughly enjoyed the ensuing shenanigans, which included attempted emu riding, mud wrestling, and various forms of nakedness.

From there we headed to the more refined Ayers Rock Resort (which is actually a small township comprised of 5 hotels, a campground, store, etc.) to meet up with Christy's aunt and uncle, Linda and Dennis. It was really great to be with loved ones at such a truly Australian icon like Ayers Rock. The next day we hiked a lap around the entire base (about 5 miles) and unfortunately I forgot my camera, but pictures can't really do it justice anyways - it's simply incredible. The other highlight was our Sounds of Silence dinner, where we sipped champagne, listened to didgeridoo while watching the sunset, had a fantastic dinner of kangaroo, croc, etc. and learned how to spot the various constellations and landmarks of the Southern Hemisphere sky. Oh, that and seeing wild camels (yes, there are wild camels in Australia - I told you it was weird down here).

We then bid farewell to Dennis and Linda (we would see them again in Melbourne in a few days) and headed off to Kings Canyon and eventually the West MacDonnell Ranges. The highlight of the West Macs was definitely the Ormiston Gorge hike and probably the friendliest vibe in a campground I've ever experienced. All told we put just under 1200 miles on our rental car in one week, so we definitely got to fully experience the solitude of the outback.

Once back in Melbourne, we got to play tour guide as Dennis and Linda were in town for just over a week. Now things are somewhat back to normal (at least as normal as things get here) and we are back enjoying city life as we head into summer :)

Cheers,
Andy