Current mood:	relaxed
Current music:	the Outback

King Browns, Dampers and Outback!

inally! I found the boys again. (This is your friendly narrator typing) I lost them in the Outback and it took me weeks to locate them.

A month ago they left for Alice Springs on their 10 days trip through the Outback of New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory.

Day 1
Train ride from Sydney to Broken Hill. This express service runs from Sydney to Perth in 70 hours. Broken Hill is 16 hours. No watches, no phones, no schedule. Just life as it comes. Wake up at dawn, eat when you're hungry and sleep when it's dark.



Day 2
Train arrives in Broken Hill. They were picked up by Flick, the tour guide from Battours. The group: 11 passengers 1 driver.
They visited the Flying Doctors and drove to their first wildernis campsite near Koonamore.
For the rest of the tour they were supposed to sleep in swags. (what's a swags?).



Day 3
They visited the sheep farm (where sheep sheering was done just a week before they were there). So no hot action, just a smelly shed. Then they drove to their next camp site. The aboriginal community Iga Warta. With a pool and a shower (showers are very uncommon in the outback).



Day 4
Initiation with the aboriginals by the tribe elder. Face painting at the ocker site. They were very fortunate to see one of the most venomous snakes on the planet from a 8 meters distance in the wild. The King Brown (Pseudechis australis, No. 2).
After the face painting they had a nice walk to a sacret wall painting site.
One of the other tribe elders had his 40th brithday and the tour group was invited to come and celebrate. An emu and kangaroo (shot earlier that day) were cooked in the ground at the bon fire, the original way. With the meat comes a damper, bread baked in the ground.
After a very nice celebration with picture of 40 years of an aboriginal's life and lots of music and dancing, the travellers went to bed to rise and shine the next morning, off tho their next destination.



Day 5
Leaving Iga Warta with a hell lot of road ahead for the day. The most arrid part of the tour. Past the salt lake and a weirdo's sculpture tourist shop in the middle of nowhere. The guy wasn't even their. Supposedly he is a freak.
Passing Williams Creek (population 2), the driver though they could make it to Coober Pedt on the gas they had left in the tank. They'd to 400 km on a full tank normally. This time, because of the extreme head winds, only 250 km. They ran out of gas 20 km from Coober Pedy. Luckily two cars were behind them, with friendly dutchies, helping them to get some gas. This was probably the most adventurous part of the trip.



Day 6
Waking up in Coober Pedy, in a mine. 70 percent of this opal mining town lives under ground. They did a mine tour and misbehaved very very much!
Back on the road to the Northern Territory along the Stuart High Way where they found their next campsite just off the road.



Day 7
Next desination: George Gill's Ranges. Activity: Hellicopter ride. w00t!!!
Then they looked for a water hole in the hills, had a nice swim and set up their camp near Kings Canyon.



Day 8
At Kings Canyon they made a 3 hour walk, and swam in the garden of eden. Another beautiful (and very popular) water hole. They had to get used to the idea of other people around them though. :-S
Then the drive to see sunset behind the Olgas casting red light on the sacret mountain Uluru.



Day 9
Sun rise at the Olga's behind Uluru. Beautiful skies and colors. They wanted to do the walk through the valley of the winds, unfortunately this was closed, because of incredible heat. In stead they did the walk around Uluru. People still climb this rock, but the aboriginals ask you not to. After spending so much time with the very generous tribe, the respected their wish. (Climbing the rock is like playing a loud game of football in a cathedral).

The tourguide had a very nice idea (since we did Uluru and Olga's in 1 day, we could add another destination to our trip. She new a camp site very close, only 600 km away.... hahahaha)



Day 10
Relaxing day at the campsite 600 km further (but only 60 km from Alice Springs). Aryan, Chris, Alexander and Ernesto thought it would be nice to have a climb over the hill and swim back through the river. But the hill appeared to be a lot more than a challenge than they prepared for. Steep cliffs where only rock climbers with equipment could go, the 4 backpackers on flipflops had to return. But the return route they took seemed to be the same kind of challenge. So they had to go all they way back the way they came. On treir return, they just swum the river up and down.

After this they drove to Alice Springs. Alice Springs is a very laid back town (population 20.000) in central Australia. City folk would think: does anything ever happen in this ghost town? After 10 days of sleeping under the stars, and staying in the outback, you think: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrch! Traficlights! Cars! People! SMS-es on my cellphone! Activity! STOP! Let me go back!



Quote Ernesto and Alexander: This was probably the most incredible tour we ever did.

To see more pictures of the tour go to the image gallery.

Cheers,
the narrator