The Australian Outback: Darwin down to Alice Springs

I began my Australian travels on May 13, flying from Bangkok into Darwin in the Northern Territory. A couple days later, I began a nine-day organized bus tour of the Outback, which would take me from Darwin, located on the "top end", as they call it here, to Alice Springs, which is located 1500 kilometres to the south - pretty much in the centre of the country/continent.

I usually try and avoid organized tours, but with limited time, it was the best option to see many of the major sites, not to mention avoid being stranded, alone, dying of thirst on the side of the road, with dingos lurking and vultures circling (not sure if there are vultures in Australia - but you get the point). It ended up being an excellent decision - the guides were excellent, the tour well organized, and the group I was with were great people and a lot of fun. I hope to meet up with many of them again some day.

Day one consisted of a trip to Litchfield National Park. Our activities included going for a swim in what would be the first of many, many waterfalls on the trip, as well as having Aboriginals explain the arts of didgeridoo-making and grass-weaving. But the definite highlight of the day was the guided boat trip on Corroboree billabong and seeing a 4.5 metre saltwater crocodile. We were, happily, safe (?) on our boat. And besides, there were a few other passengers between me and the croc. So I was fine. Here he is:

A 4.5 metre long "salty"

The following two day, we visited Kakadu National Park. Here, we hiked in the bush, saw ancient aboriginal rock art and took in one of the many awesome sunsets that I would see in the Northern Territory. At night, we stayed in pre-set-up camps. As I said, we had excellent guides for our trip: very knowledgeable, and funny.

After visiting Litchfield and Kakadu parks, we embarked on the second part of our tour the next day - beginning the long 1500 km trip south down the Stuart Highway to Alice Springs. We stopped in Katherine Gorge on day four, taking a boat trip through two of the gorges. All three days on our trip down to Alice, we made stops in cool (maybe "quaint" is a more accurate term) little NT towns, such as Adelaide River, Katherine, and Daly Waters (population: 8), to name but a few. Despite their small size, they all seemed to have pubs.

A highlight of this leg of our journey was seeing sunrise at the Devil's Marbles -  huge boulders spread across the land which, when caught buy the rising sun, create a stunning visual effect.

Floating down Katherine Gorge

Sunrise at the Devil's Marbles

"Can't...hold...rocks...apart...much...longer..."

The one unfortunate aspect of this tour - which couldn't be helped - is that the desert had received quite a bit of rain earlier in the year. The result was a green, grassy, bush-filled outback - NOT the red sand Outback we all expect. I suppose I shouldn't lament the end of a years-long drought, but couldn't Mother Nature have waited until NEXT year? :)

In addition to tents, we also spent a couple of nights sleeping in swags under the stars. And I caught my first-ever sight of the Southern Cross constellation, which can only be seen from the Southern Hemisphere. For those who did not know, this is the constellation which adorns the Aussie flag.

Did I mention I crossed the Tropic of Capricorn? Well, I did. Look.

We arrived in Alice Springs at the end of our sixth day. Our guide, Jack, referred to it as the "Big Smoke" - despite a population of only 27,000 it IS the second-largest city in the Northern Territory (after Darwin). The next day we started the final leg of our tour, with the major attraction being Uluru (formerly known as Ayer's Rock). I have wanted to visit Uluru since it first entered my consciousness as a teenager. It did not disappoint. We caught stunning views of Uluru at both sunrise and sunset. The fading (or rising) light causes the rock to change colour. Spectacular. We also spent one morning hiking the 10km perimeter of the rock.

There is more I could (and wanted) to write about Uluru (not to mention the neighbouring Kata Tjuta), but I fear if I get started, I'll never finish this blog post. If I don't finish it up now, it'll never happen.
 

Uluru

As I write this, I am in the middle of a whirlwind journey down the east coast. It's a bit of a rush job. I flew from Alice Springs (which definitely wins the award for smallest airport I've been to on this trip) to Cairns, and am making my way at breakneck speed to Sydney. I have a number of things to see, and people to visit, before I catch a certain trans-Pacific flight out of Sydney in a couple of weeks time. Ironic - I've been traveling for a year, and yet what I lack for now is time. The end is near! This could be the last post...