Alright, time to get back to some of my adventures! After the Kangaroo Island tour, I began yet another tour with Groovy Grape...this time we headed into the Red Centre (no, I'm not misspelling it...that's how they spell it here), better known by the rest of the world as the "Outback!" This trip was my longest with Groovy Grape; 7 days! Believe it or not, there is just so much to see out there....and it really is amazing! You can just drive and drive for hours out in the middle of nowhere!
Our group was a small one at first, only 7 of us. However, a few days into the trip, we combined with a group doing a shorter desert tour and we then became a group of 18! I was once again reunited with some of my traveling buddies!
Day 1:
Departing Adelaide, we headed straight into the desert region of South Australia. One of our first stops was Yourambulla Caves, an aboriginal site in the Flinders Ranges. You would think that with nothing out there, it would be boring to look out the window, but it was just the opposite. Most of us could not stop gazing out the windows at all the scenic views. Believe it or not, there was actually a lot of green in the desert and that mixed with the reds and browns together with the background of the blue sky was just stunning.
 |
| This is where you go to really get away from everything! |
 |
| See what I mean about the beautiful views out of the van windows? Just look at all the colors! |
 |
| View of the "nothingness" from the caves. |
 |
| Aboriginal paintings. The tracks are emu and kangaroo tracks. |
Overnight, we stayed in a building that was once an army medical center in the "town" of Angorichina, which consists of the hostel, a tiny gas station, and a small shop. For dinner, we had an Aussie barbeque (yes, insert the corny "throw another shrimp on the barbie") including chicken, steak, kangaroo :( and kebabs (believe it or not,
no shrimp)! I had my fill of meat for sure!
 |
| Yep, they still have road signs out there! | | | | | | | | |
|
 |
| Why not walk in the middle of the road? There's nothing out there! |
|
 |
| Ya hungry for some MEAT?! |
Day 2:
Today we headed even further into the red center. Along the way, we stopped at the historical town of Farina, which has a very sad story. A man who claimed to be a botanist but was actually an engineer lied to a bunch of people and told them that he had found some great land for farming. The people he lied to moved to Farina to try to make a new life for themselves. They labored and struggled to be productive with their farming, but it was a very difficult life. Eventually they found out the truth and they were so upset (reasonably!) that they went around town and smashed all the glass bottles they had. You can actually
still see the glass on the ground today. Very sad!
 |
| This sign is for real. It can be very dangerous traveling through the desert, especially during the heat of the summer. Many people have gotten stranded, become delirious, and died. |
 |
| We stopped to take a photo with this sign advertising an Outback pub. |
 |
| Some of the ruins of Farina. |
|
 |
| I love this photo! |
 |
| More ruins |
We also stopped for lunch in the town of Marree, population of 70. This tiny outback town even had a yacht club!
 |
| The yacht club...hilarious! |
 |
| Abandoned railroad |
 |
| We had fun taking photos with the old train! |
From there, we headed to Lake Eyre in the middle of the desert! You won't be able to see the water in the next few photos because it plays optical illusions with your eyes. On the rare occasion that the lake actually fills, it is the largest lake in Australia!
 |
| Trying to get a jump pic in front of Lake Eyre....we couldn't quite get it all at the same time! |
 |
| Can you see the water? ;) |
 |
| We were the ONLY people out there.... |
 |
| Steve had us collect wooden beams for firewood, remains of the old railroad. |
That evening, we slept at a campground in the tiny town of William Creek, a town of 7 residents! We set out our swags around the campfire and settled in for a good night's sleep!
Day 3:
On day 3, we left William Creek behind us and headed for Coober Pedy, the underground city where they mine for beautiful opals! On the way, we passed through Anna Creek Cattle Station, the world's
largest cattle station! It is owned by Nicole Kidman's family! The Kidman family is absolutely loaded....just recently Nicole's uncle, Sydney Kidman, passed away, but he owned 1/10 of Australia!
We drove on dirt "roads" all the way to Coober Pedy...a very bumpy drive, definitely only 4-wheel driving appropriate.
 |
| Bumpy ride! |
In Coober Pedy, we met up with the other group of 14 travelers! We then became a
huge group. There were 2 really loud and obnoxious Irish guys (I couldn't understand a word they said and I lived in Ireland for 4 months! A few days into the tour, they got kicked out for vandalizing some lights in one of the campgrounds...we weren't too sad to see them go). Our group now had 4 English, 3 Germans, 3 Canadians, and 1 Aussie girl from the Barossa Valley. Oh and by the way, everyone here just assumes that I am Canadian. Their ears prick up when they hear that I am American. They assume I am Canadian first because there are way more Canadians in OZ than Americans
and they get in less trouble assuming I am Canadian first (because apparently Canadians don't like people thinking they are American), so if they get it wrong, it's not as big a deal. Throughout my travels in both Europe and OZ, I have met a number of Canadians with major hang-ups and bitterness towards America. A Canadian guy once told me that Canada feels forgotten because it is a huge country right above the US, but people always know more about America.
So back to Coober Pedy: it's a very unique town. 95% of the world's opals come from Coober Pedy and pretty much everyone lives underground. We got to take a tour of an old underground mine and learn about what they do with the opals. It's an interesting looking town because there is so much of that Outback-reddish dirt everywhere, but apparently, underground you can live a very peaceful life because you won't hear
anything! About 4,000 people live in Coober Pedy. We got to sleep underground like the locals. I actually got really warm during the night (I would've thought it would be cooler), and I noticed that the air was
super dry. I woke up with a sore nose!
 |
| Our underground bunkhouse. | |
|
|
 |
| Old underground kitchen. |
 |
| Living room... |
 |
| Looking for opals! ;) |
 |
| View of the underground town! |
We then went to see the dingo fence, as well as a beautiful view of the vast expanse of the outback. The dingo fence was built in the 1880's to keep dingos from preying on flocks of sheep. It is the world's longest fence and it stretches 3,448 miles! It has been pretty successful, but dingos can still get through in some spots.
 |
| Longest fence in the world! |
 |
| I can't for the life of me remember what this was called, but what a view! |
 |
| My new friend Sandra from the Netherlands....you'll be seeing lots more of her!!! We formed a great friendship on this trip. :) |
Day 4:
Today we did a lot of driving because we crossed the border from South Australia into the Northern Territory and headed straight to Uluru (Ayer's Rock). I was so excited to see it...it was on my list of things to do and see here. After 6 hours of driving, we finally made it to Uluru and went to see sunset over the big rock...what every tourist wants to see. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a sunset as it was very cloudy, but nonetheless, it was still amazing to see Ayer's Rock!
 |
| Another territory I've now been to! |
 |
| There she is in all her glory! |
 |
| We needed a rest after that long, bumpy ride. |
 |
| Dinner in the Outback! |
Day 5:
This morning, we were supposed to wake up at 5am and go see sunrise over Uluru, but it was raining, so we went back to sleep for a bit. Due to the weather, we switched our plans and a couple hours later went to Kata Tjuta (also called the Olgas), more large red rocks. We did a 7 kilometer hike through the rocks, which was amazing...so many pretty views!
 |
| I love the contrast of colors! |
 |
| The red color of the dirt is so rich! You can see why the Outback is called the Red Centre! |
 |
| And we saw wild camels! Apparently OZ has millions of camels. |
Later in the evening, we headed back to Uluru to try and see the sunset. Unfortunately, we missed out again, as the sun never showed it's face much that day. Bummer!
Day 6:
So because it was raining yesterday morning, today we headed back to Uluru to catch the sunrise. Once again, not spectacular. However, what we did see is very rare: low clouds hanging right above the rock so that you couldn't even see the top! This kind of weather hardly ever happens, so in a sense, we were the lucky tourists who got to see clouds instead of sunsets and sunrises! ;)
 |
| It was really a spectacular sight! |
After enjoying the "sunrise," we did the 10 kilometer walk around the base of Uluru. It was awesome to walk all around the big rock and see it from each side. It really is incredible. I didn't get to climb it; climbing was closed that day due to the rain. Even if it had been open for climbing, I'm not sure if I would've. The aborigines who live there ask people not to climb it because they see it as disrespectful, but also, it is actually pretty dangerous to climb. Many people have died climbing it and a person even died just the week before I was there. There are no stairs to the top leading to fancy look-outs; there is just a rope that you hold onto as you make your way up... and it is
very steep.
 |
| The streaks are water on the rock from the rain. |
 |
| The but-crack rock! Hehee! ;) |
 |
| This gives you an idea of how steep it is! |
So now I have seen the big rock! I can check that off of my list! :)
Day 7:
On our last day, we hiked through beautiful King's Canyon! I really, really enjoyed King's Canyon...so many colors in the rocks!
I also got to ride a camel in the outback!! My camel was named Jen Jen. There are approximately 4 million wild camels in Australia! The Middle East even has Aussie camels shipped to them because the blood lines are so pure (kinda ironic, don't ya think?).
 |
| She was telling me a secret! |
After another long drive, we pulled into Alice Springs, which marked the end of our tour. I had a blast on this tour...lots of amazing scenery and new friends. The Red Centre is really something to see! I'm so glad I go to go there!
After the outback, I went on a 3 day tour from Alice Springs up to Darwin. It was mostly filled with driving since there is quite a distance between the two towns. Here's a few highlights from that trip:
 |
| "Devil's Marbles" |
 |
| Mataranka Thermal Springs |
 |
| Katherine Gorge |
So that's it for my time in Central Australia. Up next is Darwin...the perfect place to relax! Until then, here's the....
Aussie Fact of the Day: The 10 deserts of Australia make up about 18% of the continent, but 35% of Australia receives so little rainfall that it is classified as desert. Australia is the driest, inhabited continent on earth; only Antarctica is drier.
http://www.outback-australia-travel-secrets.com/australian_deserts.html
