Next stop on our tour was the iconic outback town of Alice Springs within the vast red desert and barren rocky ranges of the Northern Territory. On our first day in the 'Red Centre' we travelled to Uluru (Ayers Rock) and walked the 9km perimeter of the monolith.
After a peaceful walk around the rock we headed to a nearby vantage point to watch the sun set over Uluru. To be honest the vast numbers of other tourists lining up to spectate, combined with heavy clouds meant that the sunset didn't really live up to expectations. We then headed to a nearby camping ground to have a beer and a bbq, and a sleep beneath the stars inside 'swags'. These were basically a waterproof sleeping sack which we unrolled directly onto the red sand.
The next morning we woke at 4.15am and headed back in to the national park to a secluded spot to watch the most beautiful sunrise over a silhouetted Uluru. The sky changed from red to gold in spectacular style and completely made up for the previous evening's sunset.
Next stop was Kata Tjuta where we did an early morning walk through the Valley of the Winds. The scenery was awesome and we felt like we were walking through the filmset of Land of the Giants or Jurassic Park.
Having woken early we managed to complete the walk before it became too hot. We did however need to take some fairly drastic measures to keep the flies away!
After a second night in our swags we were back on the road to walk through Kings Canyon before visiting a camel farm to ride across the desert and back to Alice Springs.
Next stop Adelaide for more cricket!
Wow!! Looks great guys. This will have to go on the ever growing list of places to visit that we didn't see on the last trip! Hope you bring us some luck with the cricket!
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