Turn my Swag On - Adelaide to Alice Springs

Turn My Sway On - Adelaide to Alice Springs

The day I left melbourne, I took an overnight bus to Adelaide, which was hell. I had this really annoying man sitting next to me and he kept nudging me with his elbows the whole time I tried to sleep. I eventually arrived in Adelaide at 6am, and knew I wouldnt be able to check into the hostel til after 10am at the earliest. So I killed about an hour and a half watching videos on my laptop before I got a taxi to the hostel. The hostel turned out to be literally just around the corner, so I felt pretty stupid getting a taxi for a journey that was so short. When I got to the hostel, the guy at reception told me I couldnt check in until 1pm, but could hang out in the tv room and kitchen, so thats what I did, for about 6 and a half hours. I was so tired, I was struggling to stay awake but at 9am, the hostel started serving free pancakes :D

When I was finally able to check into the hostel, I dumped my bags and went to town to buy a few snacks and then slept til about 8pm, got up, had a shower and some dinner and went to meet my cousin Emma and her friends for drinks. Emma and her boyfriend Simon took me to a place called the Wall Shed. It was really cool, proper western style bar with a mechanical bull. I didn't stay out too late because I had to get a bus at about 6.30am for my trip to Alice Springs.

Day 1:
Shane, our tour guide, picked us all up outside the hostel at half 6 in the morning. Our group seemed to be mostly old people, apart from about 4 other people: Babsi, Matt, Emma and Julia :) I sat on the back row with Babsi and Matt, which was really good fun!

Our first stop was a place called Clare Valley, where we had brekkie and saw a wobbly bridge. We then travelled all the way to a town called Quorn, which is in the middle of nowhere. The village looks really western, just like in the movies. We stayed in an old flour mill, which we shared with another tour group heading in the opposite direction. After we found our rooms and had some lunch, we went to the Dutchman's Stern for a hike. We did a 4km walk up the mountain, whichw was hard work but the view was amazing. We got an epic view of the Flinders Rangers and the Spence Gulf. The weather wasnt great but we could still see for miles, despite the clouds!

In the evening, we had a bbq, where I tried Kangeroo and Buffalo! I preferred the kangeroo! Then after dinner, a few of us watched Pricilla Queen of the Desert in the TV room. Its about 3 trannys that travel through the centre of Australia to get to Alice Springs. It was really good, but really odd.

Day 2:Today we got up bright and early and drove to the Flinders Rangers National Park. I was so cold this morning, I had so many layers on, at least 2 hoodies and 2 long sleeve tops! We did another hike here to see Wilpena Pound. I think we walked about 6km. It was a nice walk but the view wasnt as impressive at the Dutchman's Stern. We were meant to do another walk, which would've been another 2.5km but the weather was a bit crap so we headed back to the bus for lunch. We saw some wild emu's wondering around while we were eating our packed lunch, it was so cool!!
After lunch, we went to the Yourambulla Caves to look at some Aboriginal rock art. Shane told us a little bit about the plants in the area and gave us a little demo on how the Aboriginal people would use them for medical purposes etc. It was really interesting.
Afterwards, we went to the Kanyaka Homestead. We saw the ruins of where the old sheep farmers lived and worked. The buildings were really nice, I want a country house that looks like these house lol. Preferrably still in one piece though!
On the way back to Quorn, we stopped off at Warren Gorge to see some rock wallabies. They were really hard to see, especially for me because I have crap eyesight. I manage to see a few hopping about though.

Back at the hostel, Shane and the other tour guide, Cara cooked us stew and crumble for dinner, which was really nice! And then a few of us were going to watch Wolf Creek afterwards but this irish lad called James, from the other tour group, persuaded Emma, Matt, Babsi and I to go to the pub with him and this Swiss guy from his tour. The pub was really weird, proper hillbilly place, and it closed at 10pm so we weren't there for long!

Day 3:Today we drove to Cobber Pedy. On our long drive there, we stopped at this amazing salt lake in Glendambo. The salt lake was called the Heart Lake or something, and it was the most beautiful place ever. I could've stayed there forever, there was not alot of water and the ground was pure salt. I can't describe how nice it was, and the sun was shining too. It was perfect.
When we got to Coober Pedy, we arrived at our accommodation, which was caves!! It was so cool! They were nice and warm and fully furnished, more like houses that had been dug out of the hills. We had dinner at a pizza place, then went for drinks at an underground/cave bar. The barman kept giving me and Emma free drinks, which was fine by us! Pretty cushty!

Day 4:Spending a night in a cave was really good, probably one of the best nights sleep I've ever had! Our first activity today was to go to the Opal Museum next door where we were taught about Opal mining. The lady gave us a demo of how to cut and polish an opal, which was cool, and gave us a guided tour around the mines. It was really interesting, but im not a fan of Opals.
Afterwards, Shane took us on a little tour around Coober Pedy and took us noodling for opal. He found a stone for me which had a bit of opal in, I was hacking away at this rock for ages trying to get this opal out. I gave up in the end and just threw the stone in my bag. I ended up losing this stone anyway somewhere along the rest of the trip. I dont know how, the rock was just a bit smaller than a tennis ball, so who knows how I lost it!

After that, we had free time to explore Coober Pedy, so Babsi, Emma, Matt, Julia and I went to look at the Catholic Church, which was so cute! It was really small and built in a cave. I would so get married in it, its so cute! We then went to the Old TImers Musuem where a guide showed us how to use the rock sorting maching. The guide was a right loon, clearly spent his entire life digging for Opal, hoping to make a fortune, which had obviously make him a bit loopy in the head. He was missing most of his teeth, real hill billy lol, he was cool. Then we found the BIG Winch! It was big. It was also pretty random.

After free time, we said goodbye to fruit loops of Coober Pedy and set off on the bus to a town called Marla. A pair of french guys from our tour group insisted on cooking the dinner for us, which was meant to be stir fry. The could not have buggered it up more...so Emma, Babsi and I took over (which the frenchies were not happy about), and we did our best to fix it. The frenchies wouldnt eat it because we'd 'touched the food'...so lame! At least it was edible! After 'dinner', we all sat by the campfire and I met a guy from another tour who was from Chelmsford! So weird, he went to Kegs and everything, small world!

Tonight, we all slept in swags. Swags are a canvas bag with a matress in, so you sleep inside that with your sleeping bag. It was so nice sleeping under the stars, and I slept surprisingly well!

Day 5:We got up at 5.30am and got straight on the bus, still in my pj's. We stopped at the Northern Terrirtory boarder to have breakfast and get dressed. I stupidly dropped my knickers in an ants nest, so I literally got ants in my pants. Once we were all ready, we hopped back on the bus and drove to Kings Canyon. Kings Canyon was amazing, I loved it here. The steps to get to the top were pretty challenging, but so worth it. I don't know what it is about Kings Kanyon, but it was so nice. In the middle of the Canyon walk, we came across the Garden of Eden, which was so pretty. There were water holes, and exotic looking trees. It was beautiful. After our walk, we watched the sunset, had dinner and swagged it up. Shane warned us about dingos, telling us to keep our shoes in the swags cos the dingos steal them in the night! We didnt have any problems though, but we could hear them howling in the distance.

Day 6:We went to Kata Tjuta for a walk this morning. It was really good, some steep rocks to climb! One guy who was passing me slipped because he was being impatient, luckily I caught him lol, somehow! The bell end didnt even say thanks! The place was packed with tourists though, we did the Valley of the Winds walk, which seemed to be pretty popular! Once we finished, we drove to watch the sunset at Uluru. It was really good! We had cheap champers and biscuits with dips, while we watched the sunset. We swagged it again tonight, I had the worst nights sleep ever. I just couldnt sleep, I wanted to cry when I saw how slow the time was going, everytime I looked at my phone I was praying that it would be time to get up lol.

Day 7:Luckily we got up really early to watch the sunrise at Uluru. We all did a base walk around Uluru as the sun rose, I had a horrible migrane throughout the entire walk, probably from the lack of sleep. We probably walked about 6km and halfway through I really needed to pee, so I had to wee in the sacred area. I felt really bad but I couldnt hold it any longer! After the walk, Shane picked us up and drove us to the cultural centre. It was ok, some interesting stuff. We then went back to Uluru for our guided walk. We were meant to have an Aboriginal guide but there had been a death in the community, so Shane had to do the guided tour instead. It was so funny, one of the frenchies was recording everything Shane said with a dictaphone. So weird! Luckily, Shane knew all the info and little dreamtime stories, which made the walk really interesting.
On the way to Alice Springs, we stopped off to look at Mount Connor, aka Fooluru. Mount Connor looks a bit like Uluru, and is often mistaken, so that was pretty funny.

Once we arrived in Alice Springs, we all met for a goodbye dinner and drinks and a bar called The Rock. It was really nice, and afterwards, Babsi, Matt, Emma, Julia, Shane and I all went to the Casino for drinks and a dance. It was such a fun night out! We met a few of Shane's friends too, one of them was a guy called Juno, who was going to be my tour guide for my trip up to Darwin!

Alice Springs: 
We had a day to chill in Alice Springs, Babsi made the nicest lunch ever for us all, we were all so tired! We got up to go and have a free didgeridoo lesson, but it didnt run on a Saturday. Shane text us asking if we wanted to have drinks round his house, so we all showered, did our washing and then went to his. We met his housemate Steve, who is also from Essex! So we were chatting shit about where we used to go out in Chelmsford and stuff lol. It was really nice to have a chilled out day.