Red Center I

Just over a week ago we touched down in Alice Springs and surprise, surprise, the same evening it started raining in the desert! This created a nice cool off with temperatures forecast to be in the around 40 C.

As mentioned in one of the previous posts we rented a 4WD to explore the Red Center. We headed off to the West MacDonell Ranges (heading 270, not surprisingly) after a wonderful day in the "Alice", as locals call the small desert town, visiting the very interesting Desert Park on the way, which explains the various Desert landscapes, flora and fauna, how to find water and other essentials in the Outback. After a couple of short hikes to various Gorges and Chasms we settled in Glen Helen for the night. At this point we had decided to spend our nights on camping mats in the back of our 4WD because all rooms in the Outback, even dorm-rooms with bunk-beds and 4-10 people shared occupancy, ran >= AUS $50 which we weren't willing to pay. Unfortunately, the first night in the car was rather aweful :( We had the choice between keeping the windows shut and suffering a heat stroke or opening the windows and getting eaten alive by some pretty nasty mosquitos (yes, they do exist outside minnesotaaaaaa). To make a long story short, we didn't sleep much. In the morning Anja's back injury was pretty bad and we decided to head back to Alice to see a chiropractic.

The same day, with Anja feeling much better after a good cracking, we continued on to Uluru (Ayers Rock). It is quite an amazing sight, this monolith in the middle of the desert. We watched a beautiful sunset with many other spectators and spent a, this time more confortable night, in the back of the 4WD. A thunderstorm had cooled temps and the mosquitos weren't nearly as bad.

The next morning the plan was to get up for the sunrise, however, we couldn't quite get out of our car/bed in time so we decided instead to pay a visit to the other famous rock formations in the area, the olgas. We started the 7km hike around 6:30 am and were happy we did so, because by the time we had finished, temps were a blistering 34 C. The afternoon was spent around a pool, the only way to keep half-way cool.

Sunrise at Uluru was clouded over the next day, but still made for a mystical landscape with half of Uluru covered in fog. We hiked around the base of the rock, 10km round-trip, sharing the trail with relatively few other visitors. Then we headed off towards Kings Canyon, a 3.5h drive. There's a lot of open space in these parts of the country. After another spectacular thunderstorm across the desert we settled in for the night in our, by this time, comfy 4WD home :)