Of travel, I've had my share, man. I've been everywhere. (Part 1)

You know when you say to yourself, "Oh I'll just do that tomorrow." Well, for me, I said that for 217 days. But today's the day that I finally get this blog done! Or at least, today's the day that I finally start getting this blog done. It's a big day, and I don't think you're nearly excited enough about how awesome today is.

To review, my last post was about my family coming down to visit me in Melbourne. We traveled around for about two weeks and then they went back home and I went back to being cool. After they left, I had about three weeks before it was my last day as a Melburnian. During those three weeks, I...

1.) Went to Tasmania to visit my friends.

2.) Fed a Tasmanian devil.

3.) Hiked around Launceston, Tasmania.

4.) Drove a stick shift at 3 a.m., which means I was driving stick on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car in the wee hours of the morning. 

5.) Hung out.

6.) Went to see a few acts at the Melbourne Comedy Festival with some mates. 

7.) Went to a really fun footy match with Gab, and saw the Western Bulldogs demolish the Brisbane Lions.

8.) Went to Gab's 30th birthday party at his house.

9.) Kept it real. Kept it fresh. And I kept it real fresh.

So that's three weeks boiled down into 9 bullet points, PowerPoint presentation-style. The next two weeks, however, stand no choice at being boiled down. So, we're going to split the next two weeks into two blogs, which is super convenient, because I spent the first week traveling around Australia, and the second week traveling around New Zealand. So without further ado....

My travel plans for Australia included going to see Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta and various other Outback attractions. I flew out of Melbourne on April 8th, via Tiger Airways, which is kind of like shaving your face with a chainsaw. You have to do it, and it gets the job done, but you know you might die at any time. I flew into Alice Springs, which is the central-most town in Australia, and is about 27,000 strong. It is home to many people of Aboriginal decent, and has a lot of museums, tour groups, and historical sites. After landing, I checked into my hostel and then checked out the city. 

Check. It. Out.

I did some window shopping, learning and checked in to my tour shop for my tour the following day. I did my tour with The Rock Tour and they did a great job. I grabbed some dinner, walked around some more, then headed back to the hostel to arrange my things for my tour. I met two American girls who were in my tour, so that was pretty cool. One of them even went to kU, which was slightly less cool, but it wasn't too bad. I went to bed fairly early, as we were being picked up at 6 a.m. the next morning to start our tour. 

There were 20 other people on my tour, not including the two tour guides, Mark and Charlie. We would spend the next three days with each other, and we would spend about half of that time on the  road. Needless to say, getting a good seat on the bus was the most important decision I made during my entire stay in Australia. 

I spent more time in this van than I did in class all this semester.

It was a 4 hour drive to get to Uluru, and on the way we stopped at a few smaller rock sites and landmarks. Once we got to Uluru, it was time for my mind to be blown. It’s one of those things where, from driving up from a distance, you go ‘There is no way it’s really that big’, but as you get closer, it keeps getting big and bigger and...

Biggest.

It's seriously large. It is 1,142 ft tall and has a 6-mile circumference. Pretty much the biggest pet rock you could ever find. My tour drove a lap around Uluru, and then we got out of the van and walked around Uluru while our tour guides explained some historical and cultural aspects of Uluru and the surrounding area, and other customs of the local Aboriginal tribes. After our walk, we got back into the vans and drove to a spot to watch the sunset. Uluru 'glows' red at sunset, due to the reflection of the sun's rays. It was a very pretty night, with millions of stars in the sky and a glowing red Uluru. After the sunset, we drove to a local campsite, unrolled our sleeping bags and tents and got to making a campfire. The guys of the group made the fire and drank beer while the girls of the group went to the restrooms and showered. It was a nice night for a campfire, and a nice night for sleeping outdoors. I forgot to mention one thing, though. The travel brochures are pretty straight forward with Uluru (it's a big rock, you can't really mess that up), but one thing they don't tell you about is the flies. I could walk from the parking lot to Uluru without ever touching the ground because I was walking on the flies. If you were short on some protein that day, all you had to do was open your mouth, run forward and boom! you had your daily nutritional content of protein.  

All of those specks on their shirts are flies. Literally, there were thousands of them.

The next morning, we woke up and drove back to Uluru to catch the sunrise (prettier than the sunset, in my opinion) and then we drove the 30 minutes to Kata Tjuta. Kata Tjuta, which means "many heads", is 36 rock domes spread out across 10 square miles. They can range anywhere from being 800 feet tall to being 50 feet tall. We hiked around KT for the whole morning, with Mark and Charlie stopping and talking to us about certain Anangu (the local Aboriginal tribe) things. Kata Tjuta was very green, so there was great contrast between the massive red domes and the greenery underneath. 

Contrasted. Boom.

Kata Tjuta was prettier than Uluru, but Uluru was much more physically impressive. We hiked around Kata Tjuta for almost four hours, taking in the sights and sounds and the magnitude of the formations. My group was a lot of fun. We had about 3 Americans, a French couple, a British girl, a very pretty Dutch girl, a Brazilian girl and then the rest were either German or German speakers. So, the group was pretty much split into either being German or not German. It was a cool group, and we all got along really well. 

It's hard not to get along when you're looking at this view.

After hiking around Kata Tjuta, we drove to a campsite by King's Canyon to stay the night. On the way to the campsite, we stopped on the side of the road to dig for grubs, just like the Aboriginal women used to do. The key was to look for roots of special trees that had huge bumps in them, and that showed that a grub had been present. 

Grubs.

After you found that root, you dug up the rest of the tree's roots to find other roots which had grubs living in them. It took us about 30 minutes, but we ended up finding four or five grubs, and we put them to good use.

Real good use.

We built a fire (guys with the fire, girls with the showers), cooked dinner and headed to bed. The night was so much clearer than before, so I could see the Milky Way, Southern Cross and millions of other stars. It was great falling asleep under those Australian stars.

The next day, we woke up early, as usual, and drove to King's Canyon for our last day on tour. The sun came up while we were climbing ‘Heart Attack Hill’, a very steep start to the hike. It was a beautiful sunrise over the Canyon, and a great start to the hike. We hiked for about 4 hours, and we got to see a lot of awesome rock formations, canyons, valleys and ponds. The gorge is a low point for the surrounding area, so regardless of the type of weather, there is always a cornucopia of trees, plants and wildlife in the bottom of the gorge. 

The wood bridge grew here naturally, as well.

Overlooking the top of the canyon. 

It was times like this were I was glad that I did a tour and didn't try to see everything by myself. This canyon would have been cool to experience by myself, but I wouldn't have gotten all of the background knowledge and little stories that Mark and Charlie knew. After hiking through the canyon, we made lunch (with a heavy side of flies), then hopped into the vans and started the long eight hour drive back to Alice Springs. On the way back, we played games to keep us occupied and I took a nap. Driving through the Outback is probably one of the more boring things you could do while in Australia. Think Kansas, but with stubby bushes instead of corn. Not the most exciting drive ever. After we arrived back at Alice Springs, I made my way back to my  hostel where I unpacked my things, started my laundry and then took a good long nap. The past three days had been very early mornings, hikes, heat and late nights. It was still a great experience. That night, my tour met up at a local bar and we all celebrated a successful tour. It was pretty fun partying with people from all over the world; dancing is a universal language, so it all worked out well! I went to bed pretty late that night, but was able to sleep in the next morning, so it wasn't too bad. 

The next morning, I woke up, packed my things, hopped onto the bus for the airport and caught my flight back to Melbourne. It was great being back in Melbourne. I stopped by work to say hi to my friends. They gave me a few mementos, including a really cool 'Lend Lease' winter vest that will come in handy. I said goodbye to them, then checked into my hostel, grabbed some dinner and called it a night. 

This is what a hostel looks like, in case you didn't know.

Overall, it was a great trip out to the Outback. The Outback is definitely something that you can't get anywhere else in the world, and it was one of the best parts of my trip. Uluru, Kata Tjuta and King's Canyon were a lot of fun and definitely unforgettable, especially Uluru and Kata Tjuta. I had a great time out in the middle of nowhere of Australia, but now I was getting excited about heading out to New Zealand to see how the Kiwis lived. The next day, I would fly out to Queenstown, New Zealand, and embark on the next half of my trip.