We reached our first stop called Nobody’s, and my mom and I waited for the crowd to clear before we made our way to the back of the boat. As I said, my mom does not know how to swim so she was really nervous about getting in the water. We found her a life vest, and I sprayed some de-fogger in her goggles. I put her mask and snorkel on and she practiced breathing through it. One of the girls who works on the boat volunteered to take my mom out to ease her into the experience. I decided to videotape my mom’s first snorkel experience on my camera, and I got into the water alongside them.
All of a sudden while I was videotaping, a message came up on my camera screen warning that something might have gotten inside the battery compartment. I got out of the water as quickly as I could keeping my hands above the water, but by the time I climbed back on the boat, it was too late! Somehow water had leaked into the battery getting inside the camera, and it would not even turn on. How could I have ruined two cameras so far in Australia?
As I foreshadowed earlier, Liz (who we had met on our boat) had rented a camera so she promised to send me pictures from the day. Sadly, I had not even had the chance to take any pictures other than one of my mom before she got into the water. And it was such a beautiful day at the reef! In retrospect though, the nice thing about not having to worry about taking pictures of the reef was I was able to really enjoy the experience. I swam as far away from the boat as possible (to avoid getting kicked in the head by other people!) and really explored each of the dive sights.
After a bit, we left the first site to move to our second for the day, called Advanced Whammies. I am not really sure who names these sites or what they mean, but I think it is more of a way for the crew of the boat to describe the conditions there? In that case though, I still have no idea what this site’s name means...
At the second site, we were served lunch, so we smartly waited to go into the water until after we ate. Just to be clear though, we did not wait because we were warned that we might get cramps if we get into the water right after we eat. In fact, one of the crew onboard told Kevin that that was actually a myth! They have never had any problems with anyone cramping up from swimming/snorkeling after eating, and they claim this is an old wive’s tale. The real reason that we waited was that from where we were sitting, we were in the perfect location to be close to first in the buffet line.
It sounds like such an American thing to say I realize (and Kevin and Liz were in fact the first people in line, oh Americans!), but if you do not get in early at the buffet, it is not a pretty sight. And in this particular instance, it looked like there might not be enough food available for all of the people onboard. The food was supposed to be “5-star” as Jilly explained, but it was really just alright. There were a few different options for salad, - lettuce, potato, and macaroni - and cold cuts served with bread and butter, and prawns. The macaroni salad was probably the best thing on the menu, because it was filled with seafood, yum. The prawns were good too, but they were the ones with the eyes and all of the shells, so they required a lot of work to be enjoyed.
Since I now knew that the swimming after eating rule was a myth, I jumped into the water directly after eating and swam far away from the boat again. I do have to say that I did not experience any cramping! But then again, when you snorkel, you do not really swim very quickly. And there were so many beautiful things to look at, I was probably swimming slower than I normally would anyway.
I could not believe the colors that were emitted from the reef when the sun shone down through the water. I have honestly never seen anything like it before in my life, even my last experience at the Great Barrier Reef. The pictures did not lie, the Outer Reef is definitely a different world, so hopefully it remains that way for future generations to see. I also don’t think it hurt that it was a sunny day, because it really made such a difference. I saw so many different types of colorful fish, and the reef was completely different looking here than where Humme and I snorkeled. There were no giant clams to be found, but instead the coral here was shaped differently and larger in size. I saw a lot of the same fish that I had seen before, but I also felt like they looked bigger out here. For example, I saw some clownfish (Nemo!) swimming in the anemone. and they were enormous! I had to go find Liz and bring her over to show them to her. The ones I had seen previously were tiny in comparison.
The third site, Gone Again, was hyped up to be the best site of the day, but after swimming around for a bit, I definitely did not agree. I would say that Advanced Whammies was my favorite as it had the most diversity and interesting things to see. Each of the sights were only a short ride away from one another, but they were all slightly varied which is really interesting. At this site, I did a swim around the entire coral area then decided to get out and dry off by laying out on the front of the boat. The dessert was cheese, crackers, and fruit, so I helped myself to some and then relaxed in the sun. My mom had not gotten back in the water since the first site, even though I tried to persuade her, but we still had such a great day at the reef.
As we made our way back to Port Douglas, I realized that I had not reapplied sunscreen since that morning, but the sun and wind felt amazing out on the front of the boat, so I could not be bothered to get up. I stayed out there the entire ride chatting with Liz and Kevin, and before I knew it we reached shore (about nearly 2 hours ride I would say). I did not really feel sunburnt, but it quickly became clear that we had all had too much sun, and not in a good way. My entire backside was sunburnt - I guess that is what happens when you snorkel facedown for so long! Liz was also looking pretty bad.
We took the shuttle back to our respective hotels, but my mom and I made plans to almost immediately go pick up Liz and Kevin and go out for some drinks and appetizers. Jilly had told us about this place called “On the Inlet” which has a Port Douglas tradition, feeding George the Grouper. Every night from 5 - 5:30PM, the staff at the restaurant feed George, and he has been coming back for years. We got there just on-time, and there was a large crowd gathering to watch. Unfortunately, no George! Apparently, it was mating season for groupers at this time of the year, so George was busy doing something else... However, we had heard that George had been coming late the last few days, so we decided to hang around and get some drinks and appetizers while we waited. Before I go on, I failed to mention how completely enormous George is. Although I did not get to see him with my own eyes, I did see a picture, and he is huge! I kept it to myself, but I secretly wondered if maybe he had been caught which is why he had not shown up. He would be any fishermen’s big catch!
“On the Inlet” was actually a lovely little place overlooking the water, and we ate a bucket of prawns and some fish tacos. The staff at the restaurant encouraged us to throw our prawn shells into the water below, and we had a great time watching the fish below swim up and eat them. We even saw two enormous stingrays in the water below, and an interesting looking crab on the rocks below. So even though we left without seeing George, it was still a really great experience.
We had planned to either eat dinner with Liz and Kevin in downtown Port Douglas or take them to the Beach Shack, however Liz was not feeling well. Her sunburn was making her feel physically ill, and she did not think she would be fun to hang around, so she left early. Kevin felt bad, so he planned to get some takeaway food to bring back to the hotel to share with Liz. Obviously my mom and I decided to go back to the Beach Shack after showering, it was after all our last night in Port Douglas! As usual, we were not disappointed with the food, and we made it a point to tell our waitress it would be the last time we would be there since we were leaving the next morning.
On our last morning in Port Douglas, we packed up the car and then decided to take advantage of the breakfast buffet at our hotel before driving the hour or so to Cairns airport. On the drive, I started to have camera anxiety, because I knew we would want to take pictures of the rest of our trip. Since my camera was still useless, we decided to try and find some disposable cameras to hold us over until we could take mine to a repair shop. This was not going to happen this morning however, because we needed to return our rental car by 10AM for our 11:50AM flight to Alice Springs.
I was not overly concerned yet that my camera was still not turning on. For some reason, I thought that maybe the one-year warranty that I had been told about when I bought my camera would cover the damages. Plus, I had just bought travel insurance which could also potentially cover buying a new camera. I originally was only going to buy the travel insurance for the two months that I was going to be in Southeast Asia, but it was only a couple dollars more to extend it for the rest of my time in Australia. Also, I had heard some horror stories about Tiger Airlines just canceling their flights, so I thought it would be better to be safe than sorry.
Anyway, we made it to our flight on-time and since we were flying Qantas again, we would be served lunch. Unlike our flight to Cairns where we received hot food, we were disappointed by the lunch they served us. Literally two pieces of silverside (think something similar to corned beef) on bread with mustard and pickles, the lunch was disappointing so we were glad we had eaten such a large breakfast at the hotel. Also, against my warnings that she would be searched at customs, my mom packed multiple snacks into her luggage which we ate then also.
When we landed in Alice Springs, we disembarked the plane from stairs onto the jetway. It was a completely different climate than Queensland - it was much more dry, similar to Arizona. But unlike Arizona, a wall of flies greeted us as we stepped out of the plane. I told my mom about the Australian hello (people swatting flies away from their face haha), and it would have been funny but they were still annoying us even when we made it inside the airport. We were not staying in Alice Springs for long - we were actually driving to Ayers Rock (or Uluru as the Aboriginals call it) that day.
For the drive, we had rented a car from Thrifty and just had to pick it up at the airport. The only thing about renting a car in Alice Springs is that they take advantage of the fact that they are in the middle of nowhere. Instead of giving unlimited kilometers like everywhere else, they only give a set limit of 100 km per day. Ayers Rock is 441 km away from Alice Springs, and we were only renting the car for 3 days, so we were given 300 km total. We had booked the rental car through Expedia, and when I called to ask if we could get additional km (otherwise they cost $0.25/km over the 300), they gave us a bonus 300km. We told the girl at the airport counter this, and she added it to our reservation. We did not realize that we could have told her we had more bonus km, but oh well...
Since we were already in Alice Springs, we figured we would drive through the town center and stop at the grocery store to pick up some snacks for our 4-hour drive ahead of us. On our initial drive through of “Alice,” we were unimpressed. I had heard from other backpackers to avoid visiting if possible, and now I could see why. Even Lonely Planet suggests to avoid walking by yourself at night. The main reason for this is the distinctly divided Aboriginal community that lives in Alice Springs. They have a reputation for always being drunk and pestering backpackers as they walk through town. Even during the day, it was depressing to see a very sad representation of how Aboriginals are being forced to fit into a society that is so far removed from what they know and believe. I had never seen anything like it, and I did not like what I saw.
All in all, the town center of Alice Springs is only a couple square blocks, so we quickly saw everything there was to see. We passed a Kmart (they are big on those over here!) so we decided to go in and see if they had any cheap cameras that we could buy until we figured out what to do with mine. The girl suggested that we go to the Camera House near the Coles supermarket because that was where I originally bought my camera, and they might be able to do something with it because it was under warranty.
I was doubtful, but we figured that it would be worth a try before we bought some cheap poor quality cameras that would not even take good pictures. We found the Camera House, and the man who helped us there was a cute, grandpa type. Since my camera was still under warranty, he could send it in to get fixed, but there was no guarantee they would be able to or how long it would take. He suggested that I just buy the newer model of the camera and claim it through my travel insurance. That way I would get a brand new camera and hopefully not even lose any money out of the deal. He was a good salesman, and before we knew it, I had a new camera, memory card (Olympus no longer take XD, yay!) and another $200 printer voucher!
With new camera and some snacks for the trip, we packed in the car and began the long drive. For anyone thinking to do the drive from Alice Springs to Ayers Rock, I would not recommend it. It was actually very similar to the drive from Phoenix to Tucson in terms of scenery, although twice as long and there was less to look at along the way. For being the middle of the desert, there was actually a lot of greenery, probably due to how much rain Australia had been getting this year. The sand was a distinctive red color (like something you would see in Sedona), and the road was straight and empty. I think for the entire drive, we only saw a handful of cars and most of them were coming the opposite direction.
There were a couple of small towns along the way, and when I say small, I mean small. The “towns” usually consisted of a petrol station and possibly a restaurant, but that was it. I could not imagine how desolate the lives of the people who worked at all of those places must be. That actually started to become a theme of this part of the trip...
If doing the drive to Ayers Rock, stop to get gas at Erldunga and try not to stop the rest of the way. There was one town in particular where there were a few Aboriginal families sitting outside the restaurant. I stopped and got out of the car to refill my water bottle, and I felt eyes watching my every move. No one spoke to me, but I had everyone’s attention - even the kids who were playing. It was very awkward, and let’s just say I was glad to be pulling away from that place.
The speed limit for most of the drive is marked as 110 km/hr, but there is one section where the speed limit gets up to 130 km/hr - the fastest I have seen yet in Australia. I drove the entire way to our resort in Yulara, and it became a race with the sunset towards the end. We did not want to get caught in the complete darkness driving down this empty highway, so I sped a little towards the end. There were actually signs on the side of the road saying that speed cameras are in use in the Northern Territory, but I decided to chance it.
Rather than worrying about getting my picture taken, I was more worried that if the sun went down, the animals would come out since they are most active at dawn and dusk. Luckily, we did not see any animals (other than a lot of lizards!). In fact, the entire time we were in the Northern Territory, we did not see many animals. I was a little disappointed because I had heard about the kangaroos in this part of Australia, and they are supposed to be the largest variety.
In the race against the sunset, I would say it ended in a tie as we got to the resort right as the sun disappeared completely. Ayers Rock Resort is an interesting place located about 14km from Ayers Rock itself. It is pretty much the only option in terms of accommodation for Ayers Rock, so any visitors that come for more than one day have spent some time there. As it is the only option, the resort is more of a town than a resort and offers a range of types of accommodation as well as its own grocery store, post office, and even police station. There is a campsite, a hostel, and a few hotels ranging in amenities and price. The highest cost option are these luxury tents that actually sit outside of the resort in the middle of the desert. Costing upwards of $2,000 a night, you wake up in your luxury tent overlooking Ayers Rock at sunrise and have breakfast personally delivered to you. Sounds amazing I know, but we had chosen one of the hotels in the middle, The Lost Camel Hotel, which was the 4-star choice.
As I mentioned earlier about people working in desolate places, I could not help but wonder how the employees of the resort did it (and where did they live?). So I asked one of the young girls who worked at our hotel reception desk, and she said that they all live at the resort in an employee area. There are a couple thousand of them I would guess based on the size of the resort. She was actually only at the resort for nine months since she was doing some work experience, and while I was chatting with her, I could not help but wonder what they all do on their days off. What an interesting lifestyle...
Anyway, the Lost Camel Hotel is an interesting place, but I would not say that it was really worth what we ended up paying for it. As the resort is in the middle of nowhere, they can charge hefty prices and they definitely do. The room that we were given was tiny, and there were no lifts to get to the second floor where it was located. We had to carry our own bags up two flights of stairs, and there were moths and bugs everywhere! My mom and I figured out that we had to get inside of the room and close the door completely before turning on the light, otherwise we would have unwanted critters in there with us.
As we were carrying our bags from the car into the hotel, a girl with dreadlocks approached me and asked if I knew if there were any bars around. Of course, I told her that I had just arrived and had no clue, but I could not imagine there were any crazy parties going on in the middle of the desert. I later came to find out that each hotel has its own small bar, but the biggest party scene was definitely at the hostel. We never made it for ourselves, but the hostel had a “restaurant” with DIY barbecue and live music at the bar each night.
The next morning, we woke up pretty early and drove to the national park where Ayers Rock is, but we decided to drive to the Olgas (or Kata Tjuta as the Aboriginals call it) first. To enter the park is $25/person, but the pass is good for 3 days. I am not really sure that you would need 3 days to see everything though. We planned to only spend one entire day there, so we knew we would be packing a lot into a small amount of time. We had been told to do the Valley of the Winds walk at the Olgas (btw, Kata Tjuta means “many heads,” and the Olgas are a collection of large rocks). The Valley of the Winds is a 7.4km circuit walk through the Olgas which is estimated to take about 3 hours. My mom and I decided to do the entire circuit, and it ended up being quite a difficult walk at some points.
Right as we began the walk, we saw some quick movement in path ahead of us, and before we knew it, about 10 - 15 wild camels ran across our path! It all happened so quickly that we were not sure if we were having a desert mirage. Luckily, there were a couple in front of us who also saw the camels, so we validated that they were actually there. We started talking to the couple (from somewhere in NSW), and the wife asked if she could do the walk with my mom and me. Her husband was not in physical shape for it, and she did not feel comfortable doing it on her own. Of course we said yes, and we set off on the walk.
I should mention that although I have not talked about the flies since we first arrived at the airport, they were always around, constantly pestering us. In fact, a few of them hitched a ride on my mom’s back as we walked through the Olgas. For some reason, they were strangely drawn to my mouth, and I had to be careful each time I talked that they did not go inside.
There were some difficult parts of the walk where we were not sure we were going the right way - like when we had to climb up an enormous boulder - but luckily, we kept finding the path markers. I was really proud of my mom, because she made it look easy! Miraculously, neither of us fell once during the entire circuit!
From the Olgas, we were going to go see Ayers Rock up close. I cannot really explain why seeing enormous rocks feels like a spiritual experience, but I think it must have to do with how significant they are to the Aboriginal people. From the moment you see Ayers Rock, something about it draws your interest and attention to it, and surprisingly, it is not just its size. Don’t get me wrong, it is massive, but now I know the only way to really appreciate how big it is, is to do the entire walk around its base.
A few people had asked me if I planned to climb Ayers Rock, but whereas this would normally interest me, I did not really have an inclination to do it. Climbing Uluru is of special significance to Aboriginals, and it can be quite dangerous. There are signs posted that explain that Aboriginal males who come to Uluru climb the rock as a rite of passage, and it deeply saddens them when people get hurt or die attempting to do it. I had already decided that I was not going to do the climb, but my choice was cemented when the area was closed due to strong wind anyway. Quite a steep and difficult climb, there are cables to hold onto the entire way to the top. The woman we had done the previous walk with had done it just the day before, and she said a 4-year-old boy and his dad were ahead of her!
After the 7.4km Valley of the Winds walk, my mom was not sure how much more walking she wanted to do that day. I convinced her that we should do the entire base walk and she finally agreed, but neither of us had any idea how much of an undertaking it would be. I think we discovered it was something just shy of 11km, and it ended up taking us a little more than 3 hours. There are certain parts of the walk where you get really close to the rock, and then there are also large sections where you look at it from afar. Many of these further sections lead you away from areas of spiritual significance to the Aboriginals, and you are not allowed to walk or take any pictures in these places. None of the specific significance is explained about these places, because the Aboriginals only pass on the stories within their tribe.
Even though it felt like we were walking forever, it was quite peaceful and my mom and I were the only people around for most of the walk. Each side of the rock was completely different looking from the others, and one section even had water right up to the base of the rock. We met an Italian couple along the way who were probably on their honeymoon, and they were also crazy like us, doing the entire base walk.
The bottom of my feet were tingling when we completed the entire circuit, and I was actually glad when I saw the area where we had parked our car. We were actually quite lucky that there were some clouds in the sky, because it was not as hot as it could have been. We had packed lots of water, and there were places along the walk to refill our bottles anyway. They recommend that you drink 1 liter of water for every hour you are walking, but I do not think that I drank nearly that amount.
That night, we were planning to do the Sounds of Silence dinner, so we went back to the hotel and relaxed and showered before we had to leave. I had read about the Sounds of Silence online when I was doing research, and it sounded like something my mom and I would be interested in doing. Basically a tour bus comes to pick you up at the resort, and they take you to a place in the middle of the desert overlooking Ayers Rock at sunset on one side and the Olgas on the other. They serve some canapes and champagne while everyone stands around mingling, and then you move to an outdoor seating area for the main dinner. After dinner, there is dessert and then they explain the southern sky while everyone stargazes. The Sounds of Silence has won a lot of tourism awards, and there was a promise of lots of wine and typical Aussie food - kangaroo, crocodile, etc.
My mom and I got ready for dinner, and we really had no idea what to wear. I figured since it was a nice dinner that people would dress up, but there was really the range of outfits on the tour with us. There was a large group of young people who were dressed in cocktail dresses, and there were also a few couples who were dressed head to toe in khaki like they were going on a safari. When we got onto the tour bus (they took us there in class haha!) they told us that we would be going down a dirt road to our secret location in the middle of the desert. The sun was already starting to set a little bit, but unlike earlier, we were a little disappointed that there were so many clouds in the sky. We would probably not be able to see the many colors of the sunset or the stars!
About 10 minutes drive from the resort, we stopped on the dirt road (it was a bumpy ride!) and exited the tour bus. We made our way up to a clearing that housed a bar, and there was live didgeridoo music playing as we milled about drinking champagne. My mom decided to top her champagne off with orange juice, and we enjoyed crocodile, salmon, vegetarian sushi rolls, and the view. After we were able to take a handful of pictures, they moved us down to the seating area. First, they sent down groups of 4 or more, and then the smaller groups were able to fill in the empty seats at the table.
My mom and I ended up next to a Czech couple on my mom’s side and a gay couple from Sydney celebrating their 10-year anniversary on my side. I was so glad to be seated next to the guys, because they were hilarious and entertained me the entire time. Apparently, they were actually celebrating their 70th anniversary, because they say that gay couples get to multiply the length of their relationship by 7 since it is so much more difficult to be monogamous...
Also seated at our table were two women in their forties I would guess, who were actually really annoying. One of them was a firefighter, and she got really drunk on a few glasses of champagne and just talked really loudly the entire time. I felt bad for the people who were forced to sit next to her.
The thing that they do not share in the tour description is the bugs, but I guess what can you expect when you eat in the middle of the desert? In the middle of each table, they had a light that attracted the bugs, however many of them got a little confused and ended up either in my wine or on my plate. It is a good thing that I have become less squeamish since traveling, otherwise I would not have been able to enjoy the experience as much as I did. The meal started with pumpkin soup, and then one table at a time, we were invited up to serve ourselves at the buffet, as waiters walked around filling up our wine glasses.
At one point in the meal, Michael (one of the gay guys) was able to steal a bottle of wine when we decided the waiters were not being attentive enough. I think this happened after we had already eaten our meal, dessert (served with port!), and probably a few critters haha. When the meal was over, the stargazer specialist came out to explain the southern sky to us, but unfortunately, the cloud cover was quite thick and we could not see everything she described. One little known fact (well I didn’t know it) is that the reddish looking, bright star you can see is actually Jupiter! And similar to our northern sky and the North Star, there is a bright star that they can follow when lost (although I forget what it is called, maybe the South Star?).
We left Ayers Rock Resort the next morning, and we originally planned to drive to King’s Canyon to do the rim walk there, however we changed our mind last minute. When we woke up, there were rain clouds in the sky, and we did not want to add any more kilometers, so we decided to just drive back to Alice Springs. If you have a 2WD car (which we did), going to King’s Canyon is quite out of the way. If you have a 4WD, you can actually take a shortcut back to Alice Springs, so it would take a lot less time. My mom actually drove for about 100km of the drive - she was definitely speeding! - and we got into Alice Springs just before 2PM. Along the drive, we stopped to see the last big rock in the desert Mt. Connor from afar and had to get in one last picture.
Once again, this post is getting a little long, so I will finish our adventure in the next one. Still to come, a terrifying night in Alice Springs, wine tasting in the Yarra Valley, and Melbourne Cup - not to be missed!
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