RTW - Australia - Alice Springs & Uluru

Our 2nd stop on this trip was Alice Springs, right in the middle of the Australian Outback.
Once again, we were surprised about the scale of Alice Springs. (AS)
It’s about the same size as the town we live in. (Sint-Katelijne-Waver)
We stayed at Alice Lodge, just outside the city-centre, with a cozy atmosphere.
www.alicelodge.com.au

We arrived here in the morning, so we had still plenty of time to walk around the “city”.
We visited the Royal Flying Doctors Service - HQ.
There is actually not that much to see in AS.

The next we were picked up by our Tourguide Lockie for a 3 Day-trip.
www.mulgasadventure.com.au

First we had to drive a few hours through the Outback, towards Uluru (Ayers Rock); a sacred place for the Aboriginals.
We left AS with a group of 5 + Tourguide, and around Lunchtime we picked 5 more people up at Uluru Airport.
In the afternoon we drove to Uluru, the big famous Red Rock.
It’s pretty amazing to see from up close.
The red color comes from corroding rock, there is so much Iron in the rock that it starts corroding.

We had our diner, with some Champagne at a Sunset-over-Uluru-viewing-point.
Afterwards we drove back to our camp.
The plan was to sleep outside in a Swag, which is a kind of a small mattress in a waterproof cover, where you put your sleeping bag in.
Unfortunately there was a storm coming, so we slept in the Laundry-room. ;-)

Next morning waking up at 4.15, so we could go to a nice Sunrise viewing-point.
Unfortunately there were a bit too many clouds, although it wasn’t too bad.

After the sunrise we drove a bit further to Kata Tjuta (The Olga’s). A few rocks together of the same type as Uluru, smaller, but higher.
There we did a really nice hike through and around The Olga’s.

After the hike, we continued our drive to the Kings Canyon Catle Station, where we had another BushCamp.
Now the weather was better, so we could sleep outside, in our swag, with a billion stars above us. Really nice...

Next morning we had to wake up at 4.15, so we could start the walk through Watarrka (King’s Canyon) while it wasn’t too hot yet.
A really nice, enjoyable walk, with great views...

Then it was time to head back to AS, where we arrived late in the afternoon.
We took 1,5 days to chillax a bit, and to start sorting pictures, etcetera... before we had to fly to Cairns.
On our last morning in AS, I had organised a Sunrise-hotair-balloonflight over the Outback. www.outbackballooning.com.au
But it was storming that night, so we got a phonecall just after 4.00, in the morning, to let us know that the flight was cancelled.
Aparently AS has, on average, only 5 days of rain per year... And we were the “lucky” ones to experience this... :-(
And on the website of the Ballooning Company, it says this region has the lowest cancellation-rate in the world for Ballooning...
Hopefully we can do our flight somewhere else on our trip...

That’s it for AS !!
Ready to fly to Cairns, to go diving on the GBR. (Great Barrier Reef)