Week 13, Monday 26 April – 2 May 2010

Here we go again, still playing catch-up...

Monday we left Cheyne beach (I should note that I saw a bandicoot at the camp-site there the night before – at least I think it was a bandicoot. Jen can't tell you, because she didn't see it...!) and did a little tour of the local coastline. Two Peoples Bay National Park was very pretty, in particular Little Beach.



We stopped off at Nanarup and watched the surf near the inlet for a little bit before heading up to the Porongurup National Park for lunch. We did a little circular walk through the karri trees (huge eucalypts) and saw the Tree-in-the-Rock, then continued further north to the Stirling Range National Park to camp at Moingup Springs Campground. This area is lauded for its wildflowers in springtime – we were 5 months too early! Linda and Brendan in the Bushcamper turned up here this evening as well. It seems we can't escape each other! With that in mind, we exchanged numbers and agreed to meet up to do a little off-roading together through the D'Entrecasteaux National Park.

On Tuesday, spurred on by the talk from our Welsh host at the campground, as well as the grey nomad determination to climb whatever is put in front of them, we made a fairly weak attempt at climbing Bluff Knoll. It was pretty steep, and we got some lovely views even part way up, but the fact is, we're lazy and just not fit enough to climb a real hill! Great spot though. (Kathryn and Katie, you'd have loved this section, and been terribly disappointed in us!) We later met a very capable pair of grey nomads, who I'd guess were in their mid to late 60s, who told us they had completed the Bluff Knoll return climb – they noted that the books said it took 2-3 hours and boasted it took them 7.5 hours! Fantastic effort!



We continued on around the Stirling National Park by our preferred mode of transport (who needs to walk when you have a Priscilla?!) getting some nice views on route. Then we headed south again through Mount Barker to Albany. We camped the night at Albany after stocking up on food in the local shopping centre.

On Wednesday we did the tourist drive around Torndirrup National Park (just south of Albany). Note the number of National Parks in WA – each one has an entry fee of $11 – unless you buy a 12 month pass for $80 as we have!) Torrndirrup is very pretty. We stopped at a great snorkeling location near Mistaken Island, then carried on round to Jimmy Newhills Harbour, where the steep cliffs drop into a small natural harbour (named after a fisherman or convict who saved himself there, depending on which story you believe).



We used the bbqs at Frenchman's Bay for snag lunch (finally found a good sausage – WA seems to do English and Irish style pork sausages, first time we've found a decent sausage in Australia!!) finishing up with the beautiful Gap Bridge. The Blowholes here were also impressive.



We ventured on around the coast hoping to free camp at Cosy Corner, but discovered it was full. So we were forced to carry on into West Cape Howe National Park, where we found a fantastic camp at Shelley Beach – my favourite yet. And free. Our neighbours were largely locals fishing for salmon (they caught a few too). We were as close as you can get to the most Southerly point in Western Australia. Great spot.



Oh, and we also had para-gliders landing on the beach just in front of us!



The next morning we decided (well, I decided!) that Priscilla was missing a little 4wd action. She's particularly fond of sand, and West Cape Howe's track to Dunsky Beach has plenty of that, so we dropped the tire pressures and set off. The track is lined with conveyor belt in places to make it easier across soft sand patches, but a lot of this has been torn up by other drivers, so it was frequently more of an obstacle! Priscilla (of course) performed perfectly – we were a little concerned when,not long after we'd set off, we came across a guy in an old Toyota Hilux who took three attempts to get up a bit of a sandy climb. We needn't have worried, for Priscilla it was a breeze (you can pretty much hear her sighing, “Really. Is that the best you can throw at me?”)


After our little off-road excursion, we carried on round to William Bay National Park and Greens Pool, which people rave about, but the weather wasn't really putting it in its best light when we were there. We camped that night at Parry Beach, $7 a night so pretty cheap, and we had our first fire in ages ($5 for a barrow load from the caretaker of the site).

I should note that Jennie lost our small wooden brush (known affectionately as Brushy Brush) in West Cape Howe. While I was using the compressor to inflate the tires after our trip to Dunsky Beach, she decided to brush out the sand from Priscilla's crooks and crevices. It seems she then left Brushy Brush on one of the side steps. Brushy Brush of course did not make it as far as Parry Beach. Jen was worryingly distressed by this, but I suppose she's given to odd attachments to brushes.

We decided to stay on for a second night at Parry Beach, mainly because it was so cheap, but also because we could have another fire. And, I had a little surf – started very badly, but once I'd found a nice little left break, I was finally catching my first unbroken waves. Lots of fun. Linda and Brendan in the bushcamper arrived that evening as well, and joined us for dinner around the fire. It was less than successful for us though, as the rain started just when we put our food on the grill, so we had to finish it off on the stove under umbrellas! In the morning though, we were much more successful, and had a full mashings breakfast, cooked partly on the grill over the fire. Lovely.



On Saturday we drove around the Walpole wilderness area seeing lots of very tall karri trees (all very pretty). We then met up with Linda and Brendan at Shannon camp ground, from where we planned to set off for a little off-road trip together.



On Sunday we wound around the Shannon tourist drive around the forests with Linda and Brendan, then headed down to Windy Harbour and Salmon Beach. On route we tried rather unsuccessfully to find out more about the 4wd tracks in the D'Entrecasteaux National Park, which runs along the south-west corner of the south-west of WA. We visited the famous Pemberton trees, which have prongs hammered into them as a form of ladder, and used to be used as fire look-outs to spot bush-fires. I attempted to climb the Bicentennial tree, but found a sense of mortality has finally caught up with me, and only made it halfway!



We free-camped at Big Brook Arboretum that night with Linda and Brendan, planning on a little off-road trip to the D'Entrecasteaux National Park the next day.

Love to all, especially Big Al, get well soon Mr T.
Claire, of Jen and Claire Fame

Week 12, Monday 19 -25 April 2010

Bugger, we don't seem to be catching up on this at all! Going to try to get up to date with a few shorter blogs in quick succession. Here we go....

We booked in to the Esperance camp-site for an extra night, and spent Monday walking along the beach into town, noseying about, having a rare proper coffee and visited Sammy, the local sea-lion resident at the large pier. This is where we first met Brendan and Linda, who are are travelling around WA in a bushcamper (high top landcruiser with a bed inside – INSIDE! In this cold weather, how we long for an inside....!) That night more young European backpackers kept us up even later with their drinking games in the camp kitchen. Honestly, the young people of today...

On Tuesday we set off for Cape le Grande National Park, which is about 50km east of Esperance. We'd been told this was really beautiful, so we were looking forward to it. There are lots of brochures with pictures of kangaroos lazing on pristine white beaches next to turquoise clear waters. We headed first to the campground at Le Grande Beach which we'd been told was nicer than the campground at Lucky Bay as the sites are more secluded. We decided we liked the spot, but wanted to check out Lucky Bay first, so went over there to discover the car park that is Lucky Bay campground! And it was rammed. So we decided to head back to Le Grande Beach and stay for a couple of nights. The weather wasn't perfect, so we didn't see the best of these beaches, but it was still pretty nice. We set up the awning on the back of the tent for first time since we set off in January (3 months on the road now!) and played boggle that evening with the sound of the waves crashing nearby.





On Wednesday we had a lazy day at Le Grande Beach. I had a rather pathetic attempt at surfing – what can I say, not the right waves! More boggle that night in the annex after a Thai red chicken curry, nice.





The next day we toured the rest of the park, heading back to Lucky Bay to catch up with the kangaroos, but still no joy on that front. To be fair, it wasn't really sunbathing weather. Thistle Cove next to Lucky Bay is particularly lovely (although Jen spotted a dead Port Jackson shark). With the weather turning bad and rain promised, we headed back to Esperance and decided a night in a hotel was necessary. We got a deal and stayed at the Best Western Motel – have to say we wouldn't have been very happy if we'd paid full price, it was a bit of a 1970's throw-back room!

Thistle Cove


Port Jackson Shark


On Friday, we did the tourist drive out of Esperance around the headlands and beaches. It was a pretty wild day, so I wasn't getting in the water. Some lovely spots on route though.



To atone for our hotel spending sins, we drove into the Fitzgerald River National Park and camped at Hammersley Inlet for free. We had hoped to camp at Quoin Head, which the Dutch couple at Coffin Bay had told me was amazing, but despite the road being open, no camping was permitted. Hammersley Inlet was a nice little stop though, and we met up with Linda and Brendan in their Bushcamper again. They were travelling with Nic and Ina, a German couple in another Bushcamper. We had a drink with them that evening before an early bed and another cold night!



On Saturday we did a bit of a circuit of that area of the Fitzgerald River National Park, which was really lovely. We drove west on a dirt 2wd track, stopping at the exposed coastal beaches as we went. A large swell had come in, and the surf was huge, so I decided the board could rest easy in the comfort of its bag atop Priscilla. We watched a huge pod of dolphins at East Mylies Beach fishing in the surf while a sea eagle circled over our heads.



Then we headed back west, and took the 4wd track to Quoin Head, our first bit of off-road for a little while. The track was fine, a bit slow in parts, with a steep rocky final descent to the beach at Quoin Head. Quoin Head really was lovely as well. Shame there was no camping!



That night we pushed on to Bremmer Bay and camped there for the night. Absolutely freezing! We circled town beforehand in search of someone showing the football, but Foxtel apparently doesn't reach such remote parts.... Instead we sat in the tent and watched Priscilla (the filum!) on the laptop! That movie just gets better the more you watch it, especially when you can be saying “we've been there” “ooh, that's where we saw the storm” etc as you watch it and recognise the locations.

On Sunday we drove around Bremmer Bay headland to check out Little Boat Harbour (where there's a dive trail which we thought about dipping into, but decided it was a bit beyond our snorkelling skills) and around the little bays which frame the headland watching the fishermen on route. This is a really lovely area, and we decided that we'll have a our beach shack on the hill above Native Dog Beach where I almost went out for a surf, but eventually chickened out.



We carried on around the south coast, checking out Cape Riche on route., then headed into Waychinicup National Park (which is beautiful) where we hoped to camp for the night. We found a lovely spot which a fisherman was about to vacate, but as we waited, a large rental motor-home full of drunk blokes pulled up, presumably on a stag weekend. We decided they wouldn't make the best neighbours and headed back out of the park to Cheyne Beach and camped there instead.

Hope you're all well.

Lots of love,
Claire, of Jen and Claire Fame

Week 11, Monday 12 -18 April 2010

Ok, we're some way behind on the blogging, so going to try to keep this short and sweet (I can hear the deep sighs of relief from here)...

First thing on Monday, I called a tour operator and booked us on a sea-lion and dolphin tour at Baird Bay – extraordinarily exciting! Jen was a bit nervous about being in the water with them, so she was booked on as tour photographer for the day. We drove up the coast from Coffin Bay to Streaky Bay, stopping to look at the coast a few times on route.

Streaky Bay camp-site is the busiest camp-site we've seen – it was rammed. Luckily, they had some unpowered sites left. Once inside the camping area, a sign warned that there was a mouse infestation! We set up camp then went to the tiny camp kitchen and spent the evening there eating dinner, playing on the internet and talking to the other campers who came through. Fishing is the go on this coast, and pretty much everyone was there for that purpose. We met a nice family who were camped next to us, and let the young boys have a sneaky peak at the tent on the roof. The parents said they'd been kept awake all night the night before by the sounds of mice trying to get into their tent... It didn't bode well! They'd been out to buy mouse traps, and had (at the recommendation of the hardware store) bought traps which are basically sticky paper. Sounded pretty grim – once a mouse lands on the paper it gets trapped, and you have to bludgeon it to death! Once left alone in the camp kitchen, as we quietly researched on the web, the mice began to make themselves known. One even came out of the grill above the oven! They're actually quite cute, but I can't say I slept very well – everyone (including Jen) had wound me up by saying the little blighters would quite happily climb the ropes up to our tent on the roof!

We awoke on Tuesday early and found no mouse damage, but they had had a good go at our neighbouring campers. Three had made their way into their tent over-night, one under the parents' bed! Two were bludgeoned after being stuck on the sticky paper, not a pretty sight apparently! So we were fairly happy to leave Streaky Bay!

We headed down to Baird Bay for the sea-lion and dolphin tour. There were about 12 of us on the boat. I wasn't overly impressed with the people running the tour, although the boat itself was first class, but the time in the water with the sea-lions was amazing. They told us that the sea-lions would play with us for as long as we stayed in the water, and they weren't wrong. Unfortunately it was freezing, so I couldn't stay in as long as I would have liked, even with my wetsuit on. They warned us not to try to touch the sea-lions from above, or to dive down on them from above, but said if we put a hand out, they might well come and nuzzle us, and if we dived, the sea-lions would follow. All true, and it was amazing – Dad, all those hours swimming under water rather than on top finally had a purpose! The sea-lions are incredibly playful, and love to join in as you dive down, doing whatever you do with twice as much grace, and five times as many tricks! One of the younger ones was diving down and chasing me, then coming up to do spinning jumps out of the water! I think he thought it was a competition, and was very disappointed with my attempts to imitate him. Really wonderful experience. One the best things I've ever done.



I even managed a few underwater shots with the disposable waterproof camera we bought.



After the sea-lions, we had a fairly rushed swim with the dolphins. The dolphins are more aloof and we were warned that they may stay for an hour, or disappear within minutes. By the time we found them I was shaking uncontrollably with cold, but forced myself in and waited as a large pod of dolphins circled around us. The boat immediately shot off, and a teenager was understandably quite concerned about being left in the deep water without an immediate escape route - the water where we met the dolphins was much deeper, and more likely to be inhabited by sharks as well as dolphins. Two of the tour operators came into the water with us this time, both wearing long cords from their ankles. These emit a pulse to try to repel sharks. The boat circled around to effectively corral the dolphins around us. All in all, it was all a little discomforting. The dolphins swam through though, and I had my brief encounter with them in the wild. They're nowhere near as fun as sea-lions (at least not in this environment, they were probably too worried about the sharks as well!), but they were beautiful nonetheless.



And as we left, one put on a little display of tail flapping for Jen.



That night we camped a spot in the sand dunes near Point Brown, as recommended to us by the Dutch couple in Coffin Bay. Really beautiful spot, only locals tend to go there as its completely unmarked, but a little windy for us on the coast. And, would you believe it, there were more mice! Luckily again, none made it into the tent, but there were a hell of a lot of little footprints around the car in the morning!



Wednesday we awoke early to start the long drive across the Nullabor. We filled up with fuel and water at Ceduna,then set off onto the “treeless plain”. We detoured on route to go to the coast to watch the surfers at Cactus Beach, a famous break here in Australia.



We camped that night at 157k Peg Rest Area (which I later realised was numbered 666 in the Camps Guide, number of the beast!)

Great sunset that night.



Presumably in an attempt to break the monotony of the Nullabor crossing, someone has constructed the Nullabor Links – the World's Longest Golf Course! The 18 holes stretch between Ceduna and Kalgoorlie, par 72, and 1365km! We didn't partake.



On Thursday we set off quite early again, stopping for views over the Nullabor Bunda Cliffs, before crossing the border to Western Australia. The border crossing was uneventful, the lady asked if we had any fruit or veg, had a quick look in the foot wells and the fridge, then let us through. The drive along the Nullabor itself was fine, a lot more trees than we thought (Jen spent quite a few minutes shouting “there's a tree”, “there's another tree” etc....) Then we drove along Australia's longest straight road – 141kms. That night we camped at another rest area, Woolbra Homestead, and woke up on Friday morning in a rain cloud, which was a bit bizarre.



Friday we made it to Norseman,the official end of the Nullabor, and decided to head up to Kalgoorlie, so Jen could once again try to hunt for gold...!

On Saturday we went a-gold-digging (well, detecting) on a tour with a group called “Finders Keepers”. They drove us out to a pastoral lease where they have permission to fossick, playing some pretty awful gold-digger music on route (not the Kanye West kind), then sent each pair out with a metal detector and a pick to find their fortunes. One of the four couples did find a small nugget of gold (about the size of a small marble), but unfortunately it wasn't us. Boo hiss! We spent about two and half hours searching through the scrub in the heat, and found zilch. Not even an old bullet. Perhaps Jen's not destined to find us our fortune out here after all... Hmpf.



That night we headed into town and watched United play City – not a great game, but what a finish, one minute to go and the glorious Paul Scholes breaks the sky blues' hearts – He scores goals m'lord, He scores goals.

On Sunday we visited the Super Pit Lookout. The Super Pit is a huge hole in the ground, carved out by giant machinery which is made to look like a tonker toy when seen climbing the contours of the pit from above. And its full of gold. Some stats they give you at the lookout – 800,000 ounces of gold are excavated each year, the pit works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, its approximately 3.5 kilometres long, 1.5 kilometres wide and 360 metres deep. Its a staggering sight.





Then we made our way back down to Esperance on the coast and camped in town at Bathers Paradise, the cheapest camp-site we could find. It was fine, save for some noisy French backpackers who were up late playing drinking games in the camp kitchen next to our camp. We restrained ourselves from telling them the joke about the difference between Thierry Henry and Lenny Henry (Thierry Henry's still BEEPing French)....

On which note, we'll sign off and try to catch up (as I write this, I'm sat on a beach just south of Freemantle, three weeks ahead of the time of this blog). Sorry its not quite as short as I'd hoped!

Love to all,
Claire, of Jen and Claire Fame

Week 10, Monday 5 April - 11 April 2010

Ok you lucky people, it's my turn to write the blog (Jen that is... :-D)

We set off on Monday down a dirt track looking for gold! Arltunga, close to our camp at Trephina Gorge in the East MacDonnell Ranges, was one of the early gold mining settlements in the Northern Territory, and we were out to find the left over nuggets! There are some old ruins of the original town left here which we quickly scooted around – more pressing things to come. We headed off-road in search of Paddy's waterhole – only about 5kms from the old town. We eventually found the creek-line and walked up to Paddy's waterhole. There was water in the hole, but it wasn't flowing so my idea of panning for gold was a little bit scuppered! We spent an hour or so digging in the creek bed, but both Claire and I were unsuccessful! Not surprising hey! Ah well – more chances to find gold later on.

We stayed another night at Trephina Gorge as it was a lovely little campground. The only disturbing thing was the number of grasshoppers, 10 or more of which would take off and sometimes land (normally on Claire) whenever we moved. Claire not happy. I must admit I didn't like it when they did this at night as I thought they might be moths! (Those who know me know how much I love moths!).

We drove back into Alice on the Tuesday morning as our plan was then to head out into the West MacDonell ranges. We stopped in Alice to stock up on food and also had a nosey around the camping store. We gave in and bought a new item that we shall call the Super Dome! It's a large dome tent with fly netting on all sides! We got to Ormiston Gorge (after stopping to have a look at Simpsons Gap and Ellery Creek Big Hole) and set up camp, including Super Dome! Claire went for a swim in the gorge which she assures me was beautiful. We had a lovely pest free evening and I cooked Chicken Fajitas again – yum!





In the morning we had a surprise visitor of a young dingo – very cute. Not so cute was the fact that he was eating the grasshoppers and we were close enough to hear the crunch!



We packed up and headed back towards Alice stopping at the Ochre Pits. These pits are of aboriginal significance - the cliffs are an amazing array of yellow through to deep orange ochre and the ochre is still used to paint their skins for ceremonies.



Back into Alice for the night, staying at the same (quite expensive) campground. We caught up on emails and other tinterwebby stuff and had an early night ready for our big drive south in the morning.

We were up and off early on Thursday morning aiming to be in Coober Pedy that night.
The drive is approx 700km. It was a good drive to be honest, I think we only saw about 10 other cars on the road. We amused ourselves with our usual comic genius (singing "Coober Pedy" to the tune of "My Sharona", as featured in earlier blogs)!

Before we got to Coober Pedy we took a small detour to the Breakaways. This was of great significance to us as this is where parts of Priscilla Queen of the Dessert were filmed (the bit where they break down in the dessert).... We could feel Priscilla trembling!



It was getting kind of late and the sun was setting so we took our pics and headed in towards Coober Pedy town. As we got to the main road the heavens opened and in true style gave our Priscilla the setting she deserves...



What a beautiful girl she is!

Having listened to the radio for 7 hours we got more and more nervous about the pending thunderstorms that were due in and around Coober Pedy (we must have heard the weather report at least 7 times!) We planned in any event to do what the locals do and go underground! We booked into the backpackers and got ourselves a room, then headed out for a pizza dinner and watched the sky light up with lightening in the distance.

Our room was 6 metres underground – it gets so hot in this area in the summer, that the locals live underground! We thought it would be an experience, but it turned out to be a bad one - unfortunately we had the worlds worst snorer next door, and no sound proofing to protect us! I swear if the German boy had been in the same room I would have stuck a pillow over his head!!!



Anyway, next day we had the morning in Coober Pedy, known for it's Opals! We went to the Old Timers Mine, a mine that was lost until someone found it while excavating their own home and decided to open it as a mining museum. We enjoyed the tour and were allowed to “noodle” for cast off Opals in the noodle-pit outside. We found about 6, and took them for my mum!



We even found a new boyfriend for Sheila on the mining tour...:-)



Coober Pedy is a very strange town, definitely a place that we'll remember well. There are apparently a million slag heaps of sandstone in and around Coober Pedy from the blurb we read. When you are driving in and out of the town, all you can see are pyramids of dirt that have been exhausted from the ground in the quest for opals!

We set off South at about lunch time hoping to get to Port Augusta again, but knew this might be a stretch too far. We managed 370km to Pimba and spent the night in a car park next to the roadhouse. Free camp with Telstra signal and we managed a skype chat with mum to wish her happy birthday so all was good (and Claire only heard one murderer coming and going in the night).

On the road early again on Saturday for yet another huge drive. This time we managed 500km's all the way down to Port Lincoln, only stopping in at Port Augusta again for food and much needed beer supplies!!! Port Lincoln was unfortunately due some rain overnight so we decided to try to get a motel for the evening. We went to the tourist info only to find out it was the busiest weekend of the year there, with national hockey championships, sailing competitions AND the navy in town (not as exciting for us as it might be for other girls)... With the help of the lovely lady at the info we managed to find a room for the night above a pub! We enjoyed a meal out at the local Chinese restaurant and I even managed to watch some of the AFL game that was on the t.v. (Claire loves that this is my new obsession as I am playing Fantasy AFL now, not easy when you don't even know the rules!)

Sunday we set up camp quite early in the Coffin Bay National Park, a FREE CAMP (Alex!) that was sheltered and quite lovely too. We were visited by the incredibly cute Blue Wrens again. I think they could see their reflections in the windscreen and side window, amusing! (cleaning their little presents away wasn't so cute, that's another one of my jobs!)





Claire spent a good half an hour talking to a Dutch couple who camped opposite us (they had an Ultimate Camper, which we were extremely jealous of!) The couple manage to spend 3 months at home in the Netherlands and 3 months touring in Australia, leaving their car and trailer with friends in Melbourne in between! What a life!!! They gave us lots of good advice on where to go and where to camp, more of which in the next exciting instalment!

Sending love hugs and kisses from WA,
Jen, of Jen and Claire Fame

Week 9, Monday 29 March - 4 April 2010

So, Uluru.

Or Oooo Loo Roo, as Harn so endearingly calls it...

We had our first glimpse of the world's most recognisable rock on Sunday late afternoon as we drove into Yulara, the tourist village established to service the rock. The first thing to grab you is the size – its 346 metres tall (put another 35 stories on top of the 60 stories of Governor Philip Tower where I worked at Mallies and that's about the height apparently) and the walk around the base is 10.2km (albeit it deviates some way from the edge of the rock in parts). On route to Uluru you first see Mount Conner, which is pretty impressive as far as mountainous flat topped rocks go, and we wondered why its not much of a tourist attraction itself. All becomes clear when you see Uluru. Its difficult to say what's so impressive about it. First is just the sheer size, but when you get closer (we walked all the way around the base) you appreciate the different textures and shapes – its not just a huge oblong shaped red mass rising out of the ground, it has different faces on all sides, the colour changes with the light and the contrast of the red with the deep blue sky above and the greenery of the trees and bush below is spellbinding.

To the Anangu traditional owners, Uluru is a sacred site, and they ask you not to climb it. We had met a number of Australians on our travels (normally greying nomads!) who told us we must climb it. I would have liked to have climbed it, but I wanted to respect the request not to and, well, lets face it, Jen would never have let me scramble up there anyway! The climb really is a climb as well – they've put a handrail up, but its incredibly steep (we saw people shimmying down on their bottoms).



On Monday we drove around the base, watched a very random cross-section of society climbing the rock (various nationalities, old people, young people, children, even a lady with a baby....) then headed over to Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), where we walked into the gorge.




On the way back we experienced a very localised rain storm.



That evening we headed back to the rock with some wine, bread and cheap brie from the Yulara IGA (you get what you pay for, it was inedible) to watch the sunset over Uluru. We were concerned it would be packed with tourists, but actually it wasn't too busy, and it was a lovely night. Jen took a million photos and I sipped my white wine and enjoyed the view.







And so you too can experience sunset at Uluru, we recorded this time lapse video (see if you can make out our special moves at the end.....answers in the comments section please).



On Tuesday morning we got up early to watch sunrise (not quite early enough as it turned out - surprise surprise, we were 10 minutes late!) and then did the walk around the base. We started off with a free ranger tour (the Mala Walk) which was excellent. The young Australian guide was passionate about his role and gave us a great insight into the significance of the site to the aboriginal people and their way of life. We'd highly recommend this to anyone going to Uluru. He made the most compelling arguments I've heard for not climbing, the key to which was that the Anangu people ask you not to - its their land, we should respect that request. To put this in some context, aboriginal paintings here date back 40,000 years, and the rights of the Anangu people whose ancestors painted them were finally recognised in 1985 when the title deeds to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park were presented to the Anangu people, in return for a 99 year lease back to Parks Australia.

Following the ranger tour we continued on the long walk around the base which is well worth the effort (Jen enjoyed it even though she had a blister almost the size of Uluru by the end!) After the walk we pretty much collapsed in a heap at the camp ground and didn't do anything else for the day except feel tired and a little proud of our efforts...

On Wednesday we got up for sunrise again (and made it this time!)



We watched the sunrise from the sunset viewing area because we wanted to see the sun rising next to Uluru rather than the light rising on it, and also because we thought there may be more people at the proper sunrise viewing area. And perhaps because it was further away and we wouldn't have made it to the sunrise viewing area on time! What a great decision though. We hadn't really felt the pressure of crowds in the few days we spent at Uluru, we wondered at times where everyone was. At the sunrise viewing point we found them – swarms of tourists big enough to outnumber the flies. Nice view though, once they'd all got into the coaches and camper-vans and left us to it... That day we also saw our first camels.



Very cute.

Before leaving Uluru we went to the cultural centre, which was very good, then said our final farewells to the rock and set off for Kings Canyon, arriving at the resort there late afternoon to set up camp, eat and collapse. The camp ground here had a lovely view of the George Gill Range in which the canyon sits.



The next morning we headed to the canyon itself, and did the short walk into gorge. It was lovely, but not quite as lovely as we'd hoped – a lot of people had told us this was one of their favourite places, outranking Uluru. I think we suffered from the reverse hype of not expecting to be that impressed by Uluru and expecting too much from Kings Canyon. That said, sunset back at the camp ground was lovely again that evening.



We headed in to the resort bar for a drink that evening, which was suitably bizarre. A musical (if it can properly be called that) act called The Roadies were performing to crowds of families, embarrassing mothers and fathers alike by getting them up on stage. We escaped to the pool room and wound up being challenged to a few rounds of doubles by two guys based in Melbourne working at Kings Canyon for a few weeks (a pilot and a helicopter engineer). And we won! Thanks to Jen of course...

On Friday, our camp ground neighbours, Greg and Robyn, kindly offered to let me do the rim walk around Kings Canyon with them – Jen was scared off by the steep climb at the beginning and was still suffering with said Uluru blister. It wasn't as bad as we thought, and she would have made it fine, but stayed behind photographing lizards instead...





(Actually, I took the first one the day before - its much cuter than Jen's, don't you think?!)

The rim walk was really lovely, and made me appreciate why Beeler and Maz loved it here so much. There is a very steep climb to begin with, then a 6km walk around the top of the canyon. The odd thing is it takes you through some strange moonscapes, with numerous rocky cairns (looking a bit like mud huts made from small rock bricks) popping up all around you. From this you emerge onto a plateau over the sheer walls of the cliffs dropping into the canyon, which is wonderful. And then there's a drop down into the Garden of Eden – a rocky valley with a lovely rock pool for swimming and palm trees. All in all a great walk, and my companions were lovely as well.

In the afternoon we drove to Alice Springs, only about a 200km trip, but it took us around 3-4 hours. We took the Mereenie Loop track, which passes through Aboriginal land requiring a permit to enter ($5.50 from the Kings Canyon Resort, $3 if you come in from the other direction, not sure how that works!) Its a truly terrible road. It seems that whenever Jen takes the wheel, as she did to relieve me from further exertion after my walk on this day, we get the worst most corrugated roads. Anyway, the Mereenie Loop is not recommended by us to anyone!

In Alice, we headed to the MacDonell Ranges camp-site recommended by Keith and Pauline in William Creek. Its the most expensive camp-site we've been to so far ($38 a night), but the facilities are good and clean, and we were happy to relax there for a couple of days. Not at all influenced by the fact United were playing Chelsea on Saturday night, which we might be able to catch in a pub in Alice...

On Saturday afternoon, after a lazy morning, we headed into Alice and picked up some national park information at the very helpful Information Centre, together with a Fosicking Permit to enable Jen to find gold.... Then we went to the Reptile Centre, where we got to hold a Blue Tongue lizard:



and a Bearded Dragon:



There was a very large python too, but we gave that a miss! The funniest thing to see here up close is the Thorny Devil, the most bizarre little lizard to wander the earth:



After that, we headed (a little too early) to the pub. We met up with a local guy called Graham, who worked at one of the aboriginal communities and was in town for some beers over the Easter weekend. Graham joined us to watch the football in an Irish pub later on. We had a pretty good night, although as is de rigeur for me and United, they lost because I was watching.

Sunday morning and Jennie was in heaven. No, not because United lost the night before, but because on Sundays at this camp-site, they have free, all you can eat, pancakes for breakfast! We got there a little late and scoffed down two a bit too quickly, thereby precluding us from a more serious go at the 'all you can eat' challenge, but it set us up well for the day nonetheless. We set out for Trephina Gorge in the East MacDonnell Ranges, calling in at Emily and Jessie Gaps on route (the East and West MacDonnells are ruggedly picturesque ranges punctuated by deep gaps or gorges, often with a water hole supporting wildlife, and the odd tourist escaping the heat for a dip). Trephina Gorge seemed a good spot to stop for a few nights, and Jen promised to find gold the next day at nearby Arltunga, where a mini gold rush occurred in the late 19th century.

More of which is our next instalment...

Love to all,
Claire, of Jen and Claire Fame
[it must be time for Jen to write the next one!]