the Desert...

[beep, beep, beep]

The signal for the end of our brief stay in Adelaide was that infernal accompaniment to the backpacker lifestyle, the alarm clock (even though I thought I was on holiday). And, as usual and with a start, I realised that we were late again - so with a throw of the alarm clock at Stewart (that other infernal accompaniement), the trip from Adelaide to Alice Springs was shocked into action.

Stumbling out of the hostel, with overstuffed bags trailing behind, we found the Oz Experience bus sat on the hostel doorstep with the engine ticking over. This bad sign was compounded by the look of the driver as we rolled up to the bus like a couple of down-and-outs. We were the first pick-up and had made the driver late already, and so the natural manic depressive (aka Matt) was tipped over the edge without us even trying too hard.

This hairy start to the day was followed very shortly by the worst part of any trip like this - meeting your fellow passengers. Apart from Paul and Laura (who we knew were getting on the bus), the strangers were treated to the obligatory smalltalk while we tried to assess their personalities merely by glancing at their faces. As you can see from the photo, we were in for a torrid time...

My run of good luck (after encountering the motley crew of English, North Americans, Europeans and Kiwis) continued early in the journey with this innocent photograph of Laura, taken shortly after leaving Adelaide and heading north to Blinman in the Flinders Ranges.

It looks innocent enough I hear you say, Laura petting a cute (but possibly rabid) dog on the side of the road, but this photo records the exact moment that my lovely new camera decided to throw itself off the proverbial Empire State building with an unmistakeable click and whirr - not to be revived until my return to Melbourne.

So there are no photos at all from the first day of the desert leg. This is probably a good thing, however, as the highlight of that particular day was emptying the one-pub town of Blinman of beer whilst dancing around the pool table to the likes of Britney Spears, Steps, the Bee Gees and many more. You had to be there...

Day two was spent on feet - ours whilst walking around Wilpena Pound, and the camel's belonging to 'Kev's Kamel Kapers' (the K's are Kev's, not mine).

The 'Pound' is meant to be a large 'hand'-shaped depression in the surrounding countryside, but no matter what angle and position I was shown this from, I couldn't see it.

Of course I pretended that I could for the sake of making myself look learned in front of my fellow passengers...
... but I reckon it was another of those made up stories so that Oz Experience drivers can pass the time whilst chatting up the female passengers on the bus. It was a nice walk though.

It was also a good chance to get to know the people we were travelling with in a more sober fashion. The group photo was taken at the halfway point of the walk, apparently the best point to see this natural wonder, and the big tree trunk was an opportunity to show off my masculine bravado to the rest of the group, until I was joined by half the girls from the bus. Damn them.

The next stop was to see Krazy Kev with his Kamel Kapers, and my introduction to Camel riding - on the back of an ill-tempered, wet and smelly dromedary who seemed to resent my presence, despite being the luckiest one, getting the skinniest and lightest member of the group. I wisely waited for the second round, letting whoever was on before me soak up all the rainwater from the fur on the camel's back, before commencing a ten minute ride around 'the block'.

As you can see, I soon became an expert at riding camels, even venturing as far as the daring 'no-hands' technique to once again assert my bravado and machismo. But it just made me look gay.

After a late lunch, with the obligatory outback kangaroo steak, we made the short trip to our overnight stop in Quorn for another interesting evening in the local (which, thankfully, had no cheesy jukebox) and our beds in the hostel (where the whole bus was put in a corridor together, so everyone got to experience Stewart's snoring).

After a fitful nights sleep, we headed north at some ungodly hour - that is, at least, until Vicky realised that she had left her purse behind, throwing all our good intentions down the toilet. Much to the drivers annoyance, Vicky actually wanted to get her purse, and so back we went. Eventually we made our way back to Port Augusta, the start of the long drive up to Coober Pedy, something I had been looking forward to for ages.

It is said that travelling is more about the journey than the destination - but not in this case. Hours of virtual non-stop driving, whose only punctuation was the stop at Woomera, where freaky Alistair explained to us his love for weapons of mass destruction, death and all things war-related...

Eventually we made it to Coober Pedy, which turned out to be everything I had read about and hoped for. Our first stop was the hostel to unload our belongings from the bus, but this was not just any old hostel...

Coober Pedy is famous for two things, opals and heat, and although a lot of other places are hot, not many of these places have developed such an extensive amount of underground, cave-like homes. We immediately set off on a tour of Coober Pedy in air-conditioned minibus, seeing cave churches, the piles left behind by the thousands of opal mines, and the grave of one of the many mad residents - the keg was filled with beer, and drinks were pulled during the funeral ceremony...

We also got to visit the famous 'Crocodile Harry', famous for being old, mad and a groper of women - some of the girls from the bus literally ran to the front of the queue for a chance of being fondled by this famous man. Unfortunately my camera couldn't take any shots from inside... Just in case you were wondering, the shapes on top of Harry's 'cave' include Colonel Gaddafi mannekins, for some strange reason.

We also got to do a bit of noodling, as you can see from the two pictures above. Everyone is 'guaranteed' to find something - unfortunately my something was just a bit of dirt. The good news was that we all got really dusty and dirty for nothing - woohoo! After all that activity, we settled in for the typical Coober Pedy evening, and everyone got riotously drunk again. (Anyone spotting a theme yet?)

The next day we went hunting for some original aboriginal artwork, and found some...

...after thousands of other people had (and caged it off, for good measure).

We then went to visit some old ruins in the outback from where some mad english people had tried to start a farm (remember, we are in the desert here), and with great respect to the historical significance, we played football and frisbee here, while Alistair attempted to deface the ruins with his marker pens...

And, shortly after the ruins, we finally entered the Northern Territory, posing for the obligatory backpacker photo (Charlie did actually climb to the top, though), while we were all eaten alive by flies - a good indication that we were nearly at Alice!

And at the centre of the country (well, as close as dammit) we finally arrived, tired, stressed but with a load of new friends and the chance to get to the bar again...

The Great Ocean Road   The Desert   Ayers Rock