Vero and I get picked up at six in the morning by the tour bus. Up comes a twenty seater hauling a large trailer where we throw our bags into.
Our tour guide Mark introduces himself and we hop on with six other people who also look groggy this morning. Vero brings us to the seat at the back and I whisper that we should sit with the others, but in hindsight Vero’s choice of the backseat was the best seat in the bus. You never need to turn around to talk to someone and you have a view of everything happening on the bus. Plus it was next to the cooler of beer!
We ended up with a full bus to the point where someone even had to sit up with the driver for the next three days! We chatted with Melanie (Germany), Sabrina (Austria), Natalie (Belgium), Andy (Melbourne), and Astrid (Sweden) who were all sitting near us. After chatting for awhile, everyone dozed off for awhile until we hit up Elrdunda truck stop. Actually, I am not sure if Erldunda is the name of the area or the truck stop. I think in the outback there is not a lot out there so it centres around truck stops which double as pubs and the center of the area.
Mark then laid down the rules of the trip. We are a family for three days so we better get to know each other and have fun together. All the people on the bus were roughly in the same age range which was great and there was a lot of energy with the group. We each took our turns on the microphone on the bus to introduce ourselves and answer some funny questions like “Who would you like to sleep with?” And “what would you bring the outback if you were lost.” Some funny stories were shared and then we settled in for the five hour trip.
I have to admit that after the first hour, the view was pretty monotonous. It’s like driving through Northern Ontario. It consists of dirt, bushes, and hills in the distance. No wildlife other than some cattle. In fact, we pretty well saw some cattle and horses. We did see a wild pack of camels once in the three days which was cool.
After a few pitstops, we ended up at Kings Canyon for a hike. It was a hot day but with a strong wind and a lot of clouds. Very different than normal days in the Outback. It was a blessing.
Mark checked that we had our mandatory three litres of water and recounted some tales of a girl last week who needed to be air lifted out because she didn’t drink enough water. Message received!!
The first step started us out on Heart Attack Hill which was a straight up climb of two hundred (or more?!) steps. I would like to thank the gang at work who walked/jogged/climbed fifteen flights of stairs with me for the past month because without that I would have:
– lost a lung
– kept huffing and puffing until Christmas
– cried like a baby.
Those are not multiple choice…they would have all happened. It was pretty tough.
Luckily that was the worst trek for the entire three days. Good to get it done in the first fifteen minutes. It also helped that we had Marks water gun in hand at various points. I am pretty sure I pissed off some people with my spraying!
The rest of the hike was great. It was all amongst the rocks of Kings Canyon. We stopped at various points to hear about the wildlife, plants and Aboriginal culture. We bonded as a group during the trek and we got to see that the tour guide had a good sarcastic side to him which would grow in the further days.
2.5 hours later (an hour under schedule!) we arrived back at the bus with more water than we needed. Bonus!
Next stop…a quick dip in a pool which was fabulous. I especially appreciated Thomas (Denmark) who decided to cannonball into the pool a few times which the rest of the locals were not impressed with!
Tired of updating this tonight…more later.
