Outback – Kata Tjuta

Vero and I awoke to a safe swag as well as Vero’s birthday! Technically it wouldn’t be until the next day in Canada but Vero shushed me when I brought it up! (although in Australia it was indeed the 15th, so she had all rights to celebrate)

We had a quick breakfast of toast and cereal along with an outback shower…deodorant! We hopped onto the bus and headed to the next campsite to go have a shower. Would have been nice to find this out before Vero and I changed clothes and brushed our teeth!

The next long trip had me passing out in the backseat while we headed to Kata Tjuta, a large rock formation used by the men of the Anana tribe to use as hunting grounds. This area is also a key area in training young men in the ways of the hunt.

Vero nabbed my kangaroo hat because it was her birthday and I lathered the sunscreen to the back of my neck considering I only had the ball cap. I must admit that I was a little sluggish after a hard sleep in a swag. It was definitely an easier trek than the day before but was still cumbersome with my sloth like pace. Kata Tjuta was quite impressive as a large rock formation. It is red from the iron in the sand.

We learned quite a bit of the Aboriginal culture around the area and their beliefs which were interesting.

Lunch was some wraps which were quite tasty. We laid everything out on a picnic table and gobbled it up like it was our last meal. After cleaning it up, we headed to the main attraction…Uluru!

Uluru is a fantastic rock formation in the middle of the Outback. It resembled Mars at various points due to its red colour, and the fact that the moon was overhead during the day! We learned that a few areas of Uluru were mainly for women’s use…kitchen, birthing areas, etc. Men were not allowed to look at these areas and to this day, they are sacred to the point where no photos are allowed.

It was getting near sunset so we headed a kilometre away so we could see Uluru change colour when the sun set. It was packed with tourists who solely come to the Outback for this single experience. Buses of Asian people sitting at tables with champagne were surrounding us. We drank our cheap beer in style around them!

We were joking around that it would be a great spot to propose to someone and sure enough, it happened! Andy got down on one knee and proposed to Astrid who accepted! The party was going into overdrive tonight!

A great supper was prepared by Mark and we munched on it while we continued to look at Uluru. Unfortunately, I was either not paying attention or blinked…because I missed out on Uluru changing colour! Good thing Vero got a few pictures.

Another night of sleeping in swags descended upon us as we returned to the new campground. Good thing we had beer on hand to get us through the night! Vero decided to partake in some beverages in the form of apple cider which she enjoyed. Let us not forget that vero has a rule to only drink alcohol outside of Canada.

Landa and Elaine surprised Vero with a triple chocolate muffin with a flaming twig on top of it. They also got her a pin if Uluru rock which was very nice of them.

We chatted with the guide quite a bit who regaled us with stories of how some tour groups are better than others and that ours was definitely in the top three. But how could we really compete with the Swedish bikini team he had once! He also said that some people sign up for something they are not prepared for and are expecting hotels at the end of the night instead of swags around the campfire! Imagine their surprise when they realize they didn’t read the details!

The night continued on with chats around the campfire, drinks and tunes….all the while admiring the cloudless night and marvelled at the stars, moons and Bigfoot sightings.

We played a few excellent games…the Irish girls came up with Musical Swags where we set them up around the campfire like musical chairs. There were teams of two except for ours where we brought on Thomas to be a threesome. We called ourselves Team Canadian Bacon where Thomas was the bacon. The rules of the game were simple….walk around the campfire and when the music stops, dive head first into the swags with your partners and hope you all make it out alive! Last one without a swag loses that round and they take another swag away.

I played Canadian rules with beer in hand which was quite interesting when it came to three of us diving into a one man swag and somehow I had to still manage to keep my beer upright! There are pictures of all of this on a USB stick that we will have to check out in Canada.

I would like to thank the members of Canadian Bacon for bringing us to glorious victory in the final round! People cheered and we felt like we won an International sporting event.

Next up was another partner game where we were put into….interesting positions as dictated by the newly engaged couple Andy and Astrid. They would yell out positions for us to form and the one that looked the worst was voted out. Landa and I ended up as partners while Vero ended up with Mark. Hilarity ensued but I have to say it all fell part for Landa and I when we had to demonstrate the “Hopping Kangaroo”. We were quite ashamed of our performance and the verdict of our dismissal from the game was justified. Vero and Mark hopped their way to the final round but had to be content with the silver medal. I guess the Canadians can’t win them all!

Considering I had got quite dirty from rolling around in the Outback dirt during Musical Swags, I decided to take a quick shower before bed while Vero and the others played a Dirty Alphabet game which consisted of coming up with dirty words using the alphabet. It was going strong when I returned but it was time for bed for me so I unrolled my swag and curled up, marvelled at the stars again and we all called it a night before the early five o’clock wake up call would come.

Before I forget, i would also like to thank Tom for telling me that he saw a huge venomous brown spider walk not three feet from the campfire right before I settled in for sleep!