The Outback

Alice Springs (June 3-6)

There’s not much in Alice Springs. When we first flew in, the view from the plane was unlike anything I've seen before. I could literally point out one road and all the rest was outback desert. This small town in the middle of the country attracts tourists for the sole purpose of seeing the famous Uluru (Ayers Rock…the one that was on Oprah). And that is exactly why Amelia, Lisa and I were also there. Although, Uluru isn’t exactly in Alice Springs…it’s about a four hour drive away and our plan was to rent a car and drive out the next day to spend the night near the landmark. Unfortunately, when we got there and found Budget, we discovered that the price would be wayyyy over our budget for the trip (price didn’t include unlimited kilometers, driver under 25, let alone gas) so we had to reconsider our options. Of course, we HAD to go out to see the rock. And we only had one full day to do it. So we ended up finding another car rental place and settled for a much more reasonable deal and were on our way to Uluru at 7:30am the next morning.

After that little hiccup, the rest of the trip went extremely well…except for mice snacking on our food at night and the insane amount of flies outside that swarm around your entire body! We trekked around the rock, attempted to climb it and saw another side of it at sunset. We also saw another rock formation in the same area called Kata Tjuta or ‘The Olgas’, which were actually more stunning than Ayers Rock. This hike had much better views and I was surprised I had never heard of it before.

When I first came to Australia, I hadn’t planned on doing to trip to the middle of the country, but it was hard to resist when Lisa and Amelia invited me to join. I knew I’d have a great time with them and wouldn’t regret seeing another famous Australian wonder.

Amelia, Lisa, me, Uluru

The Olgas