Ice cold in alice

Hello kids,
First of all some general admin.
1) Happy birthday Rachel! (I know it's late, sorry) hope you had a great day :)
2) My mistake on the last post; it's not 4 days drive from Bateman's Bay to Sydney it's 4 hours. heh. Those Australians amongst you were probably wondering what route we had taken there...
Speaking of which,
3) Clare, call yourself an aussie - they are "Grey Kangaroos" not "Wallabies". (What funny animal names you have here). One of them was a baby though so I'll let you off.

So all in all sydney was great, you probably picked up on that, but it was very exciting leaving because we were getting our first internal flight. Not least because we were heading to the desert, and deserts are way cool.

Oh, I should warn you before I start writing that my camera is completely up the spout, and the light meter ist kerput, so some of the photos are really weird colours.

Unfortunately our plane to Alice Springs wasn't a little Indiana jones plane with propellers, it was a proper passenger plane. Alice is, however, not a proper town. It is a mini place (smaller than wilmslow) and I think it's famous because a) it has a nice name (although no spring) and b) it's the only town for 3 days drive in each direction, of which there are two - up and down. Why anyone would want to live there I've no idea, but it is quite chilled (despite being VERY hot). Zoe got a new day-sack. I bought a hat then sat down and had a beer which attracted several flies, one wasp, and an aborigine. I also bought some pink sunglasses. They will crop up later...
We were a bit unlucky with our accomodation in Alice; it was a 16 person dorm in a hostel, and the other 14 inhabitants were perma-drunk australian manual workers who insisted on calling me buddy and bro (etc) and trying to get me to smoke weed with them. Going to bed involved wading through porn magazines, work boots and beer cans. Luckily we were only there for 1 night.

So, now for the red photos. Our "outback safari" was really really ace. We were basically bunged in a minibus for 3 days with the same 20 people, camping under the stars, eating rubbish food and visiting red rocks, and walking a lot. We loved it.

So here's the bus and the road, and here's the view (which I stared at for a total of approximately 15 hours). The weather was rubbish (It was cloudy) so we were denied a sunset at The Rock - therfore it looked like this. Not very red at all. Unless you employ the red filter. And here's the team. The next day we also missed out on a sunrise thanks to the weather. But then we did the long hike all the way round it which was really wicked. Once you start learning about all the aborigine stuff it takes on a weird spooky atmosphere, like a huge cathedral. Here's a weird mouth thing. This is me by a pond where a giant snake-lady had a fight. this is Zoe modelling her lovely fly hat. (we both have them, aren't they gorgeous).

I particularly liked the wave cave. Apparently aborigines made their kids stand here for days, because they believe you have to learn patience before you can become a real man. This explains a lot. In case you haven't seen it before, here's what Uluru looks like at close quarters. This is Zoe modelling a close up of the rock, for those of you who are interested in geology you can see it's made of a rusty metal type thing. To be precise.

We also visited the Olgas, and I took a brief detour to Mars.

Camping was a laugh. We slept in swags and made our own bread. (That's Kerry, Hi Kerry). See if you can spot the Irish person in this photo. We camped right in the depths of the outback. Here I am collecting firewood. At night a dingo came in, looking for babies to steal. Here he is looking at me. And here he is leaving. (Stu we'd like you to name him, seeing as you did such a good job with Karl the goat.) Here's an outback sunset, and this is one of my favourite pictures ever, an upside down Orion, taken from my cosy swag. The stars were beyond amazing, but I won't lose my cool and gush. Anyone who's been to the middle of nowhere will know what I mean.
And the other highlight from the "Red Centre" of Australia, as it's known, was the King's Canyon. It was a bit of a climb, but at the top there was a fossilised sea, plants left over from dinosaur times and perhaps best of all, the bit where they filmed some of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. We took it in turns to do the frock on a rock pose (Me. Zoe). There was also an ancient billabong called the Garden of Eden which ironically was probably discovered by aborigines about 70,000 years before the bible was written. That's all the politics I'm doing today folks.

There's lots more I could say about that very cool part of the world but the photos go on a bit and they're all the same colour. We had a night out in Alice with our outback friends, a brief stay in Brisbane where I briefly thought I'd accidentally caught a plane back to Stockport, (What on earth Scott and Charlene are doing there I have no idea), got out as quick as we could and are now in Byron Bay, home of hippie surf culture, before heading up to do some sailing in the Whitsundays. Unfortunately it is chucking it down with rain so we are at a bit of a loose end. You're not allowed to swim because it's all stormy so I am predicting an afternoon in the pub.

I'll just leave you with my latest persona; Outback Rick.