The Outback

When we first decided to go to Australia, Parimal was set on venturing into the Outback, moreso, on the camping aspect of it. After compromising, Parimal wanted 5 and Piyusha wanted 1, we settled on a 2 day excusion that would cover all the highlights and include one night of camping.

So off we went... waking up at 3:00 a.m. to get a bus at 5:00 a.m. to venture out! The morning started off great... we saw a huge kangaroo, wild horses, a dingo and even wild camels (though not native to Australia, the only wild camel tribes lefts in the world are in Australia... there's your fun fact for the day). First stop, a hike in Kings Canyon. Now if you know Piyusha at all, you know she's not exactly the athletic type... so when faced with "Heartattack Hill", she wasn't exactly jumping for joy at the climb ahead of her. But she made it... huffing and puffing.. up and down hills and rocks.. liters of water later... and no injuries (!)... Parimal was relaxing, taking pictures at the top by the time Piyusha made it up. It was really beautiful as you can tell from the pictures. We also learned a lot on how the Aboriginal people lived off the land and their history.

After a 4.5 hour hike in Kings Canyon (seriously, up and down over rocks and hills), we drove out to Uluru (aka Ayers Rock). We managed to catch the sunset behind the massive rock... oh wait, that was "Fooluru" (Mt. Conner) which our tour guide told us most people initially think it's Uluru and well, just isn't. The camp site wasn't so bad... luckily we had permament tents to help with the -5C temperature and apaprently dingos like to steal shoes in the middle of the night so we managed to avoid that as well. The sky was beautiful... we could clearly see the Milky Way and other constellations.

Bright and early the next morning, we were off to the real Uluru to catch the sunrise! From there we got a chance to walk around "the big red rock".. another 3 hours... It was actually amazing to see the how the sand had hardened and formed this incredible massive rock in the middle of the Australia outback. Due to high winds, Parimal wasn't able to climb Uluru. Plus after hearing that the Anangu prefer that people don't climb the rock because it is sacred and dangerous, he was glad he didn't (though he really wanted to).

Just when you thought our hiking was done, we went to Kata Tjuta, a sacred site to the Aborginal men. They live a really simple way of life. You only know what you need to know... if you don't need to know it, then well they just don't tell you. So the men don't know what the women do and vice versa. We may save ourselves a lot of time, energy and drama if we lived by that motto but well that just wouldn't be that much fun wouldn't it?

After hiking, climbing, huffing and puffing up and down and all around (approximately 20 kms each), we made it back to Alice Springs. A hot shower later.. some interesting Asian food (Piyusha's luck with food continues in Australia as well)... we are ready to head back to the east coast and hopefully sunny weather!

Off to Brisbane!