Our “accommodation” for the next two nights was in the form of swags – simple canvas sleeping bags (ie no tents). We spent two nights sleeping in our swags out in the elements and under the stars. Despite going to bed amidst various different animal sounds (more of that on the second night...) we managed to get a pretty good night’s sleep, waking up at various intervals and just watching the bright night sky above us.
We had another early start in order to watch sunrise over Uluru – a real highlight of our time in Australia.
We spent the rest of the day on a base walk around the rock which takes a couple of hours due to its size. We chose not to climb the rock out of cultural respect to the Aboriginal landowners who strongly prefer visitors not to climb as it is so sacred to them. The sun really hotted up despite the walk starting at 8am. We learnt some interesting details about Aboriginal life and also the unfortunate way in which the traditional Aboriginal culture is dying out. Again we headed back to camp for dinner and toasted marshmallows before swagging it for the second night.
As we were tucking ourselves into our swags around the camp fire the noises around us began to grow louder and it was clear that dingoes were in the area. Dingoes as wild dogs are known as being pretty dangerous although Wayne our Aussie leader tried to assure us that they are just like domestic dogs (contrary to all warning signposts around the camp ground!) During the night we all heard one particular dingo very close to our camp and as Tom spotted, our previously blasé guide sat bolt up right, now not so relaxed about the whole thing.
Day three was spent in the Kings Canyon, one of the most well-known and impressive in the Northern Territory. We walked for most of the morning, again with temperatures rising before having an early lunch where we got chatting to two Japanese guys on holiday. When they asked our names they were struggling to pronounce Elizabeth so I thought that a reference to Queen Elizabeth might help – they nodded along with us and seemed to get the gist. It was only later that evening once we’d arrived back at the hostel in Alice Springs that I realised my thoughtful reference had been lost in translation as they called across the kitchen, “Hello Queen” which was funny but also pretty embarrassing.
Our exploration into the heartland of Australia was great. The scenery was just how we imagined - a vast expanse of terracotta coloured desert, truly Australian complete with emus, dingoes, spiders and snakes, but still no kangaroos...
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