The Red Centre

Genny and I spent 2 more days in Darwin planning our next flight and our camping road trip down to Ayers Rock. We got an amazing deal on a 4wd camper...$1 a day plus $25 a day for insurance. We paid so little because it was a relocation, which meant they needed to relocate the camper back to Alice Springs. We set off on our road trip on June 27th. The outback is definitely as desolate as everyone said. Each night we found a dirt road off the side of the highway and camped there in the middle of nowhere. It was so much fun!! We were expecting to see kangaroos hopping around everywhere but all that we saw was about 60 dead on the side of the road.

On the way to Ayers Rock were these bizarre rock formations, called Devil's Marbles. The rocks were massive, some 20 feet high and perfectly round, balancing on only a tiny portion of the rock.



We arrived at Ayers Rock (called Uluru by the Aboriginees). It was sooooo impressive, and much bigger than I had imagined. The landscape surrounding it was so bizarre. The only way to describe the area was that it looked like we had landed on Mars. There was red dirt everywhere and really sparse, funny looking trees. It was incredibly flat and then there was this giant rock jutting up out of the red desert. The climb up the rock was closed due to wind, but after learning about how important Uluru was to the Aboriginees we weren't going to climb it. One roll of film later we drove to another landmark: the Olgas (called Kata Tjuka). They were equally as bizarre, but not as impressive in my opinion.

After 5 days in the desert our adventuresome road trip, and my time with Genny came to an end. I flew to Perth and she flew to Sydney, where her boyfriend is going to school. It was soooo sad saying goodbye after spending every minute with her for the last month. We will definitely keep in touch.

So...here I am in cold, rainy Perth all by myself. I am heading north to Exmouth where it is warmer and where I will chill out on the beach, scuba dive and perhaps swim with whale sharks. I think my travels are coming to an end. I will spend about a week and a half on the west coast and then fly back to Sydney to start looking for a job.

I hear Vancouver is having fabulous weather...figures!! I hope you are all enjoying your summer and that everyone had a happy Canada Day. I actually forgot all about Canada Day because there were no Canadians around to remind me.