Red Centre

Whilst mum and dad are still asleep, (lazy bums!), I thought that I might have time to write abit more about our trip to the centre of Australia. I really wasn't sure wht to expect from this trip, other than constant heat, but I knew that it woulod be busy busy busy- and that it was.

Our first stop was Ayers Rock, or Uluru, depending on who you speak to. WE drove out to seethe rock from the resort and were suitabley amazed. It is way bigger than it looks on TV and seems to follow you no matter where you drive in the area. We watched both sunset and sunrise overthe rock although unfortunatley the Sounds of Silence dinner, whihc is supposed to be amazing, was cancelled because of rain! Just after sunrise, and despite the notices from the aboriginals askig them not ot, we saw hundreds of people making their way to the top of thje rock. I found it very sad to watch them, not because I believe that the stone has any religious powers or significance but merely because it seemed to me that they wre dessicrating a thng of natural beauty. IT also looked very dangerous to climb the rock as it is pretty steep in places and people were haveing to use all 4s to get up!

Whilst Uluru was stunning I thik my favourite thing in the Ayers Rock national OPark was actually the OLgas, another set of big rocks that don't get talked about as much. This feature is made up of lot of huge, more rounded rocks that kind of join together to make one huge rock feature. We walked right out in to the middle of two of these rocks, despite the 45 degree temperatures. I found the shape of the rocks amazing and more interesting in a way than Uluru itself.

Having seen more than enough of the big rocks we set of to ALice Springs, going the back way so as to beable to have a slight detour at Kings Canyon. Unfortunatley, what we did not realise was that this detour meant that we spent near on 3 hours on a dirt track road. WE bumped and jostled all the way to Alie Springs, mum and I got mildly hysterical at a few points!! However, going this was did have its advantages, we saw loads of wild camels, horses, a few cattle and a yak! Very exciting.

Alice Springs itself was just a little town, and in places quite a rough one. I knew that there were problems with aboriginies here but I didn't realise quite how severe unitl I saw them all lying around at the sides of the road. Now don't get me worng, I am not a racist, but any collection of people just hanging around can start to look threatening, especially when there are empty booze bottles lying right next to them. The 4 of us spent a lot of time debating what could be done bout this problem, but to be honest, it seems a very tricky question to answer and many of our ideas have already tried and failed!

However, we did enjoy seeing the Flying Doctors base and the School of the Air. The School of the Air is where children in remote Australia are taught through broadcasts on the radio, or, more frequently now, on the internet. It is a very clever system and we all enjoyed the little museum.

We also enjoyed spending some time by the pool at the hotel!

Well- hats about all I have time to write about- but am sure Chris will want to blog some more about the storm we saw in Alice amonst other things!

Love Helen***