To the heart of Australia.

From Darwin to Alice Springs I found a relocation car for Flo and me. For the people who don’t know: a relocation car is a rental car who has to be brought back to a specific city in a limited amount of time. If you‘re smart you end up with an almost new 4wd campervan with airco, fridge, kitchen and you pay no fee, except the fuel. Travelling in style!

 

We first made a stop in Litchfield National park, a more rainforest like area with high trees which we never saw in the west coast. After ripping the bloodsuckers of my feet  we went south and made a stop at the house of “we of the never never” named after a book which was written by a woman who ended up in the outback of Australia in 1907 and wrote her remote stories down. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were advised to make a stop at Mataranka hot springs but never expected that it would be a small paradise!  In the remote middle of nowhere there’s a beautifull magical place with palmtrees, kangeroos and bats living in harmony.

We had lunch at the legendary roadhouse of Daly waters but still had to make a lot of k’s and had technical difficulties to fill our tank up. Moreover since the petrol was 1.95 dollar I said let’s fill up just a bit and fill the rest later with our reservetanks. After 60km of riding when the arrow showed empty and we wanted to fill our tank, the reservetank seemed not to be filled! We were stuck between two roadhouses without petrol. It was all or nothing.  We decided to go for it: we put the airco off, hit the cruise control on 90kph and crossed our fingers for the next 75k of silence nervosity.

We luckily made it, but we’ll never never ever make this mistake again.

We passed by Devils Marbles and finally made it to Alice Springs. The next day we had to give back our amazing campervan.  Annie’s place became our hostel since some friends recommended this and they give you a free night if you book the Uluru tour with them. And that's off course why we visit Alice.

The tourguide waited us up at 06am and was a funny local who knew everything about the region. In the bus we all had to introduce ourselves and really soon we learned to know each other very well. The atmosphere for the next days was really good in this mix of Belgian, Dutch, French, Swedish, German, Chinese and Brazil backpackers.  The first day we visited Ayers rock, the biggest monolith in the world. We learned that it is more than a big stone and has an important significance in the history of the aboriginals. We parked our Van to sea Ayers Rock from a distance bathing in the sunset with a glass of champagne…  On the camping ground Flo and me won the Swag race and won a free Jug of beer. We concluded the night with a barbeque and a night under the stars..  The next morning we got up at 5 and got to the same spot to see the sunrise.

From there we got to Kata Tjuta, another rock formation and rich environment to the life of the aboriginals. In the evening we had wraps, kangaroo-tail and self-made bread. We just left some room for the marshmallows on the campfire.  The last day Angus made us wakie wakie at 4:50 for a walking tour in Kings Canyon, a beautiful end of an unforgettable tour.