Australia travelogue, Part 3
Oct. 9th, 2011 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_t_rainSomewhat belated, but now that it's fall break I actually have time to post pictures and stuff...
So, after a lovely sunset on Kangaroo Island, I took the ferry back to Adelaide for the night, and then left promptly at 6 a.m. for another bus tour, all the way up to Alice Springs. There are a lot of companies running cheap backpacker trips, and the lobby of the YHA at that hour looked like the central bus station: people going to KI, to Melbourne, to Alice Springs...
On the first day, we drove north until 2:00 or so, and then got out and climbed a mountain.
We sort of semi-camped that night (there were cabins and electricity, so I'm not entirely convinced that it counts as camping). The stars were amazing now that we were so far away from the city. In the morning, we stopped at a salt lake, which was rather cool.
By now the land was starting to get a lot redder and drier. We saw loads of emus from the bus, but this is the only one I managed to get a picture of:
The second day took us as far as Coober Pedy, which is an opal mining town where just about everything is built underground. This is our hostel, with the tour bus in front.
I got a little opal of my own.
The third day was pretty much all driving, with a quick stop at the "Welcome to the Northern Territory" sign so we could take photos and marvel at just how long it takes to get out of South Australia. We finally reached Alice Springs at around 6:00. It was kind of surreal being in a real town, with houses and gardens and people everywhere, after so much emptiness. (Most of the time, along the highway, you would come to a little roadhouse every couple of hours: motel, gas station, convenience store, fast-food restaurant. And that would be it, until the next one came along a hundred miles later.)
Alice Springs has, among other things, the most artistic trash cans you've ever seen. They are all different, and done by local Aboriginal artists:
The local parrots are very pretty, too.
So, after a lovely sunset on Kangaroo Island, I took the ferry back to Adelaide for the night, and then left promptly at 6 a.m. for another bus tour, all the way up to Alice Springs. There are a lot of companies running cheap backpacker trips, and the lobby of the YHA at that hour looked like the central bus station: people going to KI, to Melbourne, to Alice Springs...
On the first day, we drove north until 2:00 or so, and then got out and climbed a mountain.
We sort of semi-camped that night (there were cabins and electricity, so I'm not entirely convinced that it counts as camping). The stars were amazing now that we were so far away from the city. In the morning, we stopped at a salt lake, which was rather cool.
By now the land was starting to get a lot redder and drier. We saw loads of emus from the bus, but this is the only one I managed to get a picture of:
The second day took us as far as Coober Pedy, which is an opal mining town where just about everything is built underground. This is our hostel, with the tour bus in front.
I got a little opal of my own.
The third day was pretty much all driving, with a quick stop at the "Welcome to the Northern Territory" sign so we could take photos and marvel at just how long it takes to get out of South Australia. We finally reached Alice Springs at around 6:00. It was kind of surreal being in a real town, with houses and gardens and people everywhere, after so much emptiness. (Most of the time, along the highway, you would come to a little roadhouse every couple of hours: motel, gas station, convenience store, fast-food restaurant. And that would be it, until the next one came along a hundred miles later.)
Alice Springs has, among other things, the most artistic trash cans you've ever seen. They are all different, and done by local Aboriginal artists:
The local parrots are very pretty, too.
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