Catch-up Post: Our Hero Outback Ricky

As mentioned in the previous post, Morgan and I planned on driving from Kings Canyon back to Ayers Rock. That way, we could spend the night camping there, wake up to see the sunrise over Uluru (since the rain seemed to be going away), and catch our flight back to Melbourne at noon.

Well, I backed up the car and then pulled forward to leave the parking lot. But I didn't see a very low wooden post in front of us. Therefore, I rammed the undercarriage of the car into the post, and it did a little damage. Whoops.

That was only the start to our car adventures. We stopped at Curtin Springs campground again to get some fuel. It's basically the only place you can get gas (or even see any form of civilization) between Kings Canyon and Uluru (a few hours apart). Well, I sort of filled our car's tank with diesel gas. Whoops again! In my defense, I was still flustered from ramming the post, and the pump was old-fashioned and not well labeled at all. 

Luckily, I realized what I had done before we drove away. We would have been SERIOUSLY stranded if we had driven away and headed out on the road...no cell phone reception, no people, nothing. Americans, we joke about how there is "nothing" when you drive through states like Kansas or Nebraska. You haven't seen true "nothing" until you've been in the Outback. I've never seen such emptiness; I can't even explain it.

Anyway, as soon as I realized what I had done, I knew it was bad. We told the people inside the little store, and we soon had a few guys who worked there gathered around our car trying to figure out what to do. The first thought was that we could siphon out the wrong gas, put the correct kind in, and be on our way. Well, our rental car was a newer model that had some sort of "lock" on it so you couldn't siphon it out with a hose in the regular way. Not that we had any clue what the regular way was!

One guy who was helping was particularly attractive. His name was Ricky, although to this day we refer to him as "Outback Ricky." Imagine the most ruggedly handsome cowboy-ish Australian guy possible, and that pretty much sums up Outback Ricky. This guy took off his cowboy hat and tried to siphon out the gas with his MOUTH for us. We're talking mouthfuls of pure diesel, folks. He was nearly gagging as he did it, but he tried for several minutes.

Unfortunately, it was soon quite apparent that this method wasn't going to work. After all, I had basically filled the whole tank before realizing it was diesel. Outback Ricky and his friend (a tour group driver who pulled in with his van full of folks for the evening) then came up with an idea where they could undo the fuel line from under the hood of the car and blow out the diesel fuel. This was after calls were made to car dealerships in Alice Springs to figure out if there was any way to easily fix this problem with this model of car (there wasn't). But the big boss man told us that Ricky couldn't do anything on his property, because he would be held liable if anything went wrong.

There was a repairman in Kings Canyon, but he was done for the day and couldn't come out until the next morning. So we were basically stuck. Outback Ricky and his friend pushed our car toward a campsite (since we were apparently staying for the night). Actually, once they were out of view from big boss guy, they pushed it over toward their work shed and kept trying to figure out how they could help us. Unfortunately, big boss man caught them and gave Outback Ricky a bit of a "talking to" around the corner of the shed. We felt so bad that we got him in trouble!

So we stayed the night at Curtin Springs. We made lots of frantic pay phone calls to the Kings Canyon resort to set up the repairman's visit as early as possible the next morning, and to Zack, trying to organize alternative flights if we weren't going to make ours the next day. That night, the tour group guy invited us over to share in his group's campfire. We met some nice folks from all over the world. We shared glow sticks with them, and they shared damper (traditional Australian bread made over the campfire) with us. It wasn't too bad after all.

In the morning, we anxiously awaited the repairman's arrival. He came, but it took awhile for him to get all of the gas out. Then we had to push the car back to the pump, put in the right gas, and head out on the road. Morgan gave Outback Ricky her phone number on the way out, because he was making a trip to the US (including California) in a few months. I desperately wanted a picture of him, but Morgan refused to let me take one. She was too embarrassed! I'll never let her live it down. Unfortunately, he never did call her! :)

Anyway, if we were going to make our flight, we really had to book it. The nice thing about Outback roads is that they are completely straight and empty. I was seriously going over 100mph almost the whole way to the airport, and it didn't even feel that fast. We were a little sad as we passed by Uluru when the sun was actually out; seeing the sunrise would have been awesome.


We made it to the airport in time. In fact, our flight was delayed! Unfortunately, this wasn't a good thing, because it meant that we would possibly miss our connection in Sydney. We had a plan when we got to Sydney; Morgan would get our bag, and I would check in with the Jetstar people and beg them to let us on the flight. Our first flight was with Virgin Airlines, so I knew Jetstar wouldn't be that sympathetic to our missed connection. Well, our bag was the last one out, and the Jetstar folks were closing the flight, saying I would have to get on the next one, which would cost us each over $100.

Morgan ran up the stairs and over to me with the bag as they were telling me this, and I begged some more. They said if we didn't have the bag, it would be no problem. So I said, "Pretend we don't have the bag; we'll leave it back on the conveyor belt with Virgin." They said if we did that, they could get us on the flight with just our carry-on luggage. So we ditched the bag, which ironically we only brought so we could have the tent (which we never used because of the rain!). I knew that Zack was traveling to Sydney for work the following week, so I figured he could pick it up then or something.

We ran through the airport, made our flight, and when we landed, I had a voicemail waiting for me from Virgin Airlines, saying that we had left a bag there (surprise!). I called them back, acting like we "forgot" it in our rush to make our connecting flight, and they actually flew it to Melbourne for free. So when I brought Morgan to the airport to go home the next day, we were able to get it! In the end, everything ended up okay, and we got home safely. Zack had food and flowers waiting for us, and we were happy to be back in Melbourne, where we were dry and warm.

Our trip to Uluru was kind of crazy and definitely not the normal tourist's experience, but it makes for a good story now. And I learned to always double check which type of gas I'm putting in the car!

Our only glimpse of Uluru in the sunshine!

Catch-up Post: Kings Canyon

Last November, after spending another night sleeping in the car at Curtin Springs Campground (where nobody was camping), Morgan and I drove to Watarrka National Park and did the Kings Canyon Rim Walk. It was a 6km trail with lots of climbing, and it was awesome! We were able to walk right along the edge of the cliff at points, and the overlooks were impressive. And the best part of all-it didn't rain! Of course, it was still chilly and cloudy, but for once, we weren't soaking wet.

My favorite part was probably the Garden of Eden. This is a waterhole in the middle of the canyon with huge ferns and a waterfall. The picture doesn't do it justice; it was beautiful! In the picture below, you can see the Garden of Eden far in the background. The one to the right is zoomed in. We were able to walk down to part of it at one point. If it had been a warm day, we would have loved to jump in and swim!

There were lots of strange rock formations along our hike, like these sandstone domes that look like beehives. Very cool. We finished off the afternoon with the short Kings Creek Walk that went into the gorge from the bottom (not nearly as impressive) and headed back to our car, planning to drive back to Ayers Rock that night. Things didn't go quite as planned...stay tuned...

Catch-up Post: Kata Tjuta

You may remember that back in November, my sister Morgan stayed for a few extra days after my family left, and we took a short trip to Uluru and the Outback. I finally got around to posting about Uluru here, but I never posted about the rest of our trip. Well, now that Zack and I are away on vacation, it's a good time to finally get to these posts.

To refresh your memory, it rained A LOT while we were there, but we didn't let that stop us from visiting the places on our itinerary and doing the hikes we had planned. So on our second day, we headed out to Kata Tjuta (also known as the Olgas) and did the Valley of the Winds walk. It's a 7.4km circuit that goes in among the dome-shaped rocks. Even though the trail was covered in water, the domes were topped by fog, and we were wet and kind of cold, it was still a beautiful place and we had a good time. I think we also did the Walpa Gorge walk before leaving the park, which was just a short hike alongside a stream. 

Because it was several months ago, I don't remember the exact order of things, but I know we saw a few dingos run across the road on one of our drives. I wasn't quick enough to capture them on camera. But I did catch this cow! There were a few of them that crossed the road in front of us one time; then they took off running in the dirt, and one head butted the other in the rear. I think this is the one that got rammed right after it happened! Stay tuned for my next post about our awesome hike in Kings Canyon...

Uluru in the Rain

Well, since my computer's still not working, I'll start the Uluru posts I've been saving for awhile. This one has been in draft form for awhile, so maybe it'll upload and hold you over until I get things up and running again. I know you've all been missing my posts terribly-hahaha! 

After my parents and brother and sister-in-law left in mid-November, my sister Morgan stayed an extra week in Australia. We took a short trip to Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, which is a huge sandstone formation in the middle of the Outback. It's over 1000 feet high and two miles long, and it's pretty darn famous.

No, Uluru does not usually have a big cloud over it!

Anyway, we checked the weather report before leaving, and it said there would be rain showers. Now, you have to understand, this rock is in the middle of the desert. Yulara (the "city" that Uluru is in) regularly reaches temperatures near 100 degrees (Fahrenheit) during the day at this time of year. So we packed mostly shorts and tank tops, threw a pair of pants and a raincoat in our suitcases for the rain shower we expected would pass through quickly to cool us off, and called it good. Little did we know we would be wearing the same thing for three days straight and that the rain would never really stop.

Morgan says, "What is up with the rain in the desert?"

We got there on November 20. As we were landing, the thing that struck me was the bright red color of the dirt. I'd say it is even redder than Moab, Utah, and that's pretty red! Also, I was surprised at all of the plants, bushes, and short trees that covered the land. I thought it would be more barren.

The walking "trail" around the rock.

Morgan and I got our rental car and headed out in the rain. Yes, rain. Lots of it. Never-ending (seriously). And it was kind of chilly. But we were in the middle of nowhere, and darn it, we were still going to walk around the rock. So we did the six mile hike in the pouring rain. At some points, we literally had to wade through knee-deep water. But it was worth it. There were hundreds of waterfalls pouring down Uluru, and it was amazing. Apparently only 3% of people get to see Uluru in the rain, so we were lucky. Over the next few days, we didn't always feel that way, but I'll admit it was pretty incredible. And from some searches I've done, some of the pictures we were able to get are pretty rare. My good camera actually got so wet it stopped working for awhile (yikes!), so some of these are actually phone pictures or taken with Morgan's little point and shoot camera.

If you happened upon my blog somehow and want to steal some pictures, please don't. :)

The Aboriginal people still own and live on this land. We actually saw a couple of Aboriginal kids playing around the rock, running barefoot down the path and under a fence (they can go wherever they want!). The visitor's centre had all sorts of interesting information about the history of the land, the food and tools of the Aboriginal people, and their beliefs about Uluru. This is a picture of some rock engravings we found while on our walk.

Green trees in the Outback-who knew?

After our walk, we set up camp in the back of our car (thank goodness we got an upgrade to an SUV!), since the campground at Ayers Rock Resort was flooded. We cooked up some chili and tried to stay dry. Ayers Rock Resort is really the only manmade thing that you can find in the vicinity of Uluru. It's a complex with a campground, cabins, fancier accommodation options, a few touristy stores, a post office, gas station, medical centre, grocery store, a couple of restaurants, etc. The campground was $36 a night (ripoff), but at least we could warm up in the showers and dry a load of soaking wet clothes.

It rained all night, but we slept decently well in the back of the SUV. In the morning, we put on the same pants and raincoats and headed out for our next adventure. Stay tuned for more!

Thanksgiving in Australia

Phone pic of yummy turkey.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blogging (posts about my family's trip) to bring you this Thanksgiving in Australia post. With the warmer weather, it definitely doesn't feel like November. Zack had to work all day, there was no Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or Detroit Lions football game to watch, and we didn't even get to take a nap after eating (we just went straight to bed). But we managed to celebrate the "holiday" anyway!

Phone pic of my plate.

Our friends Emily and Adam invited us over to their place for a feast. They had even ordered a turkey, and Emily's sister, brother-in-law, and nephew were in town. So my sister and I spent the day cooking up some pumpkin pies, green bean casserole, and pumpkin macaroni and cheese to contribute to the meal. Morgan, Zack, and I stuffed ourselves silly and had a great time hanging out with fellow Americans. We walked home, thankful for good food and friends and family.




Also, I finally created something based on an idea off of Pinterest. If you haven't been to Pinterest, I highly recommend checking it out. Beware; you can easily get addicted and "pin" things for hours. Anyway, I made these little turkey treats. You're supposed to use candy corns for the "feathers," but when you're in Australia, you improvise with what you can find in the candy aisle. I think they still look pretty cute. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

My Australian version of a Pinterest idea.