vendredi 30 mars 2007

Trip to Alice Springs, Uluru & King's Canyon

I've been looking forward to this trip and that's right, it really met my expectations, so I would like to share my joy with you, my friends.

Day 1-2 Arrival to Alice Springs (23-24 March 2007)
It was raining that day and I had difficulty in finding the interstate station. Finally a nice guy drove me near there, Thanks mate! Here is the legendary GHAN, which starts from Adelaide to Darwin via Alice Springs. Even from Adelaide to Alice Springs, the distance is more than 1500km which is 5 times east-west of my region! And it would take about 20 hours to Alice Springs! How immense it is!

In the train, it was cozy and I had enough space to relax. During the night, I had the RED Kangaroo special meal : Chicken burger+Kitkat+Soft drink, 8$, that's a resonable price!

And the view from the train

In the journey, we had to change our time, as in Northern Territory, they changed the time earlier than South Australia even both NT and SA are in the same time zone. And we were all one hour younger lol.
The next noon, we arrived at Alice Springs, it was raining a bit and the temperature is abnormal low, about 15 degree, compared to 35 degree usually

After that, Annie's place met us in the station and sent us to the hostel

This is a nice hostel compared to other hostel, relatively clean and has a nice atmosphere. I like their dog BEAR

Later in the afternoon, Andy (from the UK) and I went to go around the town or in their map, CBD lol actually the town has everything, the KFC, the supermarket, not so isolated as I imagined. When we got there, the Todd river was flooded which was very rare and Kat told us if you see that once, then you will come back and if you see that 3 times, you would live there forever. Nice story no?

At the end of the Todd Mall, we arrived at the ANZAC Hill, a memorial hill
Here is the view on the hill, you can see the Macdonell Ranges:

Then we had a hiking to the telegraph station in Alice Springs, and it is the origine of the town

This video reveals that:

Look at this one, does it remind you of your childhood? My grandpa has some the same thing


Day 3 (25 March 2007) Uluru & Kata tjuta
In the very morning, we headed for the Uluru and I reckon we spent 4 hours on the road.
This is the Kata tjuta mountain

More closer

See this video of Kata Tjuta

In the bus, we can already see the Uluru!

In the evening, we saw the sunset

I did some technical setting in my camera lol

camp....see this is my sleeping bag+swag



Day 4 (26 March 2007) Urulu and arrival at King's Canyon resort
In the morning, we went to see the sunrise, but that day, the clouds covered a lot, so not much to see but some photos

A lot of Japanese were there, some told me that it was becoz of the famous novel+film (the center of the world calls for love).

After that we headed for King's Canyon



Day 5 (27 March 2007) King's Canyon & tour party
A lake in the canyon

Waterfall and the cliff
Here is a small video about King's canyon:


A red lizard

At night, we went to the Bojangle for dinner, the most popular pub there. Mine Kangaroo fillet



Day 6 (28 March 2007) Alice Springs & Back to Adelaide
In the morning, I had time to see a little more the town and when I arrived at the same place. the water had gone, compared to the photos!

In NT, it's like this:

Then I went to the Alice Spring Reptiles Center

Do you like reptiles? Me, NO!

Annie's place sent us to the airport, it was a beautiful airport in deed, look at the carpet!

Our plane is due at 12h35, but it was delayed a bit

Qantas, the safest airplane company in the world

lundi 12 mars 2007

A promenade in the city of Adelaide

It is the day for Adelaide Cup (horse racing day), but because of the high price, we decided not to enter and just have a walk in the city.

Glenelg is always nice

camel on glenelg beach

aboriginal artist on Rundle Mall

Behind the church, some constructions, oops

Artist from New York City performing ESCAPE (He asked people to tie him up and then he would escape from that)

vendredi 9 mars 2007

Opening of Fringe festival in Adelaide

Adelaide Fringe festival, the second largest fringe festival in the world. As Kalynka said, it's more like freak festival as we saw many crazy people on the street. Actually I dont know what fringe festival is, but I did enjoy the ambiance.

the symbol this year: flying pig

zoom a bit to see the lovely helicopter pig

also this elephant is cute too

of course this is necessary

Oh here come the three Qupiters

Bus Station 2 : the Queens