G'day all,

I'm now a fully fledged Aussie having spent 3 days touring through the bush.
I left Cairns at 6am on Tuesday morning and boarded the bus which was going to be my transport for the next 3 days.
Got settled onto the bus. It was a 42 seater but there are only 11 of us on board - excellent. Lots of room to spread out.

We were going to be travelling to Alice Springs and taking a route totalling 2,400km! We'd best get going!

We headed out to the Atheron Tablelands and stopped at a waterfall. Hang on a minute this all looks a bit familiar! It was Millstream falls where I had been with my dad's cousin just a week before! Oh well, I look a few pics anyway because it's so pretty.

We had to take a different route than what was planned due to some of the roads being washed away from the rain.

As soon as we left the Tablelands you started to notice the difference in landscape. It was no longer lush green grass and healthy looking trees but more scrawny brown twiggy looking trees and dirt. Most of this land that we will see today is used for cattle stations. Some cattle stations are as big as 1.2 million acres! HUGE!

Next stop was Mount Surprise. I asked what the surprise was and the tour guide Laurie said it was a surprise that there was a town here!
Had lunch and settled down for a snake show. A man called Russell lives here and keeps lots of snakes as pets. Hmmm, I was a bit dubious about seeing these snakes so stood at the back. He brought out Clancy, a black headed python. It was huge but seemed to be asleep so I allowed myself to touch it with one finger! That's enough - can we go home now?! No chance. It was an interactive display and he started putting clancy around people's necks!
It was a very informative show and he was making us aware that we are going into the bush and there is a good chance that we will see a snake.

I was glad to leave. As much as Russell tried to get that snake around my neck I resisted. I've had a thing about snakes and used to have a nightmare about them when I was young. I think it has to do with that swirly eyed one in The Jungle Book when he says "trust in me" No thanks!

Stopped off at a township called Georgetown. It has around 1000 people live there. Not sure where they live though because the place was looking a bit sparce! Also made another stop in a place called Croydon. Nothing like the one in London!

After 700 km we made it to our accommodation in Normanton. It was a motel in a pub - excellent!
Manged to bag a room for myself after ditching a lady called Yvonne from the tour who looked like Olive from On The Buses! All meals are included in the tour. Dinner was served in the pub - steak, spuds and veg - yummy! Sat in the bar after dinner with the landlady (crazy lady who looked like a fat Cilla Black!) and her dogs.

Wednesday, I woke up at 5.30 and managed to get myself out of bed, have breakfast and ready for the next leg of the tour. Watching the sun rise this morning made it worth it. It was spectacular.
First stop was Mount Isa which is a mining town. Had a quick look around - not much to see though!
Lunch was a bbq. Wow, I was worried that I wouldn't get fed on this trip!
After lunch we stopped and took a short walk to some aboriginal rock art. The place was called Sun rock and has been there around 500 years. It was used by women as a meeting place to discuss their daily lives and probably to talk about men!!
They had painted on the rocks using kangaroo blood and eucalypt oil. It's still there today which is amazing.

Our accommodation tonight is in Boulia at a cattle station called Wirrelyerna. This means "flat land" in aboriginie. It makes sense really because on the way there the landscape changed. You could see for miles and miles of just dirt. Saw some interesting wildlife too. Some cows (naturally, its a cattle station!), some sheep and strangest of all some camels!
The cattle station is still in use today and is around 500,000 acres big. It is run by 2 men only and when the time comes to herd the cattle they have to bring in a helicopter and quad bikes!
Dinner was another huge feast and was had around the campfire. It's amazing how these guys can live here. The nearest town is 50km away. They say they even go to pub and stumble home!

Thursday was an earlier start. I was up at 5.00! Luckily I had gone to bed in mostly what I was going to wear today! Had brekkie and off we went for the last 850km or so to Alice Springs.

Today was a shock and a reality check at how remote this country is. There were to be no townships between Boulia and Alice Springs! We did however stop at another working cattle station called Tobermorey. They looked so pleased to see us and I think I would be too!

We we warned that threre would be nothing to see today and they were right. Driving for hours looking at the same scenery still didn't get boring.
We did have a few stop offs - when we got the Northern Territory we all got out and took pics. We also had to put our watches back 30 mins. Excellent - an extra 30 mins sleep!
Stopped at a huge termite mound. They are everywhere and they make their mounds out of the soil and their spit - nice! The one we stopped at was 5m high. Look at the photos, to me it looked penguin shaped! It has been here over 50 years so must have been a lot higher at some point.

Finally made it to Alice Springs around 6pm this evening. Checked into Toddy's backpackers but there's no point in getting comfy because I'm up again at 5.30 tomorrow morning for my 3 day trip to Ayers Rock.

I throughly enjoyed my trip to the outback and glad that I didn't decide to fly here. I would have missed out on seeing the real Australia and the real Australia people who live here.

Chat soon after my camping expedition to the rock!
xx